X-Men Origins: Wolverine. A Review.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a simplistic, disappointing film. The few bright spots serve mainly to heighten the overall sense of disappointment.

The above photograph, depicting claws more realistically the film discussed below, provided by Joits.

The plot [spoilers abound]:
Hugh Jackman plays James, a sweet young thing who accidentally stabs his father to death at a young age in Victorian England with frail bones protruding from the back of his hands. James and his brother Victor run away to fight in every war ever before they are drafted into a black ops team run by the American Government. They are drafted as both men are mutants, with vastly accelerated healing and retarded ageing. James retains his extrusions - three bone claws that emerge from the back of each hand, while Victor has fangs and his fingernails extend to wicked points.
Once their secret mutant team becomes icky and heartless, James leaves. He becomes a lumberjack with a girlfriend and at some point changes his name to Logan. Logan's old boss comes to see him and then Victor comes and kills his girlfriend so Logan fights Victor and loses and then goes to his old boss who gives him a nigh-invulnerable skeleton and he sets of off to find Victor and take revenge. That is probably the first half of the film.

Verdict:
The first problem with Wolverine is evident from the above synopsis. It is entirely plot-driven and the plot makes no sense. Buried in here somewhere is a great road movie or an excellent revenge flick. But events just pile up and up with no point. An ensemble of characters is created but are given no time to breathe, ultimately serving no greater purpose than to rob Wolverine of the time necessary to achieve anything.
Hugh Jackman's performance is very good for the most part, and you can tell this is comfortable territory for him having played the character three times already. The only flaw is that he's in the middle of such a poor film. His howls of pain would work if they were earned by the story and less melodramatically shot.
Of the four people I saw this with, two of us liked it despite flaws and two hated it despite a few good scenes. I fell into the later camp.
The first scene, with a prepubescent Wolverine, is the worst thing I've seen on screen for a long time, and had me actually laughing out loud. But the second scene, a montage of Logan and Victor fighting through various wars, was the best the movie ever got.

As an origin story this lacks. The information provided in X-Men 2 is sufficient in retrospect. While things happen in this film, none of it defines the character. Wolverine is no different in act 3 than in act 1, and the removal of his memories is arbitrary and nonsensical.
Much is made of Wolverine's need to overcome his animalistic nature, but this is never earned. Killing his father as a child is presented in such a way as to be a tragic accident rather than a slide into bloodlust, and we are seemingly shown him fighting every war ever, but he is never shown as particularly vicious.
I hate to compare this to the comics, as I never want to be that guy, but it occurred to me afterwards that any good feelings I had about this movie were assumptions arising from print.
This depiction of events feels very small and unimportant. Wolverine gets an adamantium skeleton and is largely unchanged. Everyone who he touches is murdered before we feel their influence. There are no defining moments here, with everything adding up to some nonthreatening old fool's hatred for mutants. It makes Logan rather uninteresting, and that's a shame, because he's really awesome.
There was always something mythical to Wolverine in the comics, a sense that he was the product of something horrible, dark and important. Not here. Shit happens.
The supporting cast is good. The guy playing Sabretooth does a great job and he and Jackman sell the brotherly relationship at the film's core despite it being paper-thin.
Deadpool is great at the beginning of the film. Charlie from Lost was cool. Gambit was visually interesting. But none of them were around for more than ten minutes, so what the hell was the point?
Like the rest of the film, there really was none.

When this film was first announced as PG-13, I lost much of my interest. With the X-Men trilogy done, I felt like the only further exploration of the character could be found in something MA+ or higher. After all, the character is built to kill, and is all about fighting against a dark past. This is not that film, and it never could've been. Wolverine is only allowed to stab people that heal instantly - or helicopters. It matters. It's a part of the character. You could've gotten around visceral depictions of violence, but the film doesn't want to. The whole production feels like Jackman was working his ass off and no-one else gave a toss. the effects are often terrible and the script is terrible and the cinemtography is bad and cliched.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a film that feels like someone was deliberately trying to remove all depth. They succeeded.