While Wolverine is probably the most popular of the X-Men heroes, I don't think he is a character that translates well from the pages of the comics to the bigscreen and never has. Essentially this is just a disgruntled guy with short blades coming out of his hands. What can a filmmaker do with that and still fulfill superhero expectations? When it comes to action sequences it's nothing more than fisticuffs and growling and on top of that his personal struggles never seem to work as they always seem so heavy-handed and out of place. In the comics a splashy graphic can insinuate the fury and the rage of the character while watching Hugh Jackman scream and slash his way around the set seems a little silly.

However, playing Victor Creed is Liev Schrieber and he's working with even less than Jackman and seems to be making a case that it may be more than just a character flaw. Of course, Schrieber's playing the villain in this scenario and his personal day-to-day dealings aren't necessary to the story as much as is his ability to look mean and round up kiddy mutants for experimentation. In this respect Liev nails it, but Liev's goal is one of the big problems with the film and one of the reasons it isn't worth buying -- none of this feels all that new or fresh. It simply feels like new characters telling a story we've already heard. Luckily, the characters are fun, while the story is stunted, but the overall experience ends up entertaining enough for at least a one time watch. However, beyond the film, this disc carries some solid bonus features.

Director Gavin Hood's audio commentary in which he dryly explains a lot about the film is sure to engage listeners even if it doesn't amount for much entertainment. Hood would have done well to have been accompanied by Jackman, whom I am surprised does not participate considering his vocal support and love for the character. Nevertheless, stick with it and you'll learn a little. I particularly most appreciated it when he said something along the lines of, "No, that's not how it is in the comics, and I hope it surprised you. That's a good thing." Tell it to 'em Gavin.

A second commentary still doesn't include Jackman as producers Lauren Shuler Donner and Ralph Winters chat up the film, but there is very little to take away from this one.

The best single feature on the disc comes in the form of a sit down between X-Men creator Stan Lee and Wolverine co-creator Len Wein. Not being a comic book reader I rarely get interested in the roots and origins of these characters, but this is a fabulous conversation that runs just over 16 minutes, if for no other reason than Lee seems like one hell of a guy and perhaps even some of you comic geeks out there will learn a thing or two.

There are a pair of making of features, one looking at the overall production and another specifically showing the making of the helicopter sequence. Both aren't too bad if you're into these kinds of things with the helicopter piece being the better of the two although the other, titled "Wolverine Unleashed", does give you a bit of insight into Hugh's dedicated approach to sculpting his body for the role.

Even more details are learned about Jackman's dedication as well as the approach everyone else took to their roles in the "Weapon X Mutant Files" nine-part feature looking at nine of the characters, interviewing the actors and discussing the reasons for their decided inclusion into Wolverine. It gets to be a bit long, but overall it's a rather well produced piece.

A batch of four deleted scenes and an alternate ending are offered with or without Hood's commentary, but I would definitely recommend giving his thoughts a listen as he shows a very good understanding of how he wanted this film to turn out and you may even find places where even he found holes in the story.

There are five specific Blu-ray exclusive features, none of which impressed me, primarily for a lack of ease of use. The three "Ultimate X-Mode" BONUSVIEW features are a trio of in-movie pop-up pieces that play along with the film, but accessing them can only be done from the main menu, which means you have to stop and restart the film if you want to switch between the three. Considering these are rather sporadic as they play throughout the feature it is extremely annoying as it could be several minutes between pop-ups. One of the three includes Hood and Donner talking about Wolverine's connection to the other three X-Men films, a second one is Hood talking about the making of the film and a third includes pre-vis looks at animatics, storyboards and the like playing along with the scenes they represent. It's decent information, but it isn't presented very well.

Next is a pop-up trivia track and finally is a "live lookup" feature that connects to IMDb.com using your Blu-ray player's BD-Live feature. It's a decent feature as you can look up information on the cast and characters on screen from the online movie database, but it gets old really, really quick.

As you have probably gleaned from this review, this disc is packed and the Blu-ray edition also comes with a digital copy if you're interested in such things. Overall, it's not a great film, but it is a fun film and I certainly could see why someone may want to buy it, but I think most everyone would enjoy giving it a rent. You could certainly do much worse.