Like Watchmen, the clumsily titled X-Men Origins: Wolverine starts with a credit sequence spinning an alternate 20th-century history, with invulnerable mutants Hugh Jackman and Liev Schrieber serving as gung-ho grunts in WWI, WWII and Vietnam. It’s the cleverest conceit in a movie that doesn’t have many to spare. This latest bit of Marvel Universe brand extension fails to entertain or even really justify its existence.

For one thing, Wolverine’s back-story was already addressed in the superior X2. (Really: how many times can we watch Hugh Jackman writhing in pain on an underwater operating table?) Most of the revelations in David Benioff and Skip Woods’ screenplay are utterly peripheral: finding out that Wolverine’s gruff demeanor stems from the death of the woman he loved is the sort of blank that’s not worth filling in.

As for the clutch of classic X-Men characters making their first big-screen appearance, they’re mostly duds. Will.i.am’s John Wraith doesn’t even register as comic relief, while Taylor Kitsch’s Gambit is totally bland (he could have used some more authentic Cajun-style seasoning). The only pleasure to be taken here is the confirmation of director Gavin Hood’s slick-hack status. I know a lot of people didn’t think he had it in him after Tsotsi, but I always believed in the guy.

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