X-Men Origins: Wolverine |
  • USA / UK • 2009 • 107m •   • Directed by: Gavin Hood. • Starring: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Will.i.am, Lynn Collins, Kevin Durand, Dominic Monaghan, Taylor Kitsch, Daniel Henney, Ryan Reynolds, Tim Pocock, Julia Blake, Max Cullen. • Music by: Harry Gregson-Williams.      Two mutant brothers, Logan and Victor, born 200 years ago, suffer childhood trauma and have only each other to depend on. Basically, they're fighters and killers, living from war to war through U.S. history. In modern times, a U.S. colonel, Stryker, recruits them and other mutants as commandos. Logan quits and becomes a logger, falling in love with a local teacher. When Logan refuses to rejoin Stryker's crew, the colonel sends the murderous Victor. Logan now wants revenge.
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Review:
My first major disappointment is that the story of Origin, whilst only 6 issues long, is well crafted, well put together and truly shows the development of the character of Wolverine. In the film, this lasts for all of 3 MINUTES, in which we see a scrawny young boy, Jimmy, who is always ill, in bed. A few moments later his claws appear for the first time and he kills the man who killed his father, who, with his dying breath tells him that he is Jimmy's real father. Puke. In the comics it is implied that Thomas Logan is his real father and that Dog Logan was Sabretooth. In the film it is blurted out in the most clichéd way possible and then that section of the story ends, and we are catapulted into a montage of Wolverine and Sabretooth fighting in every war imaginable, and then on to the 1970s, with no further development of any thing that was brought up in the short opening section.
Hello? This movie is called X-Men ORIGINS: Wolverine. They just got the entire story of the tragedy of his early life, leading to him slowly becoming more and more the character we know and love today. Instead, in all but the first 5 minutes of the film we see Wolverine as Wolverine, the fully developed character!
Major disappointment number 2 is that the film is full of unnecessary special effects and fight scenes that don't add to the story whatsoever, just please the mindless fans come to see a mindless action packed superhero flick. The number of times he fights his 'brother' are extortionate, even if they are arch enemies. Also they kept on bringing in new characters for someone to fight, which brings me onto my next point... The characters in this movie are one of the defining worst parts. None of them, bar Wolverine, who had already had three movies to define himself, were developed, and most only appear for a few minutes. On top of this, they bear little resemblance to the characters from the comics that they were based on. Standing out are Silverfox, whose personality, mentality and even her powers were completely changed; Stryker, who quite frankly shouldn't have been in the movie at all; James and Heather Hudson, who for no conceivable reason are changed to Heather and Travis Hudson, the kindly old simple folk who get killed swiftly; Blob and Kestrel, for the clichéd and overly stereotypical portrayals of their characters; Agent Zero, for the complete lack of him being German, or possessing the right powers, or really having anything to do with David North; and most importantly: Gambit and Deadpool.
Now these two are two of the coolest characters Marvel has ever created, but the portrayal in this film is dreadful. Gambit is wrong in so many ways I'm not even going to mention them in the interest of space, so let's concentrate on Deadpool. Firstly, they overload him with unnecessary powers that just aren't needed, even in the context of the film - including, bizarrely, retractable adamantium katanas, which apart from being much less practical than real katanas, are quite obviously longer than his forearm, and yet you can clearly see him walking around with bent arms in one of the scenes... On top of this, Wolverine's power was the last one added, yet Logan only survived the adamantium bonding process due to his healing factor, and Wilson had already undergone that experiment by the time Wolverine's powers were added! Secondly, although I was impressed with Ryan Reynolds' portrayal of Wade Wilson (in the non action scene that is), next time you see him they've sewn his mouth up! The producers for some reason decided that the best course of action would be to remove the merc with a mouth's mouth. Now that's genius. Thirdly, in the comics Wilson has terminal cancer, thus providing him with a reason to undergo the Weapon X project, but in the film, there is no incentive - it just kind of happens, with no explanation as to whether it was voluntary or not or anything of the sort!
Perhaps the most important point is that unlike the other three X-Men movies, which although they angered me for bearing no representation to the comics, were in themselves not all that bad movies. Not great, but not awful either. This, on the other hand, isn't a good movie when looking at it as if it were an original story, rather than an adaptation.
The whole thing seems awfully rushed, and put together at the last minute simply to please the people who watched the first movies and liked 'the spunky little one with the shiny claws'. There are a huge number of continuity errors within the film itself, let alone between films or with the comics, and the suspense, tension and romance all seem false. The number of plot holes and mistakes is ridiculous - there are far too many for me to jot down here.
All in all, this is a movie that, if executed correctly, could have far outclassed 'The Dark Knight'. Instead, what we get is a poorly thought out, action packed blockbuster that doesn't satisfy its own title. On top of all this, I've recently learnt that a sequel has been announced and confirmed. That's right! A sequel to an origins story! Presumably since it is a sequel, rather than a prequel, we're in for another treat of mindless action and violence, a whole bunch of characters thrown in for no apparent reason, and two hours of a fully developed character developing his character.
Review by SpndlShnks from the Internet Movie Database.
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