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X-Men Origins: Wolverine

May 6th, 2009 - 11:04pm // Reviews, Reviews - Flicks

I walked into X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber) with the best of intentions and the very highest of aspirations. Relishing the dawn of what promises to be a blockbuster summer movie season, I bought into the Wolverine hype and was thoroughly convinced that it would usher in the season with a bang. The blizzard of trailers and teasers which preceded its release spoke of finally unveiling the mysterious origins of everyone’s favourite X-Man, whose initial appearance in the first X-Men movie kick-started Hugh Jackman’s American film career. They displayed scenes of utter adrenaline-inducing awesomeness including Wolverine using his adamantium claws as a hand-brake to make a u-turn on a vintage chopper just before he rides the bike off a ramp and into the flashing blades of a military attack helicopter. Therefore, with all the hype and fan-faire surrounding this release, the question remains: does Wolverine earn its place in the well-regarded ranks of its X-Men predecessors or is it just another hollow superhero movie riding off their acclaim?

I'll be honest with you, I'm a fairly easy person to please when it comes to superhero movies, in general. If the movie includes action that manages to raise my pulse above 100 BPM; is shot well; and, above all else, has a plot that makes sense within the foundation of rules it builds for itself, then colour me happy. While Wolverine manages to cram in a few excellent action scenes, they are then subsequently tarnished by the ham-handed and pointless script. Even with the vibrant Marvel universe as it's back-drop, Wolverine's plot manages to remain cliched from start to finish. In fact, it feels like David Benioff and Skip Woods (who wrote the screenplay) spent a weekend speed-reading through old issues of X-Men and Weapon X; copied and pasted in their favourite bits; and then consulted Michael Bay on explosions. There is no rhyme or reason to it – period. As it begins, Wolverine (aka James Howlett aka Logan) is introduced as a sickly young boy being tended to by his father and pouty older brother, both garbed in period clothing. In the span of FIVE minutes, his father is gunned down by a random stranger who knocks at their door in the middle of the night, he flies into a child rage, murders his father's killer, is then told by his victim that HE was the boy's real father, and then runs out into the night with his brother on his heels. This is all well and good except for the fact that this is never mentioned again in the film and serves no purpose whatsoever. The film is riddled with non-sequitur scenes like this that serve to fill up space without adding anything to the experience.

Despite the convoluted story, where the movie really hit rock-bottom for me was its consistent inattention to detail. One thing I loved about the X-Men movies is that they took a premise as outlandish as humans imbued with mutant powers and tried its damnedest to make it realistic. Also, they took pains to even the playing field when it came to superpowers, no mutant possessed powers which rendered them invulnerable to everything. Everyone had a weakness, no matter how small. Now, I understand that Wolverine has an elite set of powers, even among mutants. His accelerated healing process renders him nearly invulnerable. But, and here’s the kicker, he’s still inherently human. Even before his skeletomuscular system is infused with adamantium, there are scenes where Logan is crushed by massive tree trunks, hit by tractor trailers, and shot many, many times – but manages to shrug everything off and keep trucking. Imagine having a tree trunk weighing several hundred pounds fall on you, fracture your rib cage, crack your spine, and completely liquefy your internal organs. Accelerated healing or not, it would still take time for bones to knit, blood to coagulate, and internal organs to… reform. Wolverine is, for all intents and purposes, immune to anything and everything that tries to stand in his way. And, truthfully, this removes any potential suspense whatsoever from the action scenes. Honestly, who gives a shit if a bad guy shoots Logan in the face with a Desert Eagle or impales him with a samurai sword? If you make your protagonist immortal, then you render any conflict pointless and, ultimately, any action is muted. And speaking of action, it’s pretty hit-or-miss throughout the film. At times, the effects and computer-generated graphics are phenomenal (the aforementioned helicopter scene, in particular). At others, they seem cheesy and out of place. One example that sticks out is when Logan is in a bathroom, investigating his newly-attached adamantium claws. I swear to god, in this scene, the claws looked like they were straight out of Toon-Town a la Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The animation was that over the top.

For the most part, the casting was pretty solid. Liev Schreiber reprises his role from CSI: Las Vegas as the passive-aggressive mutant Sabretooth, Hugh Jackman is peerless as the titular Wolverine, and Ryan Reynolds is a nice touch for the wise-cracking Deadpool. However, I was excited to see one character in particular: Gambit. Hearing that he would finally be making an appearance in an X-Men movie brought back memories from my wasted youth – frittering away untold hours playing the original X-Men game on the Sega Genesis. My all-time favourite character to play in this game was none other than Gambit - the smooth-talking, trenchcoat-sporting, raging Cajun who wields a Bo staff and goddamn psychically-charged playing cards. So, I was definitely interested to see how they would approach his character. Okay, look at the picture on the left. That baby-faced, purple-shirt wearing motherfucker is NOT Gambit. This casting choice, the convoluted story, and the numerous non-sequitur scenes has lead me to derive the following analogy: X-Men Origins: Wolverine is to super-hero movies as Twilight is to horror movies. I could go on, but I think that pretty much sums it up.

All in all, I would recommend this movie only for die-hard X-Men / Twilight fans. Otherwise, I think it would make a pretty decent Bluray rental.

Ok, I’m done.