Here’s the thing about X-Men Origins: Wolverine, while I watched it, I enjoyed about 2/3 of it. It follows the pattern of most summer blockbusters where there’s a strong first act that sucks you in, a 2nd act where things get a little shaky but still manageable and a last act that’s awful. I’m going to keep this review short because I really don’t have much to say about this movie. I liked it for what it was but if I think about it too much I’ll start to question every little thing and a this is a film that’s meant to be consumed and forgotten about not endlessly dissected and over analyzed. I didn’t like this because it had good explosions – which, kind of sucked. I liked it because it gasp, had really strong acting from Hugh Jackman (Logan / Wolverine) and Liev Schreiber (Victor Creed / Sabretooth). The movie really does a fantastic job of setting up their story in the first few minutes of the film.The opening credit sequence does a great job of setting up Logan and Victor’s relationship. It’s about as great an opening sequence as the one they used in the recent Watchmen movie. It gives you everything you need to know in less than five minutes.
The problem is there really is nowhere for the story to go after this opening sequence. We can spend the rest of the film either showing them breaking up and fighting or I don’t know what the other option would be. So the writers obviously selected option A. We find out what Sabretooth did to foster his and Wolverine’s hatred. But the explanation of why is pretty tame high school stuff – “He abandoned me.” Yeah really? After having each other’s back for 100 years that’s all it takes for you to turn on your brother? I would think the hatred would have started in the first scene when Login killed their father when he was a kid. But they actually “bonded” over that and the movie never touches on it ever again, which made it sort of pointless to show it.
As someone who never got into the X-Men mythology, the only thing I know about Wolverine I learned from the movies and all the excellent X-Men cartoons. Wolverine’s back story changes with the wind, to suit whatever story the writer is telling at the time, so I don’t have much of a problem with viewing this as a stand alone piece. But there were times when I felt my lack of X-Men comic book knowledge made things a little murky for me.
For instance when Wolverine joins Weapon X and he meets his fellow teammates, I kept feeling like I should know who Wade Wilson / Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) was, or the Asian guy who was an expert with guns, or that the fat strong guy or Will i Am (John Wraith) – in the most retarded, ridiculous cowboy suit I’ve ever seen (Can rappers stop trying to act, please?) is somehow important to Wolverine’s life. They go on one mission and it’s silly because it’s only used to showcase each person’s badassness. It’s like hey fat guy go take out that tank, so we get a shot of him taking out the tank, and then hey Wade it’s your turn and we get this cool shot of him taking out a slew of bad guys, etc. But there’s no teamwork shown at all. When Wolverine decides to leave, the entire program falls apart. Again, I was like, really? He was that important? Wolverine’s past always had this big mystery surrounding it and I always envisioned it as being “epic” and “tragic,” but this film takes away that mystique and what we get is kind of tame. Yeah he lived for a hundred years and fought in all the major wars, so? I would have liked it if the story centered around a few lifelong conflicts and feuds that he was involved in and we find out what he did to tick these people off. All we get is his conflict with Sabertooth and William Stryker (Danny Huston) the head of the Weapon X program. But we got that in the first two X-Men movies, did it really need to be rehashed again here?
Director Gavin Hood does a decent job with the character moments, but the action scenes all felt kind of cheap, low budget and not quite finished. Which is weird because he obviously had the resources to make this a bigger film but it feels like he was scared of the scope so he dials it back when he should have thrown caution to the wind. The colors and cinematography were all dark and I thought at times poorly shot. There were 3 too many Wolverine/Sabertooth fights all of which were pretty lame and didn’t have the epic feel that they should have had. As a general rule (new one) I hate watching two “immortals” fight, you know neither one can be hurt so what’s the point. There were no eye-popping moments here. But again, what makes this film work is the acting, cast chemistry and story all work pretty well – for the first half. I asked the Fox rep if this was considered part of the X-Men Trilogy franchise and they said no, they consider this the first of a “new” X-Men film franchise which makes the ending even dumb. On one hand they link it back to the X movies and on the other they totally rewrite history to fit this story, regardless of what they had already established before.
As I write this review and am forced to think about it I dislike the film more and more, but I feel like I have to go with my original gut instinct here which is, I liked it while I watched it and forgot about it immediately after. It’s a good, fast 90 minutes or so.
Final Grade B-
EM Review
By Michelle Alexandria
Originally Posted 5.03.09
I have to agree with you for the most part. But it was not a fast 90 min. I am a huge Wolverine fan and a Hugh Jackman fan and I almost burst into laughter when he grabs his dead girlfriend and yells nooooo!!. The movie is filled with cliche after cliche. Big studios care nothing for the real fans they just look at the boxoffice. If your not going to give me good dialogue or a strong story at least give me cool special effects. I could make better effects using my cannon HD camera and a make shift green screen. Overall grade C-
i would have to dissagree with you… if you get the whole concept of the movie its about wolverine how he started and how he came to be in the x men trilogy and for the most part i just didnt care about your opinion on this movie and stopped where he was called weapon x… he was only called weapon x when he got his atimantium not when he was in the task force you spend so much time looking at the facts what makes this a good movie? spend more time you know ok how did these xmen come to be these mutants who cares about rappers acting just let it go a watch a freaking good movie about your favorite lovable mutants of the xmen
I have been waiting to read a slew of reviews, and I think I will go see this in the theater after reading yours. Especially during a rainy week like it's been.
This movie was so bad.
It was so bad, and I'm a comic fan, that I refuse to take the time to even tell you how bad it was.
That's it.