X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Who directed this movie? They should be brought out into the street and then shot, then run over, put the car into reverse, and then run over him/her again! *goes away from the review for a second to look up the director …* Ah ha! Gavin Hood – well now I’ve got someone I can point a finger at … WTF Gavin Hood?!?!?!? Yep the more I thought about it the more I just didn’t like Wolverine.

SYNOPSIS:
Not that you don’t already get it from the title, but this is supposed to be an Origins film about the Marvel comics character Wolverine. It is played out to depict how Wolverine came to be who you had seen in the previous 3 X-Men films … and also, well I was hoping, that it’d stay true to his roots and actual comic stories too.

PROS of the FILM:
Let me just say that it’s going to be hard for me to come up with a lot of PROS for this one … because honestly the more I sat and stewed over all of it the more I disliked this movie … but anyways lets talk about some good points.

Hugh Jackman is the best actor to portray Wolverine. He just has the knack for the character and really hits home with this sarcasm, his fierce look and the crazy hair. Somehow it all just seems to work and he really translates well on screen.

Liev Schreiber is a good cast for Sabertooth and to me sometimes steals the show from Hugh at times. The two of them together actually made some of the best screen time out of the whole entire film. The way they could banter back and fourth between the two of them seemed natural – and for those who aren’t comic book geeks … Sabertooth and Wolverine are basically like the Batman and the Joker … just good ol’ fighting buddies.

Not that I need to stay on the casting kick, but Ryan Reynolds actually is the one cast pick for this film that got me really excited. He is a perfect actor to portray my favorite comic character of all time – Deadpool. He is witty, quick on his feet and good god is the kid ripped to hell. He plays an excellent Wade Wilson (Deadpool’s real name for those not keeping up with my comic lingo) and I hope that they do a spin off with him as the lead.

All the casting aside another PRO to this movie that I really enjoyed was the opening credit sequence after the initial origin story played out. The way that they show how old Logan and Sabertooth really are is awesome and subtle at the same time. Though if you weren’t paying attention you might not have caught everything that they went through together before ending up in the Weapon X program…let’s just say that they are a lot older than most might think.

That’s honestly all I can muster up for PROS for this movie … sad, just sad.

CONS of the FILM:
When you are going to do an ORIGIN film of a comic character – especially one that was ranked #1 comic character of all time on Wizard Magazine’s top 200 of all time then you think you’d do it right … with that in mind – let’s get started on why this movie was crap.

The story sucked! Now I know that the ORIGIN comics were released not that long ago – in the last 3 years I think … and not a lot of people might be aware of everything that went into those. That’s fine – but we do KNOW things for sure…such as:
Logan and Sabertooth are NOT brothers in any way shape or form.
Logan never ran away with Sabertooth after what happened at the house, he ran away with the servant girl.
Not once is Sabertooth mentioned in the entire movie – they call him Victor – which is just gay.
Wolverine never joined the Weapon X program willingly, he was captured and forced to undergo the Adamantium process.
The list could go on, but I will save you the comic nerdness of it all …

Oh yes, and shall I touch on my favorite comic character getting destroyed?!!?! Deadpool is in no way at all what they depict in the film, except for the 7 minutes you get to see him in the beginning of the film. Ryan Reynolds knocks it out of the park with his sarcasm and humor and the sword play, but then at the end of the film we are shown something that they call “the Deadpool” and I about puked in my mouth. I had no idea that they were going to put a spin on the character they kept referring to as Weapon XI, and really turn that out to be Deadpool. Damn you Gavin Hood – damn you! One thing I hope that comes from this is that if they do indeed go back and make a Deadpool movie, that it will be with Ryan Reynolds and it won’t follow anything that started from this movie. Sorry, I won’t go into any further frustrations with this – let’s just say I was pissed.

Another thing that sucked about this movie was the CG! Why is it that it’s the year 2009 and we can’t seem to get pretty decent CG for a film that I’m sure had a pretty hefty budget? For those of you who have seen the film, did you not think that Wolverine’s claws looked STUPID the first time he pulls them out in front of the mirror and is checkin them out? They looked like little plastic swords you buy at Walmart and someone taped them to his hands! The claws just looked horrible the entire time. Somehow they got them completely right in the first two movies, but then the ORIGIN film of WOLVERINE comes out and the idea of using the same technique for the claws goes right out the window. Yep – good call Gavin. Not to mention the other CG in there such as the fighting on the big nuclear reactor thing in the end, the really bad “young” Charles Xavier at the end and the green screen cropping that was horrendous as all the little mutants were running away. I mean come on! Did Hugh need that big of a payoff for this movie that you couldn’t sacrifice a few more bucks to get the CG effects right?!

I honestly don’t even want to talk about this movie anymore … I’m done.

SUMMARY:
Let me say this – if you liked X-Men 3, then by all means see this movie. Nuff said.

FINAL MOVIE RATING: 5/10

~ by phoenixwave on May 5, 2009.