X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Movie Review
"X-Men Origins: Wolverine"
Review by Eric D. Snider
Grade: C+
Rating: PG-13
Released: Friday, May 1, 2009
Directed by:
Cast:
Despite appearing in three "X-Men" films so far, the character of Wolverine -- played with growly intensity by song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman -- remains something of an enigma. Viewers have wondered: How did Wolverine lose his memory before teaming up with Professor X and his squad of mutants? Where did he get his marvelous adamantium claws? And is his adherence to Civil War-era facial-hair fashions the result of his having been born around 1840? Now, in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," at last the questions are answered: [spoiler], [spoiler], and yes!
The film starts out more campy than it intends to be and only occasionally recovers, with an uneven screenplay by David Benioff ("Troy") and Skip Woods ("Hitman," "Swordfish") and only serviceable direction by Gavin Hood ("Tsotsi"). It's 1845 when we begin, in Canada's Northwest Territories, in what seems like the climactic moments of some other movie. Startling revelations are made about who is and isn't somebody's father, and somebody gets killed for reasons that are not shared with us, and the kid who we understand will grow up to be Wolverine, young James Logan (Troye Sivan), kneels over a dead body, casts his eyes heavenward, and shouts, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Which would be really intense except that he's like 10 years old, so instead it's merely adorable.
Over the opening credits, we see an adult Logan (now played by Jackman) and his friend/enemy/brother Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) fighting for the United States in various wars, up through Vietnam, teamed with a squad of soldiers who also have mutant powers. If that sounds a bit like the opening credits of "Watchmen," wait'll you see what happens next: One of the soldiers is murdered years later, and it looks like someone is going around bumping off superheroes one by one.
Logan has retired by now, living a peaceful life as a lumberjack in Canada with his girlfriend, Kayla (Lynn Collins). Logan felt there was too much indiscriminate killing perpetrated by the mutant squad, encouraged by the commanding officer, Stryker (Danny Huston) and enthusiastically carried out by Creed -- and wait, that sounds like "Watchmen," too. And wasn't Liev Schreiber just in a movie called "Defiance" where he played a man who was too murder- and vengeance-minded for his brother's tastes? In other words, didn't I already watch "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"? WHY AM I WATCHING IT AGAIN??
For reasons I won't disclose, Logan is motivated to go along with Stryker's plan to replace his skeleton with adamantium, which would make him indestructible, which, wait, I thought he already was. Apparently not. Apparently all those bullets being fired at him before were just missing him. Anyway, NOW he's indestructible, the bony protrusions that pop out of his knuckles supplanted by smooth, stainless adamantium. Later, someone gets the idea that since Wolverine's skeleton is made of adamantium, he can therefore be killed if he's shot with an adamantium bullet. This is so stupid that I can't believe anyone even wrote it down, let alone filmed it.
Wolverine spends most of the film being angry, with about one-third of story devoted to him and Creed fighting. Usually they'll stand at opposite ends of a long corridor, run at each other at top speed while screaming, then beat the crap out of each other. When time permits, other mutants, some good and some evil, show up. These include (fans, watch for your favorites!) Bolt (Dominic Monaghan), Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), and the Blob (Kevin Durand), who gets his name due to having inexplicably ballooned to about 500 pounds.
I get the feeling the film was made exclusively for hardcore fans of the "X-Men" comics. It is rife with characters, events, and details that have nothing to do with what's going on but that have clearly been included to produce fanboy salivation. That's good pandering, but bad filmmaking. In good films, you don't include things (or not a lot of them, anyway) that are wholly irrelevant to the story at hand. If this turns out to be a separate trilogy, as planned, then perhaps all of this set-up will prove worthwhile. As a standalone, though, it's loud, chaotic, and goofy, one of the more negligible entries in the comic-book genre.
(Note: Be sure to stay through the closing credits for an extra scene that will make you say, "I stayed through the closing credits for THAT?!")
Grade: C+
Rated PG-13, brief nonsexual nudity, a little profanity, a lot of action violence
1 hr., 47 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 21 comments
May 1, 2009 at 1:48 am
I found the movie entertaining, but I can't disagree with anything this review says. Honestly, the movie could have been better.
May 1, 2009 at 3:49 am
That movie was powerful weak.
May 1, 2009 at 7:23 am
Yeah I can't disagree with anything Eric says here either. As someone who grew up on Marvel comic books, I was deeply entertained by the film, but only for the silly reasons Eric mentions above, like seeing my favorite character (Gambit) portrayed on film. By the way, Taylor Kitsch is the last person I would have cast for Gambit. He was terrible and his fake Cajun accent sounded like Matthew McConaughey with Downs syndrome.
If I hadn't been a huge fan of X-Men before seeing this film, I would never watch it again, but its entertainment value for comic book nerds such as myself is undeniable. That doesn't make it a good film, though.
May 1, 2009 at 8:25 am
Surely I'm not the only one who started humming "I'm A Lumberjack" during the fourth paragraph...
May 1, 2009 at 8:38 am
Also, the CGI effects were lacking in quite a few places.
May 1, 2009 at 9:53 am
Did anyone watch the last X-men, the name escapes me at the moment, however, in the movie Wolverine spends much of his time trying to find out what had happened to him (why he has claws, the ability to rapidly heal and so forth) as I recall he was, against his will, implanted with the metal at a secret testing facility and Stryker was to inform him why. The last movie clearly states he did not have mutant power before this happened to him. Am I the only one who sees this or am I crazy?
May 1, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Matt: X-Men 2 just explains why/how he got the adamantium in his skeleton. The only reason he was able to survive the procedure is because he already had the mutant healing factor.
May 1, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Wait, you as a movie critic don't sit through *every* movie saying "I've seen that before"?
It doesn't really stand alone, I agree. It's not a shining example of moving-picture literature. The CGI in some places was awful. But I thoroughly enjoyed it and would watch it again. shrug
May 1, 2009 at 10:52 pm
It wasn't boring but the plot seemed about on par with a made for TV movie. Just had better actors and special effects.
May 2, 2009 at 9:01 am
I agree that he must have had the mutant healing power, but the new movie says he had the skeleton as a child. X-2 did not go into that detail.
May 2, 2009 at 2:32 pm
For those non-comic book fans out there, here's the basic Wolverine story as laid out in the comics:
Wolverine (Logan, or Jimmy I guess) was born a mutant, complete with healing powers and Batman's growling accent. He joined up with the Canadian government's team of mutants and was dubbed "Weapon X". Similar to James Bond = 007, but more pissed off. Anyway, the Canadians did the whole experiment with the adamantium, which is where comic book fans always assumed he got the claws from. And yes, he could always take bullets and shrug em, mostly cause he's that tough, and perpetually pissed off. There were always vague hints about why he's so angry...failed love interest with a yakuza girl, being the most widely accepted (Lady Deathstryke, the long-nailed chick in Xmen2. Yes, she is more badass in the comics.) Generally, most of us just assumed it was because Stan Lee gave him that ridiculous hairdo and spandex uniform. But who's to say?
Anywho, about a decade or so ago, Marvel decided to give Wolverine fans something interesting (the guys never freaking dies or gets injured really). The X-men went to Magneto's hideout, a big asteroid called Asteroid M (yes, we know). In the ensuing battle, Magneto, being the ever charitable guy that he is, used his ability to rip all the adamantium off of Wolverine's skeleton, and pull it out of his body. No, you didn't read that wrong, and yes, it look horrific. Seriously, if you ever get a chance to see that one, be prepared to wince...alot. I've seen horror movies aplenty, and that freaked me right the hell out.
But, unlike that wuss Superman, Wolverine managed to survive the ordeal, though his healing powers were completely shot. Apprently, he can take huge lasers, rounds of bullets, and all the abuse that comes with 40 some years of fighting fellow mutants, but having his skeleton damn near pulled out of him was the last straw. It was soon after that Wolverine discovered that the claws he had weren't just adamantium...he had the bone claws all along, and the adamantium just covered em up like the rest of his skeleton. Unfortunately, because he no longer had the healing ability, the hand wounds from his claws extending don't heal automatically. Ya, he was pissed...more so than usual.
That's the basic story, at least some time ago. I've no idea what they did to him recently. However, there was one good thing that came from discovering the bone claws...In his (final?) battle with Sabertooth, Wolverine rammed 1 claw thru the villian's jaw up into his head...and then snapped it off. Didn't kill the prick, but it did make Sabertooth a whoooooooooole hell of a lot nicer. Cerebral damage will do that for ya.
May 4, 2009 at 11:02 am
I loved the movie, I rarely go to the movies so I didn't have much to compare it to. My wife and I had a lot of fun though.
May 4, 2009 at 6:54 pm
I really enjoyed the movie for its rock-'em, sock-'em action purposes, and did think that it had a very kick-ass action fight scene, but I also thought that it was corny beyond belief and I laughed all the way through every part that was supposed to be touching. It was fun, though. Good fun. Good review, too.
May 8, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Hugh (Huge) Jackman must have worked out for years prior to filming this movie; overall it was entertaining at least, though not something i'll buy on DVD
May 10, 2009 at 8:28 am
I was aprehensive after this review, but it wasn't THAT bad.
I definitely enjoyed the special effects, the comic character references, and the fighting.
The story was painful half the time, though. Especially the "adamantium bullets." /facepalm. /facepalmx1000000.
When Wolverine is your hero though, you can't have too complex bad guys. And it's gotta be solvable by pure physical strength.
May 10, 2009 at 9:57 pm
I thought it was actually pretty good, relative to comic-book-superhero-movie standards. If you go in there expecting it to suck, you may be pleasantly surprised. To me, watching superhero movies is kind of like watching cavemen play baseball: since most of them usually try to eat the ball, you get really excited when one of them actually manages to hit it with the bat--even if their swing still kind of sucks.
Still. Compared to Spiderman 1, 2, or 3, I will take this and be glad of it. Much more entertaining.
May 13, 2009 at 12:23 pm
That was very enlightening, Josh, thank you. Much quicker than reading the comics.
I admit I haven't seen this film yet so I have absolutely no clue what anyone is talking about, but I guess I can see where they were going with the adamantium bullet deal. Perhaps since adamantium is indestructable, Wolverine's healing powers wouldn't have as great an effect against it as say, a regular bullet or something. Anything else his body could spit out or whatever, but perhaps something about the adamantium lodged in a critical organ would be unmoved, he couldn't heal to overcome it, and it would, um, eventually kill him? Even though regular people have survived regular bullets piercing critical organs without removal and their bodies have healed around the bullet, encasing it in calcium and thus protecting the body from further ill effects? I don't know. I'm just trying to pretend these people thought this through even slightly before putting pen to paper.
May 13, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I found that low-expectations, plenty of disbelief-suspension and a flask of bourbon made it a pretty enjoyable flick. After all, it *is* a comic-book-movie... can't expect it to be too smart.
May 13, 2009 at 4:32 pm
After all, it *is* a comic-book-movie... can't expect it to be too smart.
That argument held a lot more water before people started making comic book movies that WERE smart: the first two Spider-Mans, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, etc. Now that we've seen it done correctly, what excuse is there to tolerate the ones that barely even try?
May 15, 2009 at 8:18 am
The wife and I saw it last night and it was a very solid "meh". A fair number of the special effects are just plain silly (the claws looked incredibly superimposed in the bathroom scene) and Logan was way too emotion-driven. (We want to see a tough guy kicking butt and taking names, not getting all weepy over a chick all of the time.) I think the only thing that kept it from being truly terrible was the X-Men name. I agree with Stacy; it was "made for TV" caliber and we expect better these days.
May 18, 2009 at 1:22 am
LOVED the movie! Although I agree that the theory of shooting with adamantium bullets = memory loss was silly and contrived. But they had to get memory loss in there somehow...