X-Men Origins: Wolverine. A Review

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE

Origins Sin...

X-Mens Origins: Wolverine purports to tell how our angry mutant came to be. How it all ties with the X-Men trilogy films is a little beyond me, and moreover, which watching it, I could only think one thing: I was unaware that Wolverine is older than Magneto. It may be accurate in terms of what the comics say. However, it just didn't make sense to me, and that is just one of the problems the film couldn't overcome.

We start in 1840's Canada, where our hero Wolverine aka Logan (Hugh Jackman) discovers his mutation in a moment of fury. Joined by his brother, fellow mutant Victor Creed/Sabertooth (Liev Schreiber), they run away, constantly fighting in American wars from the Civil War to Vietnam (the Korean War curiously left off). Eventually they are recruited by General Stryker (Danny Huston) to join an elite team, but after a massacre of innocent villagers Logan (sometimes known as James) walks away from them and heads back to Canada. He finds a beautiful woman to love, but then someone starts killing members of his former team, and after his beloved is killed he vows revenge. As part of his revenge, his metal claws are bestowed upon him. From there, he goes after his man.

The main problem with X-Men Origins: Wolverine is that this isn't an origin story in the same way Batman Begins or Iron Man are. It's just a routine action film, right down to the cliches.

When the elite team is heading up in an elevator to assassinate someone while listening to Muzak: cliche.
When Logan finds his girlfriend's body and he screams out while the camera pans up and away: cliche.
When he walks away slowly from an exploding helicopter: you guessed it: cliche.

I kept saying, "cliche, cliche, cliche" while watching the film.

If anything, Wolverine is following in the sorry steps of X-Men: The Last Stand. You have characters introduced and then killed with no real reason. I figure that with this film, The Lord of the Rings, and Lost, Dominic Monaghan is assuring his career at Comic-Con-style conventions. He reminded me of James Marsden's Cyclops in X3: he's killed off before being allowed to do anything.

Taylor Kitsch's Gambit  is on screen for approximately eight to ten minutes and added nothing to the plot except name recognition.

Liev Schreiber obviously had fun playing Sabertooth whom I was unaware was Wolverine's brother (though I'm still confused if they're full or half). My friend Fidel Gomez & I disagree about him: I think he's a competent actor while he insists he's wooden in every performance he's given. In fact, he was not looking forward to Wolverine precisely because of him. However, his performance showed he was in on the joke, not bringing anything to his role of Sabertooth except the cliched villain.

Hugh Jackman looks great but his physical transformation is the only quality he brings to Wolverine; he didn't have that fury mixed with sorrow that he had in the previous X-Men films. This is his worst performance as this character.

Only Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool brought any sense of fun and action to the film, though I question whether being a master swordsman is a true mutation.  However, the decision to silence a character best known for his acerbic wit is yet another bad, bad decision.

There are plenty of fight scenes in the film: three between Sabertooth and Wolverine alone.

Wolverine fights Stryker.
Wolverine fights Deadpool.
Wolverine fights (fill in the blank).

When he does fight, it looks fake. In fact, everything looks fake. The effects looked cheap and unconvincing.

For example, when he first examines his new claws, they looked animated onto the screen. When he walks away from the exploding helicopter, it looks like his body is superimposed on the screen. Even Patrick Stewart's cameo looked odd.

Ultimately, this movie failed to tell an interesting backstory to one of the most memorable characters from the X-Men comic book series. Instead, it was mindless action. You just think how much better it would have been if instead of putting so much emphasis on the explosions or Jackman's physique, they would have focused on the story. Despite it being Wolverine's origin story, it would have been nice if the other mutants actually had something to do with the story.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine suggests that there will be more Origins films. After this one, I think that idea is most sincerely dead. Now that I think of it, Deadpool reminds me of Darth Maul: the best character in the film killed off by the end when a movie about HIM would have been better/more interesting.

I conclude with this thought. In X-Men, they told Magneto's backstory in less than five minutes. In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, they couldn't tell his in close to two hours.

DECISION: F