Let's Get Critical: X-men Origins: Wolverine

Deeply flawed and disappointing. A blown opportunity. Stupid. Pays way too much attention to the rest of the X-men movie franchise and doesn't deal enough with Wolverine.

I know, I know this is one of those movies you're not supposed to think too much about. You're supposed to just sit back and enjoy the ride…but there are moments in this movie so stupid that I couldn't stop myself from thinking about them. If I sound a little vague...well, new movie so avoiding spoliers...

Seriously, I'm tempted to sift through the Interwebs and try to find out a little more about the development of this movie. Why? Well, because it seems like a mash-up of 2 completely different movies. That or else it was movie making by committee. Or something. I'm nearly prepared to come out and say nobody who digs comics could have made this movie, but then I look at it on the flip side and, yeah, this movie could have been made by someone who loves comics a little too much.

The first half to two thirds of the movie is pretty cool and I enjoyed it a standard action movie way--sort of Commando (or Predator) meets Highlander. Then they just start adding stuff. Crappy stuff. Like Gambit. Waste of a character. But that's the fate of just about everyone in this movie, even the character named Wolverine. Everyone seems to exist as a plot point and not as an actual character. Which is stupid. We've had the X-men movies, even the abysmal third one. Isn't something that claims to be an origin story supposed to be just a little more character driven? And why the large cast of people who's screen time amounts to little more than cameos? You've got Hugh Jackman, Liev Schieber (who actually holds his own as Sabretooth), and Ryan Reynolds (criminally underused), why throw in a large and confusing cast?

The worst part is that I haven't even gotten to the geeky stuff that went wrong. Everything I've whined about so far…well, that's storytelling stuff. The comic book elements in the movie are just as stupid. There's a lot of talk about Wolverine becoming the animal, letting go, and just being the biggest baddest guy on the block and we don't see much of that. We actually don't see any of that. There's no mindless berserker rages in there. Sure, Logan gets ticked off, but he's always in control if sometimes seeming barely restrained. Hell, while there are some truly neat action sequences (Logan on a motorcycle vs. two ground vehicles and a chopper) and fight scenes (he gets smacked around by Sabretooth) Wolverine is actually much more brutal in the second X-men movie. Let's see what else. For all the nods to realism in the X-men movies (the uniforms and look) they all suffer from having the most outlandish and convoluted plots...there really isn't a change here. Emma Frost…yeah, wow, dumb appearance esp. as Silver Fox's sister (WTF?). Adamantium bullets? Yeah, the stuff doesn't work that way. Look it's Uncle Ben Kindly Old Guy who lectures our hero on how with great power comes great responsibility the folly of revenge…yawn snooze.

In the end the most damning thing I can say about Wolverine is it started to remind me of The Spirit towards the end. Like I'm watching and going, "who thought this was a good idea?" Did they make each scene without considering the larger story it was supposed to be set in? Was it a bunch of gibbering fanboys sitting around going "You know what would be cool? If this guy had laser eyes…and we need Gambit in here because he's cool." The sad part is they didn't learn from the sins of the third X-men installment. Don’t tack on a large superfluous cast just because you have this pool of mutants from the comics. Less is sometimes more. They also didn't learn from Iron Man and The Dark Knight. Did Iron Man throw in the Armor Wars and War Machine? Nope, they told a bloody good origin story. What we get in Wolverine is a 4th X-men movie, which maybe I should have realized from the dang title. The problem is it carries with it all the baggage of that franchise and doesn't redeem much of it. To borrow and twist a phrase from Mouse, "in this post Dark Knight (and Iron Man) era" this kind of a superhero movie just does not cut it.

Sad really.

I could have handled a movie that was all Wolverine "snkt!" action or I could have handled a movie explaining why character is the way he is, but…we don't get that which is sort of a problem in a movie claiming to be an origin.