X-Men Origins: Wolverine – Movie Review UPDATED
Some characters are meant to be left enigmatic. Some characters should never be fully explained. We’ve seen it a hundred times! I’ll use and example from the 80’s here, (mostly because i love the film but also as it demonstrates the point admirably) Highlander and its sequel Highlander 2.
In Highlander we are presented with a character who gains inexplicable powers and becomes a hero. These powers are given mysterious names like “The Quickening” and he fights for “The Prize”. The closest we get to an explanation for the central conceit is “Why does the sun rise?” “Are stars just pinholes in the curtain of night?” And by the time we get to the end we don’t care. its cool!
Highlander 2 comes along and suddenly the director feel the need to give us answers… Bad Answers!!!! “Yeah, they’re all aliens, from the planet Zeist, and that guys not dead. oh and these dudes are all birds…” Amazing. We get answers and we don’t like them. Now, we return to the original point. Some characters are meant to be enigmatic. Wolverine is one of those characters.
Since his introduction to comic books in the seventies he has been a fan favourite. Whether battling the Hulk, hangin’ with Spidey or snikt’ing his way through hordes of Hellfire Club goons, we have loved to love the man who is “The best there is at what he does.” His history has always been shrouded in mystery and as such he was almost a blank slate for creators to put him in any story they wanted. Frank Miller made him a samurai for crying out loud! Chris Claremont sent him into space! The feisty Canuck could seemingly turn up anywhere.
And then someone decided to give him a locked-in origin and for many fans it all went wrong. Suddenly “Logan” was not Logan, but Little Jimmy Howlett. He had an approximate age. His relationship with his long time nemesis Sabretooth was explained. It seemed to many that some of the magic was gone. The speculation that had kept the fans going for over 30 years, was over.
And now in X Men Origins: Wolverine a whole new cinematic audience slams straight into exactly the same telegraph pole.
X-MO:W is not a bad film, let me start by saying that outright. It is competently made, attractively shot and is pretty much completely cohesive. The characters are generally well acted and the film certainly feels like a continuation of the Wolverine character from the previous X-Men films. The plot is a bit convoluted at times but it doesn’t try to tie in too many sub plots (unlike X-Men 3: The Last Stand). Hugh Jackman is charismatic and totally watch-able. He proves that he has no difficulty holding together a film and keeping us engaged in his character for the hour and forty we’re with him. The bad guys are suitably unpleasant and the fight sequences are shot and cut well enough that you can generally work out what is happening (a sad rarity in these days).
The film however falls in a big shit-pile heap when it comes to its treatment of its characters and their history. Now admittedly trying to condense, or at least remain true to 40 years of wildly conflicting continuity is going to be difficult. Tying that continuity into that of the previous three films will be even harder. We all understand that some small changes are inevitable. But its the kind of wholesale bullshit history rewriting that has happened here that has made most comic book fans so wary of the Hollywood movie machine.
Lets get it out of the way now. Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds may have been THE perfect person to play the “Merc with a mouth.” He is funny, well built and has the kind of sly delivery which really makes the character come to life…for the first twenty minutes. From that point onwards Deadpool is not in the film. Contrary to what the film may tell you the “Mimic” style gestalt of all the Team X’s Powers called “Weapon XI” is NOT Deadpool. I hope to christ that someone finds a way to retcon this particular character out of existence in the possible Deadpool Spinoff movie because as it stands he is right up there with “Bat Shark repellant” in the annals of “Comic Book Movie Dickery.”
Honestly aside from that things aren’t that bad. Gambit is ok, thought his accent does have a habit of disappearing at times. Victor Creed is generally tough and cool. Hell even the Blob gets a pretty good go! Other characters are seemingly introduced for little more than fan service, Emma Frost copping the worst of it, suddenly becoming part American Indian and Sister to Silver Fox!?
There are some truly awful special effects: Wolvie’s high speed chopping of the fire escape being a prime example of why speeding up a character is a sure fire way to make them look goofy. Some effects even beg the question, Why are they there at all: Logan’s new Adamantium claws being unnecessarily CGI, for example. These may be super powered characters, but in pushing them too far they become ever so slightly cartoonish and sadly our belief in them falls by the wayside. Oh and there is a cameo from a certain Star-ship captain which will remind you that uncanny valley is never too far away. Ugh creepy!
Wolverine is something like sixty to seventy percent a good film. It has pacing problems and a flabby middle, but it is quintessentially not that bad. It just has a whole raft of tiny little niggles that will annoy fans and possibly even the casual viewers to no end. I sincerely hope that is does well in the box office, if only so that Hugh’s production company “Seed” is not sent down the gurgler. I just wish that someway, somehow this film could be taken back, tweaked ever so slightly and then sent out into the big bad world a complete creature.
As it stands it is a brave attempt at telling a story that probably should never have been told.
A sad MEH.
What do you think? am i being too harsh? Is it a masterpiece? or 147 minutes of drek?
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UPDATE
It has been widely reported that the film has been released with three different endings depending on where in the world you view it. these endings, much like the Iron Man Nick Fury cameo come at the very end of the credits. In the screening we went to we were treated to the “Japanese” ending, in which we see Logan drinking heavily to try to remember his past. Clearly setting up for the potential Japanese storyline in a sequel.
Other prints have apparently had a different Deadpool related ending in which many of the issues that so terribly plagued my view of the film are addressed. While this certainly improves my feeling on the film i still feel that my review stands. This indicates more to me, that the director became aware that the film did the character of Deadpool a massive disservice and is, in this ending desperately trying to rectify the mistake.
Well done to him on that score, but sadly to the vast majority of folks who walk out before the credits have stopped rolling it won’t make an iota of difference.
If you have seen the Deadpool ending please let us know!
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Your review hasn’t put me off from seeing it, but I don’t have high expectations for this film.
While X III wasn’t great I still enjoyed the film, hopefully I’ll feel the same about XO:W this weekend. Thx, Q.
what the hell are you talking about?
Have you even seen the final version?
That is deadpool,
The real deadpool has the teleporting technique, Weapon X1 has it too.
The only thing they messed up was giving Weapon X1 laser eyes and sword claws.
Even wolverine called out his name and Stryker even says he’s Deadpool. “Pool”.
We just have to wait on news how deadpool survived with his head cut off and having those powers he shouldn’t have:/
Uh, yeah man. i saw the final version the pre release version. and NO it isn’t deadpool.
from the marvel character site:
Deadpool possesses the normal strength of a man of his age, height, and build who engages in intensive regular exercise. Deadpool’s ONLY KNOWN POWER is his superhuman healing factor, which is a recreation of the one possessed by the mutant Wolverine. He is an extraordinary hand-to-hand combatant and is skilled in several unarmed combat technique. Deadpool employs a number of weapons, including various blades and guns, which he utilizes as both a master marksman and swordsman. He also relies on a teleportation DEVICE to whisk him in and out of danger.
No arm blades, No Scott summers power blasts. and for crying out loud he is known as “THE MERC WITH A MOUTH!” not even that! the character at the end was cool looking and did cool stuff. but he sure as hell was NOT the Deadpool i know and love…. don’t get me wrong. The fight was cool looking and pretty impressive. i just object to the character being misused.
i fully realise the film is calling the character Deadpool, i just wish they weren’t. As to how he will survive? um, sadly i think they may have actually completely screwed over the character. His head came off. as far as i’m aware not even Wolvy can survive decapitation….
Though apparently Sabretooth can take a scott summers “Zark” to the chest and not have his clothes burnt… oh yeah and wolvy can deflect them with his claws?
I have to say I genuinely enjoyed the movie, but then I’m not a fan of the original comics so the deviances from that source material don’t bother me.
The action was satisfying in a bloodless sort of way, Sabertooth was a good antagonist, Stryker was good, and Hugh Jackman is as good at Wolverine as ever.
It’s flawed certainly, it’s structure is little more than a way to get from setpiece A to setpiece B to setpiece C and so on, there’s a few leaps of logic I can’t quite buy even in a superhero film, and the child actors at the beginning are truley woeful. But despite that, as a fun popcorn movie it’s perfectly satisfying.
I’d probably give it a cool minus drifting occasionally into a cool during some of the action scenes.
Loved the review and absolutely enjoyed the film.
Glad you enjoyed the review and just as glad you enjoyed the film. i am so happy to hear that people can take the review for what it iss. one person’s opinion on the film. thanks Jess!
i now live in hope of a directors cut on DVD!
I was a massive X-Men fan when I was in school and sadly I just can’t seem to care about them anymore. This movie never got my interest and after reading your review I’m even less interested in seeing it. My younger brother will end up dragging me to the theater to see it though.
Oh well, at least I’ve still got Star Trek and Transformers left to see this summer although I don’t expect Transformers to that great either.
im a huge deadpool fan and im upset if they messed him up i was really looking forward to seeing him on screen finally and still kinda am but im seeing it friday so i hope it’s good
very good review you hit all the nails on the head u was right about the claws looking fake, specially when he was observing them in the bathroom, that really did put me off a bit. the effects for gambit was good but some scene i was confused or didnt make sense for example wolvering elbows him in the face and he gets knocked out then 5 mins later gamits jumping from a roof? i wa thinking he gt on that roof quick. also as u pointed out the effects of wolvering speeding up chopping the ladder that was crap it made me loose grip off the movie. actually i think wolverine in this movie didnt act agressive enough like an animal like in xmen 2 when he was taking out the soldiers in the mansion he was screaming and goin berserk :S van wilder was the best person to play deadpool no dobt he just needed longer screen time his scene was too quick. oh and i heard storm was in the movie by watching the trailer
she didnt do SHIITT.
but i will say they choose the right person to play sabtooth i was impressed special at the start of th emovie when its showing the war scenes.
overall il give it a 5/10 i was average and had potential to be better but wat do u expect from FOX whos is at the momment ripping off titles like dragon ball im still hurt
in the UK we got an ending with stryker still walking down a road where a humvee pulls up behind and an MP takes him in for “questioning” about the death of the general.
I wish I’d gotten the deadpool ending though, Reynolds was a fricking awesome choice for him, even a little hint at taking back the “XI” debacle would have been an improvment.
Also, bossman’s right, even worse than chopping up the fire escape is when he gets out the new claws for the first time in the bathroom, it looked so cheap and cartoony I was reminded of “who framed roger rabit”, 80’s standard special effects woo!
I feel bad for patrick stewart too, they put so much make-up on him to try make him look younger and he just ended up looking like he’d just changed out of drag costume into a suit.
The Stryker part was on ours too but half way through the credits and we had the Japanese ending right at the end of the credits. Was the Stryker part at the end of your credits Droopy?
lol, Patrick Stewart in drag. GOLD. i wasn’t too sure that it was more CGI than makeup. at least they tried to tie it in to the other films. albeit with shit effects. is it just me or did the kids running to Xavier look horrendously green screen?
I dont feel that Wolverine goes thru much emotional impact, or at least it doesnt translate or I dont feel it. Considering that he has such a life span, very little happened to him in the film, personally giving him time to move on emotionally.
Wolverines major problem has always been that he wants to control his berserker rage brought on about all the losses hes had and all of the abuse hes gone thru being manipulated. I dont see, or better put FEEL that pain. You dont see him fighting the urge to control his “animal” side. He wants to be good and not kill like he had while being manipulated.
I understand the hollywood sometimes may need to change and adjust things for the screen, but I dont see why they couldnt revolve the film around that point.
I believe Liev is a great actor and he does bring Sabertooth the coldness that he needs. Reynolds as Deadpool was ok to me, but given what few moments he had, there is only so much one can do and show. I believe they did do a disservice to Deadpool overall, but we’ll have to see if it really was him, even though hes never been close to having all those powers. My believe is that it’s suppossed to be Mimic.
The other characters arent even necessary, but ok. Gambit was ok, but kinda corny when dealing with the decks dontcha think? This Stryker wasnt satisfying. Huston was ok in the role, but he didnt have the menace and hatred the other Sryker had in the previous movies.
The FX were ok and of course the scene with the fire escape was terrible. The comes Gambit running on a rooftop and jumping? How did that happen after just being punched out by Wolverine?
And by the way, if Professor X was there towards the end, everything really would have been over.
Overall I give fault to the writers 1st and foremost, then to Jackman as producer, and to Hood for this fallacy. And the writer was a fan of the comics? WOW, he must have read to many comics then and confused them. Jackman should have gotten another writer and Hood should have seen the holes in the film even before it was put together.
I would have had an opening sequence where Wolverine is just killing people and we dont know why, perhaps on many mission, but we get to see his “animal” side. Then maybe move on to some flash backs of his past or flash backs thru out the movie and left some for another.
Q-Dog your right when you say some characters should remain a mystery, and Wolverine should be one of those. Too much info in one film for this character, they needed to build him up, and along the way he should have felt all the losses.
As much as I enjoyed the film I didn’t really understand that ending since (SPOILER ALERT) I didn’t see why he’d stop walking just because someone powerless told him to.
Though, for me worse than the fire escape or the bathroom scene was the opening, those kid actors were terrible beyond belief, no special effect can measure up to that level.
And I have to admit that I’m slightly confused about Patrick Stewart, he looked younger but not as convincing as in x3, so what the hell was up with the effects there. Does anyone know what the effects budget was on this compared to x3?
SPOILER!!!
I just got out of the movie and i was extremely disapointed. They completely ruined Deadpool. And the ending after the credits was Deadpool reaching for his severed head from underneath a pile of rubble then the head opening its eyes and saying shhhhh. That movie was a waste of time.
One thing people need to understand about dead pool real quick, with the ending and all with his head coming off. He can easily survive because if you’ve read some shit about dead pools past, his healing trait is actually better and fast than that of wolverine’s. To point that he has died and come back to life multiple times in the comics. One of which he came back from being decapitated.
Logan in Japan has to do with the Frank Miller run on the solo Wolverine comics; those who know that series can fill in the plot for the next? Wolvie movie.
Just saw the movie, and I gotta say, Marvel really needs to get the rights to the X-film franchise back from Fox. They’ve just about killed it. I mean how far from the comics can you go and still have it be recognizeable. The only redeaming quality of the movie was Gambit. He was freakin cool. Other than the jump off the roof after being knocked out. It just seems to me that rather than coming up with a good script and story that MAKES SENSE, the writers all sit around a table and say, €œOk, what mutants would be cool to have in this movie?€ , €œWe haven’t used Emma Frost yet.€€¦.Oh and don’t get me started on the utter stupidity of them ruining Deadpool. Laser beam eyes and blades coming out of his arms. Brilliant move Fox. Ruin everybody’s second favorite character in the movie. I thought the casting was good for the most part. Liev was a much better Sabertooth than Tyler Mane. Reynolds would have been a great Deadpool with any screen time. And even Will.I.Am was good as John Wraith. But why the frak were Cyclops, Emma Frost, Blob and Prof X even in this movie. That makes little to no sense. And really wasn’t even needed. Oh, and the CGI claws were cheesy. I rate this about even with the other 3 X-films. Which isn’t saying much. Nowhere near the quality of Iron Man or The Dark Knight.
Good grief, what is so hard to understand here? The character at the end of the movie is an amalgamation of Deadpool and Weapon XI. He’s neither. He’s both. It’s not that they gave Deadpool new powers, and it’s not that Weapon XI has a new backstory. They combined the two characters.
Unfortunately most people who see the movie will not realize that, and will go through life thinking that Deadpool IS Weapon XI. The makeup for the actor, Scott Adkins, was so heavy that we cannot see that he is not Ryan Reynolds, so many people will continue to believe that they are the same person.
Ah Meredith, its not that we don’t understand… its more that we don’t understand WHY THEY DID IT?!
I can clearly see that its a combination of the two characters but i also have no clear understanding of what made anyone think that this was a good idea?! Especially when they had been, in some cases, slavishly accurate to the history before then.
i sleep a little easier knowing that there may have been separate endings that clarify that it was not, in fact, deadpool at all.
pleas understand… we all get it. We just don’t like it at all.
Or i could be wrong. In all my net trawling i can find no record of an ending in which Ryan Reynolds appears and ask the moving decapitated body “who the hell he thinks he is”
damn it.
the only one i can find is the decapitated body looking at the camera and tellign it to shush… which is kinda deadpoolish… in that it breaks the 4th wall…but he still has optic blasts and arm blades. ick.
i live in hope for improvement.
This review pretty much describes the exact same problems I had with the film. While it wasn’t as great as it could have been,which I’ve been thinking about a lot of films recently,it wasn’t bad either. Worth my money sure, but not without a few faults that almost made me feel ripped off.
For one,the Deadpool-esque character ( even credited as Deadpool ) wasn’t in the film for very long. Ryan Reynolds in my opinion is perfect for the role. He has a way of sounding somewhat sincere yet obviously sarcastic when delivering lines in a lot of the roles he’s played.
Gambit’s accent was constantly changing,he had a southern accent then a french one then the two mixed, but out of nowhere they’re both gone. Strange. Plus the whole jumping off a roof after just being knocked out.
Emma Frost,Really!? …..
John Wraith and Blob were okay but like Emma , they weren’t necessary.
Oh and what happened to child Storm?
She was in the trailer yet after waiting for the credits to finish and watching the extra scene all I get is Logan drinking for 20 seconds….
Once again though, It was enjoyable enough to not feel ripped off but I constantly find myself thinking it could,no should have been better. Deadpool…..wow,kind of like how I felt when Venom was in Spider-man 3 for 20 minutes and a character who is suppose to be built like a body builder is played by whimpy and somewhat annoying Topher Grace.
Good honest review though. Got to the point without going over the top and saying Fox studios should be burned down or something like how a lot of reviews are today.
My beef with the movie:
1) When silverfox “dies”, logan apparently couldn’t hear her heartbeat or breathing at all. Ok, so she got injected with a serum to fake her death… cool.
Except the “serum” was called hydroclorithiazide. Hztz (abbreviated) is a diuretic. It makes you pee. IT MAKES YOU PEE.
2) Deadpool was absolutely ruined. You have all discussed why so I’ll leave it at that.
3) Having to make wolverine’s claws into CGI was just retarded. They looked out of place and horribly fake. Whoever did the special effects in the movie needs to be sued.
4) Gambit’s trademark eyes were left normal most of the time. He doesn’t have such a thing as normal eyes ffs.
5) The old people that gave wolverine his clothes and bike was SO out of place. it was the hudsons that found wolverine after he escaped the facility.
6) did anyone notice pietro being trapped? magneto would’ve torn that whole place apart in no time. it was out continuity even with the previous movies.
I just left the theater shocked and offended. it’s one thing to change things around a bit, it’s a completely different thing to fling shit at all the comic book fans and treat them like idiots (hztz for example).
something that would have fixed this movie in a lot of ways: making it R-Rated. Then they wouldn’t have had to try so hard to soften up such an inherently gory story line
Right off the bat, let me say that XMO:W is an average film. Maybe a little below average, but I honestly did not expect much from the flick. I’m not one of those comic book fans who is slavishly tied to canon that I feel any deviation from the source material is grounds for complete dismissal of a film. In fact, quite the opposite. There are a lot of story details from comics that would never work on screen, either with respect to audience or budget. Most source materials need to and should change to fit the medium. As such, when I judge a superhero movie, I try to judge it from the point of view of how well it worked as a movie, first and foremost.
What did I like about the film? Hugh Jackman and Liev Schrieber had excellent turns in their respective roles. It was fun seeing Wolverine in his own flick. I thought some of the scenes were really well done cinematically, especially some of the final fight scene, and very evocative of comic book artwork. Ryan Reynolds was great.
In particular, I would point out the credit sequence. There is more style and substance in that set of images than most of the film. If you pay attention to the faces of Jackman and Schrieber throughout the war scenes, you can actually see the gradual change in their characters through those events. Victor Creed shows more and more bloodlust as Jimmy Howlett becomes more alarmed at his brothers behavior. It was nicely and subtly done. Perhaps the only subtlety in the film.
Beyond that, I felt that, as one film critic said, €œall the explosions go off when they are supposed to.€
My biggest problem with the film was the effects. I simply do not understand how a summer tentpole movie could have been released with the sorry excuse for CGI that was on display here. Others have enumerated many examples, so it’s not worth going into specifics. I will say, however, that I thought the diamond effect on Emma Frost looked particularly like a SciFi Channel Saturday movie effect. Seriously? She looked more like an impersonation of the jewel-encrusted teeth in a gangbangers grill than her body turning to diamond.
Gambit was also a completely unnecessary addition. Fan service at it’s worst. It would have been far cleaner to replace that entire sequence with Wraith and Wolverine going in search of Fred Dukes and finding the island location from him than shoe-horning in another popular character. I would like to know who thought outfitting Gambit like a cross between Peter Doherty and Johnny Depp from Benny and Joon was a good idea. The fight scene was completely nonsensical (in an even more logic-impaired film). Plus, let’s face it; Taylor Kitsch cannot act.
I really don’t think that the Deadpool character was as poorly served as most of the fans out there are claiming. Take the key points of the character from the comics:
- Smart-ass mercenary
- Undergoes Weapon X procedure to get healing powers
- Ends up with horribly scarred skin and almost limitless healing factor
- Has a teleportation device
As we see Ryan Reynolds earlier in the film, he definitely has the merc with a mouth attitude. He definitely does undergo a government procedure that gives him the healing power. And his skin is most definitely messed up in the end.
As for the teleportation device, all we need to do is look at Spider-Man the movie to understand the thinking on this one. You’ll remember that they took Spidey’s web-shooters and made them an actual part of Peter Parkers biology; I submit that the same thought process is at work here. It’s easier to make it a mutant power solution, as established with the Wraith character, working within the framework of the script than to tack on a technological gimmick.
The €œsilent€ Deadpool part didn’t even bother me that much. Stryker clearly telegraphs this move in the assault in Africa when tells Wade he’d, €œBe the perfect soldier if you’d just shut your mouth.€ It seems natural that a sadist like Stryker would do just that when he had his opportunity. It’s also not beyond me to think that in a follow-up film, this Deadpool characterization would be so glad to be able to speak again that he would never shut up. It’s motivation to be more of a merc with a mouth.
The only part of Deadpool’s origin that wasn’t addressed in the film is the fact that he underwent the process in an attempt to stop the cancer that was rapidly killing him. Honestly, that part is unnecessary for this film anyway and could easily be shown/referred to in a Deadpool spinoff.
That leaves the whole €œWeapon XI€ situation. Yes, I thought it was goofy, but not unnecessary. The script they wrote left them no choice, really, but I’ll get to that in a minute. I’m fully prepared to let the moviemakers have a mulligan on this aspect of Deadpool. Heresy, I know, but here’s my justification: the doctors tell Stryker that he is unstable before he unleashes him on Wolverine. In comics, or comic book movies, that’s your get out of jail free card. It’s the equivalent of showing a gun in the first act. With one line of dialogue, you can write out the eye beams and even the teleportation if they want.
This is after all Comic Book Logic we are talking about.
In a world where Jean Grey becomes the Phoenix, then dies in the Blue area of the moon, only to be found at the bottom of the Hudson Bay alive because that wasn’t her, just a manifestation of the Phoenix Force using her as a template, only to die and then come back again€¦
Or a world where Captain America’s sidekick Bucky was blown up stopping a bomber in the last days of WWII only to find out that he was fished out of the icy waters by Russian soldiers, brainwashed and given a cybernetic arm, then keep in cryogenic freeze only to be revived periodically through the years as the Winter Soldier to conduct covert assassinations for the Soviet government until finally regaining his memory in 2006€¦
Well, I hope you get my point. To argue that that doesn’t make any sense when healing factors and weather control does seems a bit silly to me. If they say those powers didn’t stick, I’ll go with it.
There are two traps that I feel the screenwriters fell into that really hurt this film: (1) feeling the need for a €œBig Bad€ or €œBoss Level€ villain and (2) attempting to make the story too tight and self-contained.
The writers undercut Sabretooth as a possibility for the epic villain for the final set piece. Being that Victor and Logan are brothers and we are shown not only them growing up together, but they also have three other fight scenes with each other throughout the film. To make the last fight scene as big and very the top as these movies seem to need, there’s no way it could have been Sabretooth. Likewise, there’s no way that the moviemakers would introduce a new character that late into the film. By process of elimination, Deadpool would be the likely candidate. Unfortunately the screenwriters wrote themselves into a corner in that he needed to be something more threatening for Logan and Victor to take one.
You can almost see the pieces falling into place: he needs more powers, from the Taskforce X group, also captive mutants to steal them from (optic blast), now we need to write Cyclops into the script, Victor needs to track them down and kill them, he’ll come into conflict with Wolverine, they need Wolverine’s healing factor€¦ and so on. The film has it’s own logic in cause and effect. It’s not a good or particularly elegant script, but I can at least understand the hows and whys of the thinking.
The second trap that screenwriters fall into, and frankly I can’t understand the need for, is the compulsion to make everything fit neatly together. Emma Frost just happens to be Silverfox’s sister. Cyclops escapes into the waiting arms of Xavier. Silverfox has Tactile Mind Control to explain her ability to control Wolvie. Sabretooth and Wolverine are brothers. Silverfox gave Wolverine his name. I could go on. There’s simply no need to create some of these connections out of whole cloth just because you feel the need to have a deeper motivation for your characters. Life is not that tidy and these films don’t need to be either.
Sabretooth doesn’t need to be Wolverine’s brother for a motivation. It can be as simple as the fact that they are too similar. Most predators will fight for territory or pack status and that’s all the motivation you need for Sabretooth.
In the end, Wolverine suffers from the same problems that plague a lot of latter iterations of Superhero genre films: trying to pack too many characters and storylines into a small amount of time to the detriment of story and character development. We as an audience would be better served by concentrating on good, solid storytelling rather than trying to make each additional film bigger and more bombastic than the last.
*ALL SPOILERS, YO, ALL THE TIME*
Okay, one thing that boggles my brain continually is this: the characterisation of Gambit is heavily realised from a movie character himself, so how hard can it really be to accurately depict him AS A MOVIE CHARACTER? Seriously.
If you want to know how Gambit’s supposed to be played just watch Dennis Quaid in The Big Easy because that’s clearly the main source of inspiration for the character.
Not to mention: what the hell was up with Gambit’s accent? As in, where the hell was it? And why play him as a young man in need of a mentor when he clearly wasn’t that guy ever – which is exactly why he and Logan constantly rubbed each other up the wrong way, btw.
Also the problem with this film is that it seems to think it needs to give the origin of every single character in it. Which is strange when they fail to show the same compunction for, say, each character’s powers. I mean, if one can go without saying the other is just as unnecessary or at least on a need to know for the plot only basis.
Do we really need to know Gambit’s real name straight away? Preserve the mystery, people. Gambit didn’t need to be included with an origin either it would have been more interesting if he knew the whearabouts of the island but what was never clear was how or why – because it would have made his motives entirely ambiguous (and kind of tied in to the Morlock storyline) and then if his outting proved successful he could have had his own origin film. Nuff said.
There was no need for Cyclops (Havok would have made more sense there, actually, with Cyclops only appearing with Professor X at the end) or Emma Frost (wtf, btw, WTF?) at all. And I’m glad Storm was cut for the same reasons.
Liev and Hugh did a great job embodying their characters – you didn’t doubt they were Victor or Logan respectively (impressive in itself, especially Liev) which is why the main narrative should have stuck with them. The whole psychic pre-Jean echo storyline was completely unnecessary. It would be like making up a proto-Rogue character just to justify *that* relationship in the X-Men movies.
That said, Daniel Henney as Agent Zero was fun in the eye candy stakes (BIG thanks for that, whoever decided to cast him) – and his acting wasn’t bad either (total hotness on all sides!).
The bit with the old couple was a little pointless because it was so short – it kind of reminded me a little of Superman – but again there was so little room for any development I wondered why they bothered.
Also, you create an indestructible being out of a guy who’s left your agency and told you to stick it on more than one occasion and you don’t have a back up plan in case he runs amok. AND you invite all your top personel along to watch it happen? I kept wondering why the didn’t just employ at least a giant magnetic chamber to keep Wolverine in place. It was almost as dumb as the General firing Stryker on his own turf (with NO entourage in case things got physical) while they were standing next to a tray of scalpels. Um, what?
Was there NO ONE guarding the base perimeter at all? Logan not only seems to walk right in on the operation on Weapon XI but he then walks out – and then back in? No electronic surveillance? Really? On an island designed to imprison mutants? Really?
And how exactly does Stryker ‘walk off’ the island when, you know, it’s an ISLAND – as in surrounded by water.
Followed by, how come Logan doesn’t sink when he’s dropped into large bodies of water? Can a healing factor cancel out drowning? And as mentioned above, I’m confused as to how adamantium claws stopped the optic beam from punching a hole through Logan’s chest. I’ll give you an immature Summers not being able to create a solid optic beam but not Weapon XI, and definitely NOT adamantium claws not even deflecting but somehow dissipating – for all practical purposes – a laser beam. Sorry but that doesn’t carry.
The actors realised the characters well but the script, editing/directing (50/50 on each), and some of the effects just let them down.
ONE main story would have been better than trying to tell several in one go. We really don’t need to know all the info because it’s more fan service than plot service and just bogs the whole endeavour down. The plot and the characterisation just didn’t feel organic enough because so much time was spent introducing elements that would have been better left out. So much so that it seemed stuff was merely thrown together to see what would stick and I think given how flawlessly Shreiber and Jackman portrayed their characters it was a let down to have the film itself not live up to their performances.
Overall 65% or 3 out of 5.
It would have been better if Gambit’s inclusion had been with the hope of giving HIM and origin movie – but they killed any mystery there and cast him poorly. His powers were well depicted though, so I’ll at least give them that. To whoever said that it would have been better to have Wraith and Logan remain paired up I agree. If Gambit had to be included at all it could have been only to gain information – fail – after which Gambit could have encountered Victor ambiguously. Forcing him to then find Logan (out of maybe a sense of conscience) and give him the information. The meaning of which could be fleshed out in Gambit’s own origin movie.
The only reason you’d want to explain every single character in one film is if you’re convinced you won’t have the chance again.
As for a Deadpool movie – do the forget this didn’t work when it was being forwarded as a Hannibal King spin off? Just let Reynolds play The Flash and call it a damned day. I could give a rat’s about Deadpool (and even if I did, he’d come a far second behind a properly realised Gambit).
Oh, and finally (really this time), how can you have a Wolverine movie with no beserker rage out? It needed to have a higher rating. Woverine’s just not a cuddly character – that’s the whole point of his personal dilemna – and emotional evolution. Please accept that. It’s like Victor was in it to sort of split Logan and Wolverine in two metaphorically. I mean I get it but it made more of Wolverine’s complexity external rather than internal which takes away from the character, imo. If there’s no darkness within then you just end up with a series of fight sequences with no internal resonance.