X-Men Origins Wolverine Movie Review





			RETURN TO HOMEPAGE

X-MEN 4: CASHING IN ON WOLVERINE

I think I’m becoming a cinematic misanthrope. There’s a sort of disappointment gathering in the back of my mind every time I hear the following response, “Well, we shouldn’t expect it to have good characters or a story that makes sense.” Or, “People are just gonna see it for the effects.”

The question to this answer is something like, “Why doesn’t this movie create three-dimensional characters” Or, “Why don’t we want a great story for this movie?”

It’s like we’re all giving up; Throwing the towel in. We’re beat and it’s better to have something than nothing.

In this case, it’s better to have a Wolverine-as-the-main-character-X-Men-movie than no movie at all.

Overall, I don’t hate this movie, it was fun ride. I laughed, I cheered, but, I also wondered and imagined what could have been.

Let’ start this review by stating the obvious - of course there was going to be a Wolverine movie. Combined, the first three X-Men movies have made 1 billion 155 million dollars. And opening weekend for this one, worldwide, not counting Mexico because the Porky Pig Venereal Disease has closed theaters there, this prequel sequel made 160 more million.

So the question was never, will it be made? The question was, will it be good?

Let me ask you this right now, and answer right away, don’t think, just go with your instinct.

If Bryan Singer, writer/director of X-1 and X-2 had written and directed this, would it have been better?

Yes.

Of course!

Why? Because he has the vision and the filmmaking skills to take the comic book medium to the next level!

He knows how to make kick ass movies – I know he made Superman Returns, so he’s not perfect, but in the X-Men world, he’s 2 for 2.But, again, he wasn’t gonna

But, again, he wasn’t gonna be around for this, so what would we, as audience members, want for this to be a great movie?

Well, we’d need a good writer/director and actors involved.

Because this is a prequel sequel we’d want continuity in, so the stories established in the first three X-Men movies synced up with this one and we’d want surprises. Because the Wolverine backstory was a focus in the first two movies, and the lack of it in part 3 was a reason why that installment sucked. We’d want to learn a lot of cool new facts, and learn who John Logan was before he was Wolverine.

And, we want the actors from the X-Men movies back for this one.

And of course, we want amazing action! X-3 gave us a lot of Wolverine fighting and that was maybe the only good point about it, so to have an entire movie devoted to Wolverine means giving him a lot of set piece action moments….even though the challenge is, how different can they be?

I mean it’s a dude who basically has knives as weapons! How much variety can there be?

Let’s start with the actors – Hugh Jackman is back, of course, without him, there is no movie.

The second major role that, for me, needed to be played by the same actor, was Stryker, brought to life originally, by Brian Cox.

Why, why wasn’t he brought back here? Yeah, I know he’s old and this is a prequel, but couldn’t the effects department made him look young like they did in X-3 with Magneto and Xavior?

Danny Huston, the actor who took over the role, is a good actor, but you’re just sitting there thinking, why couldn’t they get Brian back?

This more is annoying than an animantium bullet lodged in the brain (more on that story point later).

There’s no way he’s gonna look like Brian in the future!

The other major character is Sabertooth, from X-1. In that movie he was played by Taylor Mane, the guy currently playing Michael Meyers in the rebooted Rob Zombie Halloween Series. Here it’s Lev Schreiber.

I understand why they chose a different actor. In X-Men Sabertooth is basically an idiot. He’s Frankenstein with claws and a beard. Lev Schreiber is a solid actor and he does a good job playing Sabertooth here, the major problem is that the continuity doesn’t match with the first movie!

Wouldn’t Sabertooth remember Wolverine when he attacks him? Wouldn’t he say, “Hey, before you kill me here by the Statue of Liberty, you should know, I’m your brother!”

In X-Men Sabertooth was probably the weakest character, here we basically have a reboot of a character, which, is done well enough, but without continuity respect.



			It’s only character continuity, no one will notice...or miss it.


		Prequel is French for “Anything in previous installments is subject to change.”

If they really wanted to make the audience happy, Tyler Mane would have came back as Sabertooth here and at the end, he would have lost his memory too. That way we could understand why he doesn’t say anything to his brother in the first movie and why he’s so passive with Magneto. This Sabertooth wouldn’t be bossed around by Magneto. This version is a rebel, a psychopath.

Other than that, everything is fine in the casting department.

So who is the director? A dude named Gavin Hood. Yeah, I don’t know him either, but when you look up his credits, you find a nice surprise. He directed Tsotsi. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film of 2005 and the Golden Globe for the same award in 2006.

He also directed Rendition, in 2007, a hardcore political drama.

So that’s awesome news. That’s actually a brave choice.

I’m always gonna vote that any genre should have a strong dramatic base at its core; in the writing and directing. So, when it comes to a director, if they’ve proven they know emotions, and the struggle between humans, then those are the filmmakers we need making would-be-blockbusters.

Then we get to the screenwriters. Here, there are two of them. David Benioff and Skip Woods.

David Benioff’s biggest movies have been 25^th hour, Troy, Stay and The Kite Runner. Skip Woods, has written Swordfish and Hitman, which is like finding out your surgeon used to be a Veterinarian.

Here is where we have to remind ourselves of an old movie making rule – a great director can’t make a great movie from a sh*tty script.

If the director can’t change the script, if he or she is forced to work with what’s on the page, it’s like an architect that has the materials and is forced to follow the designs. If the characters aren’t developed enough, if the story moves slowly, if the action is cliché, there’s nothing the director can do other than make it look good, it’s like trying to give Paris Hilton Mother Teresa’s personality by dressing her in a nun’s dirty robe. It’s like Weekend at Bernie’s, you can move the arms around and make him look alive, but when we analyze closely, we sense something’s not right, that a certain life force is missing.

This movie could have rocked if the script had been crafted better.

How could this have been messed up? There’s so much material to work with. You have the Weapon X comics, the origin story....it’s not like you’re going into a cave hoping to find some diamonds! Here, the diamonds are already gathered together! Here you’re just looking for the biggest, shiniest ones!

What we get instead are Cubic Zirconias.

This is where the movie fails.

And this is where we tell ourselves, like the battered girlfriend making excuses for her abusive boyfriend or husband, “It’s okay, it’s looks cool, there’s some good fighting, that’s good enough for me, I don’t need anything more. It’s not like this is gonna be nominated for an Oscar?”

No! No dammit!

It’s time for an intervention. You, me, WE deserve better.

I want you, all you movie lovers to look into a mirror and say, “I deserve better movies. I deserve better blockbusters!”

Why settle for less? Lord of the Rings:Return of the King won a sh*t load of Oscars. Star wars was nominated for Best Picture. Heath Ledger won an Oscar for playing a comic book villain. Sigourney Weaver was nominated for an Oscar for playing Ripley in Aliens…sci-fi/action movies can be great. They can be respected. So why don’t we want them to respect us?



	“Hi, we’re hot chicks with superpowers, but we also have character development.”

Wolverine’s already made its money back and will probably gross about $400 million before it makes a sh*tload more on DVD - why should Story Corp. give a 100% when they’re phoning it in and banking big time?

Let’s take a look at what could have been.

The most important ingredient of any story is the characters.

The more we understand them, the more we connect with them, the more we feel what they feel, the more any action means to them and us.

X-Men set up most of the characters really well in these terms, especially, Magneto and Rouge. X-2 did that for Wolverine, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Xavier and Stryker.

Here, it’s missing for everybody!

Let’s ask some questions : Why is Sabertooth such a psycho? Why does he enjoy killing so much? Why is Logan sympathetic? Why isn’t he like his brother?

In general, stories have a stronger impact on us if the characters we relate to go through some kind of a personal journey. So what’s Wolverine’s journey? He’s almost immortal, or he ages really really slowly. And bones pop out of his arms? What’ does he want in life? Saftey? Stabliity?

In the beginning of this movie he’s killed his father in a moment of rage? I don’t really know why in that opening sequence his real dad kills his fake dad, but it looks cool and it sets up some angst that never plays out. Maybe Wolverine sees Stryker as a father figure, so he’s inclined to listen to him.

What does John Logan need, want deep down emotionally? Same thing goes for his brother.

Then there’s the X-Team they join later. Ryan Reynolds plays Wade Wilson who becomes Deadpool. What’s up with his character? Ryan does a great job in the scenes he’s in. His sword attack in the gangster hideout got me cheering in the theater, but what does it mean later when he’s been transformed into Deadpool. Did he want to be more? Was it a choice, or was he forced? We don’t feel anything when he emerges as Deadpool and there’s no impact emotionally when he shows up to face Wolverine. This should be like Darth Vader and Obi-Wan….the student vs. the master, or some kind of a relationship like that.

If you’ve seen Terminator 2, when Arnold fought the T-1000 and got his ass kicked, didn’t you feel sad? How did James Cameron craft that? How did he make us feel for Arnold? Because of his relationship with John Conner!

And that’s missing here.

We don’t get confession cam moments with any of these characters. Wolverine bears his soul to no one, and as a result we don’t know him any more than we did in the first three movies.

Stryker too. Yeah, we know his son is f*#ked up and he killed Stryker’s wife so he’s pissed at all mutants, but can we see that and feel it instead of just being told about it? This is the worst way to convey that in filmmaking - telling us something we should be seeing and feeling.

He just goes around killing people like a machine…what’s going on inside of him?

Daniel Henney as Agent Zero is pretty bad ass. He’s an amazing marksman. But, again, I don’t give a sh*t about him. Yeah he’s a bad guy, but it would’ve been better to understand him a bit. To compare, why did we care about the commandos in Predator? How did the filmmakers make us care about each death?

In the X-men world, how great is it that we root for and against Magneto. We want to like him, we want him to be good, but at the same time he shows us his evil side and we have this great inner battle of not knowing where to stand, for him or against him. That’s great writing and filmmaking. If we can be conflicted about the bad guys, that’s interesting storytelling.

Here everyone just shows up to flash their powers on screen for a bit. Gambit is another one. I know Gamibit from the X-men cartoon back in the 90’s and didn’t he have the Cajun accent? It’ would have been nice to hear that.

But what’s his deal. All we get is his cards blowing stuff up and don’t know jack sh*t about him.

This becomes just an action special effects show up festival instead of an emotional experience like X-Men 2. Were we sad when Jean Grey sacrificed herself? Didn’t we cheer when Wolverine left Stryker to die? Why did we feel those things? Because Bryan Singer made sure we knew the characters and gave a sh*t about them.

Then there’s the cliché writing. There’s a moment when Sabertooth says, “Well, look what the cat dragged in.” Really?

Oh, and how many times does Wolverine scream at the sky?



				They look pretty bad ass. That’s all we know about these characters.



	*No superpowers, they look bad ass AND we actually care about them! How the F did the filmmakers of Predator* make that happen?**

I was laughing when he was holding Kyala a.k.a Sliverfox, who again is underwritten, all we know is she’s trying to save her sister…boooring….but that moment was soooo Revenge of the SIth….there needs to be a ban on that in movies for like the next 5 years.

And then there’s Wolverine fighting Sabertooth - why does every fight start with them running at each other?

And how about Deadpool a.k.a Weapon 11 – the minute I saw him on screen I thought, “Sh*t, it’s another case of the Darth Mauls - a great bad guy that needs more screen time, that we need to see fight more, before he’s killed off.”

What a waste of a character.

Horrible.

Yeah the fight on the nuclear reactor chimney was cool, the effects were great and we’ve never seen that before, but Deadpool needed more time.

I felt the same watching Spiderman 3 – Deadpool got the Venom treatment.

He shows up, finally, then disappears leaving us feeling like the partner in a one night stand that was expecting a call the next day…or at least breakfast the next morning.

We realize, “I just got f*#ked when I was expecting some sweet sweet love.”

For example, his mouth is shut, because in human form as Wade, he was a non-stop talker! Why wasn’t it set up that Stryker couldn’t stand him jabbering on and on? Basic screenwriting 101: set it up earlier, pay it off later, audience appreciates it.

And let’s not forget Wolverine visiting Superman’s farm. Old Midwestern folk find him and help him? Was that Uncle Ben from Spiderman? Cli-to-the-mutha-f*#kin-che….somebody rewrite this!

The action sequence with Agent Zero killing them is great, but it ends with the worn out hero-walks-at-the-screen-as-something-blows-up-in-the background-and-he-doesn’t-even-notice. Come on!

And what’s with Sliverfox telling Wolverine the story of the moon and sun and Wolverine….how telegraphed can that be!?

It was so out of the blue and it’s suppose to be this tender moment…it’s so forced, like ,”Okay audience, here’s why he chose the name.” I would have preferred him watching Red Dawn and cheering, “Wolverines!”

And then there’s the end, the teaser after the credits ending…right, because there are 2 I believe. I saw the one where Deadpool reached through the rubble and picks up his head and wishpers “shhhh.”

Oh f*#k no.

I laughed embarrassingly.

How Borat-showing-his-dinner-hosts-a-bag-of-his-sh*t awkward.

The other ending is better, wolverine in a bar in Japan. Obliviously a sequel set up.

Oh, and an animantium bullet?

Wouldn’t it just dent his Wolverine’s skull? They’re made of the same material! And if it’s in his brain, wouldn’t that hurt like forever and uh, jeez…I’m tired of asking 3^rd grader logic questions.




Kid Wolverine screams at the sky when he learns Tivo didn’t record his favorite show.


	Jumping at your opponent to start a fight never gets old.



		I forgot this dude’s name and superpower, but man, this shot looks pretty cool.

And how about another cliché….Silverfox has a chance to kill Stryker but instead says, “No, If I killed you, I wouldn’t be any better than you, so talk a walk.”

Time to scream at the sky right now, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

And why wasn’t the location of Logan’s transformation the same as X-2?

Let’s stop there.

It’s obvious this could’ve been great, but we have to settle for acceptable.

I don’t know about you, but when I encounter people and live through situations and drama I feel things, and I have some people in my life that I share those feelings with and I feel like a living, breathing experiencing, human being as a result.

After seeing this movie I feel disappointed, because the human-looking people on screen didn’t open themselves up, didn’t bare their souls.

Maybe there’s a movie mutation going on now; where characterization is fading and being replaced by spectacle, by pomp and circumstance.

There’s more to action movies than the action.

Remember that when you see a news report about soldiers dying in a war. When you hear the news, it doesn’t really affect you, but when the reporter visits the family and we see the affect of the death on people, when we learn who that solider was, then it hits us. And action movie should have bombs that thrill us viscerally as well as emotional bombs that wound our hearts.

Yes, movie technology has evolved, and it seems the more computers are used, the less the human influence is felt in these stories.

But as long as people are sitting in the theater watching, they’ll always want to connect.

The movies we remember will be the ones that share their pain. Here, Wolverine is incapable of doing that. Everything that hurts him disappears. There’s no evidence of his experiences on the outside, that’s all inside, but unfortunately, the camera is more focused on showing his cuts fade, than revealing the invisible scars of his soul.

If Toy Story can make us feel sad for Woody, If the 1986 animated Transformers movie can make us cry for Optimus and if we can care about Chewy, C-3PO, R2-D2 and the flying dog dragon from Never Ending Story, then a superhero movie made in 2009 where there are NO boundaries to the imagination can make us f*#king sad that Wolverine lost the love of his life AND the memory of her. How tragic.

But it doesn’t.

Because we keep telling ourselves, “Ah, that’s good enough.”


	The Movie Preview Critic rates X-Men Origins: Wolverine:


	*X-Men Origins: Wolverine’s PLACE IN MOVIE HISTORY:*

	C
	C

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