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1.05.09 # Review # 13 Comments
The X-Men Origins: Wolverine reviews have arrived. Will the critics have their claws out?
Despite the leaking of the Wolverine workprint, advance ticket sales at one key internet site are outpacing Iron Man by three to one.
Zack Snyder and Bryan Singer both turned down the movie. Liev Schreiber was originally asked to play Stryker, but preferred Sabertooth.
Here’s what the movie critics are saying -
“A keen disappointment as action and effects take over from a poorly conceived story. …There is very little soul-searching in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” – almost none, in fact, as Jackman is constantly in motion, with a scowl being as close to deep thought as the movie goes… Everything gets scarificed on the altar of speed. You hardly get any chance to take the measure of any mutant.”
Variety -
“..Apparently set in the 1970s, though one would have to read the press materials to realize this… dull-witted actioner… perfectly good action… flat, shopworn comic relief… Bears all the marks of a work for hire, conceived and executed with a big budget but little imagination – an exception being the intriguing production design for Stryker’s island compound.”
“it just about scrapes through as being enjoyable, loud, banging, daft multiplex entertainment. …veers noticeably in tone throughout… The thrilling finale is thanks largely to a pumped-up Liev Schreiber, gratuitously evil as Wolverine’s bad-ass brother Victor/Sabretooth.”
X-Men Origins: Wolverine currently holds a 37% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 160 reviews.
Leave your own X-Men Origins: Wolverine reviews in the comments.
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Wolverine Review
Rule number one of interesting cinematic characters: never ever, ever explain their backstory. It ruined the mighty Hannibal Lecter, crushed the faceless Michael Myers and broke the back of the mythical Norman Bates. Now it’s Hugh Jackman’s turn to bury his most famous character in the film he starred in and produced, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
The film begins in 1845, with a young James Logan and brother Victor deciding to go on the run after the death of their fake father and Logan’s murder of their real father. The scene then shifts to a mesmerising montage of images during the opening credits as Victor (now grown up into Liev Schreiber) and Logan (Jackman) take part in every major war from the American Civil War to Vietnam. It is here that Victor’s love of death and mayhem overcomes him and the two immortal mutants are charged with milling a senior officer.
Of course, that doesn’t do the job and so a young William Stryker (the always excellent Danny Huston) pays them a visit, offering to put them on his special forces team. Naturally, this team consists entirely of mutants – teleporting John Wraith (rapper Will.I.Am), a not-yet-blobby Blob (Lost’s Kevin Durand), Katana-wielding Deadpool (the underused Ryan Reynolds), psychic Bolt (Lost’s Dominic Monaghan) and crackshot Agent Zero (Daniel Henney – star of several Korean films).
The superhero team go off to Africa, to try and hunt down the source of adamantium, a rare metal that landed in meteorite form. It is here that Logan decides to split from the group and live his life how he wants to.
Six years later and Logan is living with Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins) as a lumberjack in Canada. All this changes, however, when Stryker reappears to warn Logan that Victor has murdered Bolt and is coming for the old team. Logan ignores the warning and so when Victor savagely murders Kayla, Logan goes out for blood – becoming Weapon X in the process.
It might seem like the entire film has been spoiled for you, but it hasn’t. The summary above is just the first thirty minutes alone, and failure to follow it will lead to you missing most of the film.
It’s frustratingly predictable and completely un-heroic. This is an action movie that throws a handful of mutants in right at the end. Taylor Kitsch’s Gambit is horribly wasted, appearing for fifteen minutes, with Kitsch not even bothering to put on the Cajun accent. Emma Frost makes her long-awaited screen appearance… for all of five minutes. Deadpool is finally activated… for an awful climax that takes up excruciatingly little time.
There are plot holes all over the place. Stryker decides not to erase Wolverine’s memories before making him indestructible. The properties of an adamantium bullet range wildly, without warning, from being able to kill Wolverine to just erasing his memories. Agent Zero is the crackshot trooper, yet is not given the adamantium weapons. A huge deal is made of Deadpool’s failure to bond properly before activation, but nothing happens about it.
It seems that most of the budget for the film went into filming incredible locations, which would explain the occasional shoddiness of the CGI – and when your action movie is mostly fuelled by CGI, you want it to look good.
But what’s most surprising is how much CGI is wasted. Emma Frost’s diamond skin is unnecessary screen time. Cyclops rips through buildings twice… with no consequence. Time and money is even spent on animating mutant children, like Toad, Quicksilver, but nothing is done with their powers.
All in all, that’s what this is: a waste. An origin story that seems to have ignored all the cool parts of Wolverine’s past. Does anyone honestly care where his biker jacket came from? Or what happened the first time he popped his metal claws?
It’s a real shame that so much time and money has been put into this film when it doesn’t achieve anything. By the end, the only thing you know is that Liev Schreiber is a much better Sabertooth than Taylor Mane, and that maybe, just maybe, Wolverine would be a far cooler superhero if we still knew as much as he does of his past.
2/5
It was a interesting movie. The action scenes were good. He did seem to be screwed ever since meeting Stryker. Never could get away. His brother was well done, with a huge appetite for carnage was very good. Although there are some disappointments, but the movie wasn’t a terrible movie. Not that good of a movie, but not horribly bad either. More of your in between film but of course if your a die hard X – Men fan, you wouldn’t care of what other people thought of the movie. Only happy that they are still making them.
If they could, I would like to see their little interpretation of X-Men Origins: Jean Gray the Pheonix, possibly leading up to a X-Men 4. They can’t possibly leave that cliff hanger ending at the end of part 3.
A possible story about Cyclops origins would also be interesting to here how his story started.
Adam Mason –
I suggest reading the Marvel Comic Wolverine – Origin. It explains much more clearly the first portion of the movie, some of which your review got partially wrong.
Wolverine’s name is James Howlett, not James Logan. The man who murdered James ‘fake’ father was Thomas Logan (his real father). The young boy that runs away with James is his half brother, Dog Logan (the comic is not clear on whether or not this is Victor Creed, but the movie has it as such, as Dog grows up to be Victor). The end credits refer to the young boy as ‘Dog’ as well.
What other cool parts of Wolverine’s past are you referring to? His time in Madripoor? Teaming up with Captain America and Nick Fury during World War II? While these could have added to the film, these are just footnotes in his life (large footnotes, but footnotes nonetheless).
The major highlights of his life up until he joined the X-Men were few and far between (the Weapon X facility being the main one).
While the movie does not explain everything as clearly as the comic books do, learning Wolverine’s origin does not make him less cooler. If you haven’t already done so, pick up some of the comics dealing with Wolverine’s past, believe me, he’ll be just as cool afterwards.
I am a bit of a closet comic book fan and have always liked the wolverine comics. When I watched this movie it wasn’t so much the backstory that caused the problem with me (Comic books tend to have many different universes with rehashed character backgrounds). My problem was the tried to fit in too much of his life in one movie.
The movie was moving too fast and cutting so fast you didn’t really get to connect or understand the characters. There was way too much in this movie and the way they showed deadpool was overkill (movie executives sticking their noses in maybe).
Sabretooth seemed too tame towards wolverine as well and throwing in all the characters at the end was way too much. This movie was screaming ‘Watch me I have lots of explosions to cover the fact I have no real story’
This wasn’t dark enough it was aimed too much towards preteens, it should have been more dark knight than batman and robin. I really wanted to like this movie but couldn’t help to think they rushed it just to make as much money as possible.
Like comic book movies wait for Iron Man 2
I would like to start by stating “I don’t read comic books”.
I am a big fan of the X-Men movies and this is no exception. However, the style of this film is quite different to the original trilogy. This film is really fast paced with hardly any breathing space in-between major scenes. This helps to keep the action moving along, exposing all of the cool abilities of the mutants who are already confident with their powers. Indoor scenes are kept to a minimum so explosions and chase scenes make full use of the open spaces.
It’s great to see a fresh batch of mutants. I was very impressed with Gambit (I always thought he was lame in the cartoons)and Wade Wilson was very cool, I’m hoping we see a lot more of that character in other films. You do get to see a couple of familiar faces, including the dorky-as-ever Cyclops and a quick flash of Professor X.
I was slightly disappointed with the scenes at the farmhouse. The elderly couple were too reminiscent of Spiderman’s Aunt May & Uncle Ben and Superman’s “parents”. They kept harping on about their son but we never found out what happened to him?!? Also, all of the locked up teen-mutant’s don’t really get much screen time but hopefully they will make the “First Class” film about Charles Xavier’s first batch of X-Men. The timeline is slightly confusing. I think most of it was set in the 70s/80s but you couldn’t really tell. They could have made better use of music or costume to make it more apparent, or even put the year as a subtitle each time it jumped instead of the confusing “6 years later…”
Finally, the violence/fight scenes are very intense but not too graphic that it’s unsuitable for kids to watch, there are no awkward sex scenes either, I think it could have got away with being a PG really.
This is a great addition to the franchise that thankfully didn’t fall into the “Dark Knight” wanabee camp, keeping it entertaining for kids and adults alike.
Loved it! You guys need to get friends and see it with them instead of watching it alone.
I was bored and dissapointed. I understand that the movie was about Wolverine and his origins, so any other character not directly involved is not as important. That said, why show a prison full of mutant teens? Me thinks it is just a convenient way to get the good guys out of a tight plot hole. In reality, it seems to border on the X2 movie. Good guys discover bad guys dungeon of doom is filled with mutants and free them with no appreciable use of their characters.
I agree with the Uncle Ben/Aunt May, and Ma/Pa Kent comparisons. Talk about cliche’.
And the CGI of Wolverine popping his claws in front of the mirror made Star Wars: A New Hope blue screening look positively modern. If you are gonna spend the dough, hire editors for crying out loud.
Gambit is Cajun, yet you made his accent mid-western? And then you fail to even give him a little depth? The rest of the team from Candada also lost a lot after the first 30 minutes of the movie. In fact, the killing spree of those members seemed like a bad version of Kill Bill.
Not a movie to pay full price for.
First things first. As a long term fan of the X-Men and other Marvel comics I was always going to very critical of what they did with these movies. I wasnt a dead cert that I would love them. In fact I was fairly disappointed in Spiderman 1 and hated the subsequent ones.
The X-Men movies however are fantastic (unlike Fantastic Four which could have been renamed Below Average Four). The scripts have all been very good, the storylines have all been complex enough so as to not be predictable, the actors have all been well cast. It is very difficult to turn any comic book in movie for an audience that cant simply fill in any gaps in the backstory like a true fan can. I think the X-Men have done that job wonderfully.
Also for criticisms that a backstory ruins a character. What crap! Hannibal was great for a start and Wolverine showed plenty of his backstory and what has made him what he his. But what do people want to see, the first time Logan goes to the toilet, what grades he received in school, his ability to heal acne very quickly when he was a teenager.I mean seriously.
Even my girlfriend loved the film and she does not like comic books at all.
I agree with Thom above about the Dark Knight comment. With all due respect to Heath Ledger it his performance in that movie and that alone that kept me from walking out on it. It was boring, slow and way too long and could have ended many times until finally those wonderful credit began to roll.
I cant wait for the next one in the series whether it is X-Men 4 or Wolverine.
Keep up the great work.
I just love the movie man!!!its truly great and flawless movie….the main attraction for me was hugh jackman…who constantly kept my eyes glued to the movie….his marvelous performance is incomparable…i m in love with him and becaus of that i m in love with wolverine!!!
This movie could and should have been actually 3 movies, instead of trying to cram in all of Wolverines past into one movie. It would have been easy to shoot all the material at one time and brought out the movies one after the other. 2009, 2010, 2011.
The first movie should have focused on where Wolvering came from, his departure with Victor and their war stories. And it could have ended with both james and victor in the prison cell with Stryker coming in to offer them a deal. end.
The second movie should have dealt with the team that Stryker puts together and have them doing his wet-work. maybe have a mission to go against Hydra and introduce a few other mutant characters, maybe introduce Captain America briefly or others. Either way you have the movie come to its conclusion with the mission to Africa and the fallout that James has with the killing of innocents. He leaves with Victor screaming after him.
the end.
The third movie could start with James having his life outside the group as a lumberjack living with Silverfox. But maybe have a few of Strykers other mutants go after James to kill him. This doesn’t work so he sends in Victor, who by this time is now completely savage and actually have him kill Silverfox. Then he and James have that first battle and James gets the beat down. Stryker comes in and offers James the chance to beat Victor and basically end it the way that the movie ends now.
I’m leaving out a ton but you can see it would have been easier to do 3 movies at once and bring them out later, ala, lord of the rings.
Alot of things I noticed in the video im not sure how many others noticed but there was alot of stuff that wasnt removed that should have when your trying to make a movie that seems real.
I laughed alot when I saw some of the errors though. Some examples that ive seen so far only being 15 minutes into the movies ive noticed many CGI scenes undeveloped like when the guy with the duel weilding guns throws them in the air to reload it instantly goes into the CGI scene with all the polygons and no colors just greys and reds and stuff.
And when the guy with the duel swords after he jumps in the air after killing the guy in the room you can see the two wires that were holding him up and then after the camera went away and came back they were gone lmao. Thats all ive seen so far ill post if i see more i think its kinda funny but it does really make the movie look poorly budgeted.
@Jaxxy That’s what you get when you watch pirate copies
Okay, this has definitely got to be one of the greatest movies of all time and I absolutely loved it!! James howlett is crazy sexy hot and I am in love with him!!!