Movie Review: X-Men Origins Wolverine
Twentieth Century Fox Movie Stars Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber
Apr 30, 2009 Dominic von Riedemann
What went wrong with Fox/Marvel's X-Men Origins: Wolverine? Was it the loss of mastermind Bryan Singer, whose X-Men 2 was considered the finest comic book film adaptation until The Dark Knight appeared?
Or – considering the rumoured battles between director Gavin Hood and studio head Tom Rothman – was it a case of too many cooks sticking their fingers in the soup and turning it into an ugly mess?
Despite a mostly stellar cast (especially star Hugh Jackman), Wolverine plays too fast and loose with comic canon to appease fans, and introduces too many characters and plot-lines to suit regular moviegoers.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine Stars Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber and Will i Am
The film follows James Logan AKA Wolverine (Jackman), who discovers his mutant powers while growing up in 19th Century Canada. Along with his feral half-brother Victor Creed AKA Sabertooth (Schreiber), Logan battles in various wars through the 20th Century until Creed's unhealthy appetites land them in front of a firing squad.
Cue Colonel William Stryker (Danny Huston, replacing Brian Cox from X2) who recruits the terrible two for a Special Forces group, alongside mutants such as Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and John Wraith (Will i Am). This covert team serves both the US Government and Stryker's hidden agenda . . . and not necessarily in that order.
When the bloodletting gets too much for Logan, he runs off into the Canadian wilderness, snuggling with comely schoolteacher Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). But Creed and Stryker soon reappear in Logan's life: the first to kill Kayla, the other to make Logan an offer he can't refuse.
The newly-named Wolverine gets his adamantium skeleton and goes after his half-brother for revenge, while Stryker (pulling an inexplicable double-cross) sends mutant assassins after him.
Wolverine: Weak Story and Comic Characters Altered
X-Men fans will be outraged at what this film does to some of their favourite characters. Schreiber doesn't look or act anything like the traditional vision of Sabertooth. It's forgivable, considering his new origins, but his compelling feud with Logan is pushed to the back-burner in favour of a needlessly convoluted story involving the Weapon X Project.
Several other mutants are changed as well, and not for the better. A certain queenly telepath has her history altered, and her secondary power become her primary power (oh, and now she's one of the good guys, too). Ryan Reynold's Deadpool (possibly the most self-aware superhero in comics) is wasted both literally and figuratively in this film; Gambit is faithful to his comic roots, but actor Taylor Kitsch can't maintain a New Orleans accent.
Part of the problem is that Fox and Marvel want to cram as many mutant cameos into this film as possible, but don't know what to do with them. In a crucial jailbreak scene, many future X-Men stand about like bumps on a log, waiting for Logan to save them when they could instead be kicking butt.
Action movie fans will find the plot confusing: full of cool set pieces (Gambit, Sabertooth and Wolverine fight on a New Orleans street! Wolverine battles government agents aboard a Harley-Davidson!) but, without a coherent story to string them together, audiences will just get bored with all the crossing and double-crossing in the script. Not only that, the CGI looks surprisingly cheap for a film that reportedly cost upwards of $150 million to make.
On the plus side, Jackman once again makes Wolverine his own, while Schreiber, Huston and Will i Am acquit themselves well. But Jackman's considerable charisma, and the rest of the cast, simply isn't enough to sell this mess.
The Final Analysis
If X-Men Origins: Wolverine tanks at the box office, Fox and Marvel's natural impulse will be to blame the unknown scofflaws who pirated a rough version and posted it on the Net prior to the movie's release. But the cold reality is that it's not that good a film.
Between the cheap-looking effects, the overpopulated cast and plot-lines - plus the gratuitous liberties taken with those classic characters – X-Men Origins: Wolverine ends up less than the sum of its parts. It gets a 5/10.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine poster
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