The simple-minded X-Men movie
Written: May 13 '09 (Updated May 21 '09)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: well done action
Cons: paper-thin plot and generic dialogue
The Bottom Line: X-Men Origins: Wolverine is heavy on style, non-existant on substance. If you like that, hurry to this film. I was personally expecting more.
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| wrestler's Full Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine |
After watching the special effects extravaganza that is the opening of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, in which Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber fight and kill countless soldiers through at least three wars I can remember, the obvious struck me. Origins wastes no time telling you where it's going.
The movie follows a popular trend when it comes to keeping movie series alive: the prequel. As the title suggests, the film tells the story of how Wolverine came to be. It stars Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine and Liev Schreiber as his brother Victor, who later becomes Sabretooth. We find out several things about Logan. The movie begins during the two siblings' childhood. As a Canadian, I wince when I see that the movie says they live in Canada's Northwestern Territories in 1845, which would be cool, given the fact that Canada was founded in 1867 and the Northwest Territories in 1870.
I also love how they essentially became Americans in order to fight in all these wars, which makes one ask, by the way, if they fought these wars for kicks. Victor certainly gives you that feeling.
In any case, they find themselves out of favor with the army and locked up until a military man named General Stryker (Danny Huston) gives them a way out. They will get to "really serve their country," he says, visibly ignorant of the fact that they are Canadian.
Logan and Victor accept and they soon find themselves part of an unorthodox team of mutants that includes Dominic Monaghan from Lost and Lord of the Rings who looks lost here; Ryan Reynolds, who is his usual wisecracking self; and Will I Am, who raps like a fifth grader and acts like one too. They search around the world for something, exactly what isn't made clear until fairly late in the film. However, Stryker is very violent in his interrogation techniques, which prompts the remarkably humane Logan to get fed up, quit the team and retreat to life in the Canadian Rockies.
We join him a few years later. He now works as a lumberjack and has a pretty girlfriend named Kayla (Lynn Collins). However, all of it changes when Victor tracks him down and commits an action that turns the two brothers into rivals forever.
The film is well made. The special effects are extremely impressive and it's a good thing too, given how the movie expects them to carry its scenes. There is a lot of slick-looking devastation in the film and there is a moment in a school involving a young Cyclops that is just terrific.
However, the thing that becomes clear very quickly is that the plot is a necessary evil to this movie. It serves merely as transition between action scenes. This comes as a sharp contrast with the first two X-Men movies, which were interesting because they were character driven. X-Men is fascinating because it taught us of human nature, more specifically of the societal coexistence between very different people. Patrick Stewart's Professor Xavier and Sir Ian McKellen's Magneto were most interesting, because they illustrated the different ways in which one reacts to being an outcast.
With regards to depth, Origins doesn't even come close to its predecessors, or sequels, if you prefer. Its characters are paper-thin and their dialogue is, to be nice, less than inspired. In other words, even those who complain about the abundance of fight scenes and the lack of everything else will find themselves begging for another fight scene.
Wolverine works in X-Men because the supporting cast makes up for his lack of wit and charisma. Here he is alone and the role's flaws are exposed. Hugh Jackman, a handsome and likable actor, spends far too much time looking angry, firing threats between his teeth. Because of the absence of interaction with better-constructed characters, Wolverine regresses in this film. Hugh Jackman is reduced to flexing the muscles for all the ladies who'll let themselves be tempted by the film.
I enjoyed Schreiber's Victor/ Sabretooth more, but even he doesn't seem nasty enough to work completely. That's because he doesn't the kind of dialogue he needs either. The film doesn't care. It just wants to get to the fight as quickly as possible.
The film also introduces Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) in a part that has spin-off written all over it. His entry into the story feels forced, and he essentially is there to give Wolverine a plane ride. Why he wasn't there before is what I want to know. There are also sub-par plot moments such as the moment when Stryker sends team member Agent Zero after Wolverine. Why? So we get to watch Wolverine show off his new metallic claws while taking down a helicopter. Here's the catch: Agent Zero can fire off guns at the speed of light. Strange, isn't it, that General Stryker would only reveal the existence of bullets capable of hurting Wolverine only after the guy who can shoot off guns at light speed has been killed?
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not a bad film per se, but it's so incredibly inferior to the X-Men films that it feels like the cash grab that it is. And unfortunately, since Wolverine is amnesiac in the first X-Men movie, we know what happens at the end, don't we?
Recommended:
No
Movie Mood: Action Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Plot
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Epinions.com ID:
wrestler
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Member: Alexandre Turp
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Reviews written: 161
Trusted by: 18 members
About Me:
Evolution is all that matters.
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