May 12, 2009
May 04, 2009
REVIEW: "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"
I was incredibly excited to see this movie because Wolverine has always been one of my favorite X-men (along with Gambit) and I enjoyed Hugh Jackman's depiction of the character in the first three movies. The inclusion of Gambit and Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson had me sold, I find Reynolds hilarious and have been a fan of him since he was on "Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place." I wound up catching a midnight showing at the Lumina in Southern Village and came out feeling pleased about the whole thing; sure it wasn't the greatest plot ever, the graphics were weak, but I had fun watching it and that all i really want from a summer action flick. I never thought Wolverine would be the next Dark Knight, maybe Iron Man, and yet I was somehow surpised by the negative reviews the movie received which has led me to question my original take of the movie.
There is no doubt in my mind that the action was great, I loved most of the fight scenes even though one of the biggest action sequences is plastered all over the trailers to the point where its really not as enjoyable when it comes up in the movie.
As much as I enjoyed the action the Special Effects seemed awful at times. Woverine's claws were apparently fake, especialy in the bathroom scene where Logan first tries them out. When Logan escapes the Weapon X base, the leap into the waterfall is clearly fake and looks greenscreened. Most of the effects around Gambit were poor to the point of ruining it for me, the bit where Logan is slicing through a fire escape that Gambit is standing seemed to sped up to a comedic effect giving the fight a campy feel which didn't fit the movie at all. Gambit's big scene where he leaps into the air and destroys a piece of the falling powerplant is so clearly CG its not even near believable. That being said most of the slow-mo effects were cool; like with Wade's acrobatic swordplay, Zero's gunplay, or the bits when Gambit plays with the deck of cards. I also enjoyed the effects in the fight between Wraith and Sabertooth and the final fight between Deadpool, Wolverine, and Sabertooth.
One of my biggest problems with the movie was the inclusion of many of the characters. Most of them are introduced quickly, see a small scene playout, and then are needless tacked on throughout the rest of the movie.Team X was awesome and thoroughly entertaining but are only in the film for about 20 minutes, I'd much rather have that time doubled than see the characters as they appear later in the movie. Logan's romance with Silverfox is supposed to be the driving factor behind his decision to become wolverine, and yet we only see a few minutes of this romance and get a cheesy story that supposed to be symbolic of a love that we never really see between the two. Gambit was my biggest dissapointment as he plays the role of gatekeeper and has no other reason for being in the movie, while Kitsch's depiction of Gambit was fine there was very little point to his inclusion other than to say, "hey wolverine, Stryker is over there." Liev Schreiber as Sabertooth made this a great movie for me, yeah the dialogue between Victor and Logan was cheesy but I totally bought it.
On top of all that the plot was awful; most of the major arcs were boring, many minor details left me wondering "Really?" and for a prequel to the X-Men series many parts of the film make it hard to see how this could fall into continuity with those films. I can make ammends with the fact that this is hollywood and they're only going to follow the comic books to a certain point, which allows me to accept the liberties they took with Deadpool. When you consider how the first X-men movie introduces Wolverine its hard to see how this film adds to that, the only case where I saw this movie succesfully set up something from the triology was the Ma & Pa scene where Logan gets his leather coat and motorcycle. As for the numerous head scratching thoughts about this movie, here are a few of my favorites:
Why is Will.I.Am dressed as a cowboy?
For such a violent movie, why wasn't there any blood?
Logan was a lumberjack? (thats not so much confusing, as it is awesomely badass)
Why was the Weapon X base somewhere completely different than where it was in the triology? (Logan jumps into a waterfall, as opposed to running out into the snow)
Why wouldn't you brainwash your ultimate killing machine beforehand?
Why did Gambit break up the fight between Logan and Victor, was he in a rush to be beaten up?
Why does Deadpool, the merc with the mouth, have no mouth? (Its understandable in the movie but makes no sense when compared to the comics)
The whole remote controlling of Deadpool seem absurd. Lets not even get into the stupidity of its execution but how could you not have taken some time to configure some preset commands?
Since when did Deadpool become Baraka from Mortal Kombat?
Stryker's big plan to eliminate Wolverine? Erase his memories with a special bullet, how does that make sense?
Besides adamantium can't cut through itself so how could an adamantium bullet pierce and adamantium skull?
All that being said, it could be worse. Ok, I don't really know how it could be worse but I did enjoy the film...until I started to think about it, so don't do that and you should have a good time.
There is no doubt in my mind that the action was great, I loved most of the fight scenes even though one of the biggest action sequences is plastered all over the trailers to the point where its really not as enjoyable when it comes up in the movie.
As much as I enjoyed the action the Special Effects seemed awful at times. Woverine's claws were apparently fake, especialy in the bathroom scene where Logan first tries them out. When Logan escapes the Weapon X base, the leap into the waterfall is clearly fake and looks greenscreened. Most of the effects around Gambit were poor to the point of ruining it for me, the bit where Logan is slicing through a fire escape that Gambit is standing seemed to sped up to a comedic effect giving the fight a campy feel which didn't fit the movie at all. Gambit's big scene where he leaps into the air and destroys a piece of the falling powerplant is so clearly CG its not even near believable. That being said most of the slow-mo effects were cool; like with Wade's acrobatic swordplay, Zero's gunplay, or the bits when Gambit plays with the deck of cards. I also enjoyed the effects in the fight between Wraith and Sabertooth and the final fight between Deadpool, Wolverine, and Sabertooth.
One of my biggest problems with the movie was the inclusion of many of the characters. Most of them are introduced quickly, see a small scene playout, and then are needless tacked on throughout the rest of the movie.Team X was awesome and thoroughly entertaining but are only in the film for about 20 minutes, I'd much rather have that time doubled than see the characters as they appear later in the movie. Logan's romance with Silverfox is supposed to be the driving factor behind his decision to become wolverine, and yet we only see a few minutes of this romance and get a cheesy story that supposed to be symbolic of a love that we never really see between the two. Gambit was my biggest dissapointment as he plays the role of gatekeeper and has no other reason for being in the movie, while Kitsch's depiction of Gambit was fine there was very little point to his inclusion other than to say, "hey wolverine, Stryker is over there." Liev Schreiber as Sabertooth made this a great movie for me, yeah the dialogue between Victor and Logan was cheesy but I totally bought it.
On top of all that the plot was awful; most of the major arcs were boring, many minor details left me wondering "Really?" and for a prequel to the X-Men series many parts of the film make it hard to see how this could fall into continuity with those films. I can make ammends with the fact that this is hollywood and they're only going to follow the comic books to a certain point, which allows me to accept the liberties they took with Deadpool. When you consider how the first X-men movie introduces Wolverine its hard to see how this film adds to that, the only case where I saw this movie succesfully set up something from the triology was the Ma & Pa scene where Logan gets his leather coat and motorcycle. As for the numerous head scratching thoughts about this movie, here are a few of my favorites:
Why is Will.I.Am dressed as a cowboy?
For such a violent movie, why wasn't there any blood?
Logan was a lumberjack? (thats not so much confusing, as it is awesomely badass)
Why was the Weapon X base somewhere completely different than where it was in the triology? (Logan jumps into a waterfall, as opposed to running out into the snow)
Why wouldn't you brainwash your ultimate killing machine beforehand?
Why did Gambit break up the fight between Logan and Victor, was he in a rush to be beaten up?
Why does Deadpool, the merc with the mouth, have no mouth? (Its understandable in the movie but makes no sense when compared to the comics)
The whole remote controlling of Deadpool seem absurd. Lets not even get into the stupidity of its execution but how could you not have taken some time to configure some preset commands?
Since when did Deadpool become Baraka from Mortal Kombat?
Stryker's big plan to eliminate Wolverine? Erase his memories with a special bullet, how does that make sense?
Besides adamantium can't cut through itself so how could an adamantium bullet pierce and adamantium skull?
All that being said, it could be worse. Ok, I don't really know how it could be worse but I did enjoy the film...until I started to think about it, so don't do that and you should have a good time.
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