X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Review

Funny thing I heard earlier, the movie should have been called "Wolverine and the Amazing Technicolor Magic Laser Repelling Claws".

So I'm probably going to catch a lot of crap for this review, but I don't care. From day one of hearing about trouble on the set and terrible script reviews, rewrites, and then the horrendous opinions based on the leaked work print and the trailers I'd seen, all i could say was that it looked like a train wreck. In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a complete X-men fan boy as far as the comics go, I usually defer to others when asked questions about the comics. I am however an unabashed fan of the first 2 films and a much lesser extent the rushed third film. So i know the movie stuff and am kinda not too up on the comic book continuity so I will not be addressing that in this review other than for things i know of.

I walked into the film with such low expectations that i was pleasantly surprised by the film. The review will kind of read like a shit sandwich, something good, something bad, something good. What I was looking forward to most in the film was Deadpool, I really like the character and was glad he was being included. Ryan Reynolds was perfect as Wade Wilson for the five minutes or so he was on screen. The casting was a stroke of genius that just did not pan out well for Deadpool fans, we wanted more! Cool thing number two, Gambit. I was most worried about Gambit thinking they were going to have him with some silly Cajun accent. However I was not disappointed with Gambit other than when he turned into Spider-Man for a brief moment. I don't know if other New Orleanians were worried about this but he actually sounded like he was from New Orleans. Props to Taylor Kitsch for pulling it off.

Sabretooth, Liev Shriber is an amazing actor and a comic book dork apparently so I had no concerns that he was not going to be awesome. Will.I.Am was a pleasant surprise as Wraith in the film and I would look forward to seeing him act again. Kevin Durand is a big sumbitch before putting the Blob makeup on and he was fairly funny in his small role. Hugh Jackman was once again great as Wolverine. Danny Huston as Stryker was really not to great for me. I know the man is a capable actor but i just don't think he was right here. It is hard to step into the shoes of Bryan Cox so I'll give him that.

The film itself however suffers from having all of these great characters, it stretched far to thin trying to give all of them screen time when in reality I would have been happier with a smaller Gambit cameo with perhaps a promise of a Gambit centered film at some point. This is where the film suffers, When the team is together at the beginning of the film its amazing. Once they separate and Wolvie turns into a sad lumberjack with his lady who is just far to understanding of him waking with nightmares of the civil war and sprouting his bone claws for Wolvie to not realize something isn't right with her. Once the action is off and running however there were no more boring moments. The script was just plain weak and there were things you could see were not really thought out before adding them in and they were are very simple fixes but came off as playing to a stupid audience. The adamantium bullets BS, being the only thing that can stop Wolverine? Where the hell did they come up with that retardery? The end of the film having "Deadpool" being the experimental mutant with all of the mutant powers was incredibly silly but i got past it. I can buy no physics exsisting in this dojo when Wolvie is slicing and dicing moving helicopters and humvees, but i cant help but think the deflection of fake ass Deadpool's laser eyes was a bit much. Call me crazy right?

The biggest problem I think i have with the film is that it had such promise to be amazing and stopped at just existing. It is a film i will own on DVD because I am a completionist, but i would not revisit it very often. I am of the opinion however that the hate being raked all over the film is mostly unwarranted. I've heard people call it the worst movie they've ever seen, the worst comic book movie they have ever seen. I counter that they have obviously not seen the 1989 iteration of "The Punisher" or that they simply have not seen many movies. It is far from the worst movie I've seen this year but i don't hold very much regard for it being one of the best. It simply is, which is the worst sin this film could have made.

I sincerely hope that Marvel can somehow get the rights to the characters back from Fox and make their own versions of their own characters instead of letting Fox keep treating them like red headed stepchildren with a lot of money. They only exist when they need cash. On top of this Fox's continued bungling of Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and Ghost Rider should be more than enough reason for any comic book film fan to be calling for the heads of the studio suits who treat us as though we're satisfied with the movies just existing, and not being as great as they could possibly be.

Bottom Line: If you're a hardcore X-men fan, wait on going to see it, if you're a fan of the movies expect less quality. If you want big dumb superhero action movie, by all means go see it in theaters.

Until next time guys.

I may be revisiting this review as I think about and talk about the film more.