Dull Wolverine Loses Its Edge
Jim Logan (Hugh Jackman) and Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) are half-brothers whose bonds have literally withstood the test of time. Blessed with the ability to heel from just about any wound and an aging process Rip Van Winkle would envy, this animalistic duo has seen their fair share of war and hardship the likes of which the rest of us can only imagine.
Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) bare their claws in 20th Century Fox's X-Men Origins: Wolverine
But after a mission with their new commander Capt. William Stryker (Danny Huston) goes horribly wrong, Logan has decided he’s had enough and leaves the military for a life cutting down trees somewhere in the Canadian northwest. Living with a sexy schoolteacher named Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins) who seems to be able to put his mind at ease with the slightest touch of her hand, all is well for the one-time soldier, nothing he can imagine ruining his idyllic good fortune.
That all changes when Victor decides he can’t live without his former partner by his side and enacts a bit of brutal vengeance upon Logan’s girlfriend. Reuniting with Stryker, an infuriated mutant allows himself to undergo a brutal transformation so he might be able to get vengeance for the wrongs done to him. Now responding to the name Wolverine, this former peaceful warrior has embraced his berserker inner rage, and no one, man or mutant, will stand between him and his bloodlust.
The only think anyone I talk to wants to know about X-Men Origins: Wolverine is whether or not this prequel is better than Brett Ratner’s fairly terrible X-Men: The Last Stand. The answer isn’t as easy as you would think. While elements here are certainly far superior to that 2006 box office smash, overall I find myself a bit more disgusted by this one. Say what you will, as bad as Ratner’s entry was it was hardly forgettable, a trait this Marvel Comics epic sadly has in spades.
Don’t get me wrong, the stuff that works here does so quite wonderfully. There’s a great chase sequence featuring Logan on a motorcycle where he ends up getting engaged by two Army vehicles, as well as an attack helicopter, that literally had me on the edge of my seat. I also loved the way the film introduces Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), a favorite character of comic readers fans have been clamoring since Bryan Singer’s 2000 original to see.
Best of all is a truly sensational opening credits sequence that ingeniously takes Logan and Victor from their juvenile beginning up through the start of their adult adventures here. It’s a glorious bit of shorthand, and director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi), working in spellbinding tandem with editors Nicolas De Toth (Live Free or Die Hard) and Megan Gill (Rendition), does a tremendous job of supplying copious amounts of needed information in the simplest of brushstrokes.
Unfortunately that’s really it as far as kudos are concerned. David Benioff (The Kite Runner) and Skip Woods’ (Hitman) screenplay is supremely stupid, so many supposedly ‘surprising’ twists so obviously telegraphed beforehand not a single one of them can even remotely be considered a shock. The whole last third is nearly a total waste of time and energy, the climactic bout atop a shutdown nuclear reactor tower about as thrilling as going through the tax professional section of the local phone book.
Topping it all off, other than those credits (which, come to think of it, it’s never a good sign when the best thing about your movie are the titles opening it) and that middle act chase the special effects border on being inexcusable. This film looks cheap and unfinished, and at times I felt like I was watching a particularly horrible video game instead a major Hollywood production. At times it’s even downright laughable, and as bad as the dialogue and the plotting got neither of them ever reached the level of irredeemable ineptitude as those visual effects.
In all fairness, both Jackman and Schreiber throw themselves into this with absolute abandon, the latter in particular crafting a complicated piece of sinister villainy the actual script only hints at. I also thought that Ryan Reynolds had a field day with his first act cameo, and if his character didn’t come to such a lame comeuppance I’d almost wish I could see an origin story just about him.
But by and large I personally couldn’t wait for X-Men Origins: Wolverine to come to an end. It is a movie that felt like it was made by a focus group committee, not by a passionate filmmaker (which based on his previous efforts Hood most assuredly is), and the only claws at this point I want to see or the ones ripping this disappointing mutant monstrosity to shreds.
Film Rating: êê (out of 4)
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