THE PLOT THUS FAR
Wolverine, fan favorite of the X-Men universe in both comic books and film, gets his own movie vehicle with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a tale that reaches way, way back into the hairy mutant’s story. Somewhere in the wilds of northwest Canada in the early 1800s, two boys grow up amid violence: half-brothers with very special powers. Eventually they will become the near-indestructible warriors (and victims of a super-secret government program) known as Wolverine and Sabretooth, played respectively by Hugh Jackman (returning to his role) and Liev Schreiber (new to the scene). It helps enormously to have Schreiber, an actor of brawny skills, as the showiest villain; the guy can put genuine menace into a vocal inflection or a shift of the eyes. Danny Huston is the sinister government operative whose experiments keep pullin’ Wolverine back in, Lynn Collins is the woman who shares a peaceful Canadian co-existence with our hero when he tries to drop out of the program, and Ryan Reynolds adds needed humor, at least for a while. The fast-paced early reels give an entertaining kick-off to the Wolverine saga, only to slow down when a proper plot must be put together–but isn’t that perpetually the problem with origin stories? And despite a cool setting, the grand finale is a little hemmed in by certain plot essentials that must be in place for the sequels, which may be why characters do nonsensical things. So, this one is fun while it lasts, if you’re not looking for a masterpiece, or an explanation for Wolverine’s facial grooming.
WHAT WE THOUGHT
The Wolverine of the X-Men Origins isnt exactly the charismatically cantankerous anti-hero that always made the character so popular. Hes still a pretty tough bastard and can offer up feral snarls when the occasion demands, but hes a generally bit more of a pussycat here, equipped with wisecracks that veer much closer to 80s action kiss offs when he’s not crying and dashes of farce that reek of lazy comedy. But this isnt Gavin Hoods biggest problem; the very nature of this prequel means an end to the mystery of this enigmatic characters history, and its for this reason in part that Wolverine is ultimately a largely underwhelming film.
Whatever ways Wolverines backstory has been told before Im told its never been particularly satisfying, how could it though? Like the smoke monster in Lost, the less I see the more Im fascinated. And so in that sense this movie was always going to be a big ask unless it was really nailed it in terms of character, but in the absence of that kind of depth the only other direction to go in is the big budget action flick route which Hood has blithely pursued with the watchful eyes of Fox peering over his shoulder and no doubt second guessing the films direction at every stage of production.
We know that its possible to make a great comic book movie that focuses on a single compelling character, just see The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan), Spider-man 2 (Sam Raimi) and I would add Unbreakable (M. Night Shyamalan) into that mix. But instead of taking a few leafs out of the pages of these films, Hood and the screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods (brought on to revise the script) merely copied their playbook from the existing X-Men movies and Heroes when this should have been a much more personal film. Instead theyve gone Epic, rammed as many Colourful Characters into the 107-minute runtime as possible and diluted any moments of interesting personal development by punctuating them with some sort of explosion. It doesnt take long to realise that this film is about as deep as a your average hipster.
There are many things to say about this, let’s begin with the fact that clearly David Benioff is not cut out for writing action movies, first Troy and now Wolverine. Look the writing here is not terrible, but it is frequently poor, filled with exposition and clunky one-liners. That for a start just lowers the tone of everything to the point at which it felt like I was watching melodrama with family intrigue, revenge plots and a puke-inducing love story that wasnt remotely believable. Theres a moment where were learn where Wolverine picked up his name from and I realised I was daydreaming about something completely different so meandering is the dialogue in the scene.
The Blu-Ray comes with a ton of deleted scenes and featurettes. You also get opposing commentaries from director Gavin Hood and the producers. Classic comic creators Stan Lee and Len Wein get a chance to talk about the creation of Wolverine and his importance to Marvel Comics as a whole. Throw on reference quality DTS-HD audio and visuals for a great release. There’s also a digital copy, plus you get a BR BonusView. Getting a chance to see the film in Pre-Viz mode almost helps to make sense of the less than stellar FX. Still, I’d recommend it for a cautious buy.
RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW!
