One of the first movies to start the “super hero movie craze,” way back in 2000, was “X-Men” (followed shortly thereafter by “Spider-Man” in 2002, which really got it going). Arguably, the breakout star of “X-Men” was Hugh Jackman, who played the iconic role of Wolverine…and pretty damned well, by all accounts.
Well, after two more X-Men movies, they’d either killed off the most famous X-Men, or pissed off the stars enough that they weren’t going to return for another one…leaving the franchise-runners an interesting option: prequels. Thus begins a new series of movies under the “X-men Origins” heading, the first of which is “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (“X-Men Origins: Magneto” is currently in early production). Hugh Jackman was happy to reprise the role, and since the comic book hero, Wolverine, doesn’t really “age” in a traditional way, it wasn’t too big a stretch to have him act in a prequel.
The movie itself is loosely based on the “Weapon X” mini-series of Marvel Comics that essentially sought to explain how Wolverine was given his adamantium skeleton and claws (as they aren’t really a part of his mutant powers – they were grafted onto him in a particularly painful procedure referred to in “X2: X-Men United.” By “loosely,” I mean that William Stryker (the main bad guy) was in the comics, but never as the leader of the Weapon X program. The mutants that appear in the movie (including Deadpool and Agent Zero) were indeed involved in Weapon X, but not to the same extent as in the comic. Oh yeah, and Gambit…not so much in those series…
All that plot shenanigans aside, how was the movie? Well…it was alright…
The story mostly made sense…the effects were generally cool…and the fight scenes were pretty sweet… Hugh Jackman was mostly born to play Wolverine, and I can’t imagine anyone else in the role. The other characters, on the other hand, just weren’t in the movie all that much. Like, Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) was only in the movie for, like, 10 minutes. The actual history of Wolverine and his brother, Victor, was given during the credits rather than in a series of scenes. They compressed a relatively complex story into a two-hour time frame that probably should have been split into two movies, as they had to devote a lot of the time that could have been given to plot into fight scenes. Essentially, I just think the movie could have been a lot better (and garner higher reviews) if they developed the characters over a longer period of time. They just tried to do too much with a limited time-frame.
And while the effects were generally excellent, they really need to consider using actual claws on the close-up shots, ’cause those CGI claws only look good at a distance.
Anyway, even with all those qualms, I’m glad I saw it. It was a fun movie and I wasn’t expecting anything Oscar-worthy. If you liked the previous movies, you’ll probably like this (and I think this was better than “X-Men: The Last Stand,” if that means anything to you). I just hope they focus more on the story for the “Magneto” movie, as his story especially would be done a disservice to focus more on action sequences, rather than his life and friendship with Charles Xavier.
I agree. The movie was fun, but they tried to cram a lot of history and character development into 2 hours. I think they could’ve done a lot more with Logan’s past instead of the quick fast forward. And yea, Gambit? Ok… I will never understand why Hollywood screen writers can’t stay true to original plots. Look at the movie 300. Despite the side plot with the Queen and the Senate (had to make it feature length…), that movie was spot on, with almost every scene mimicked from the graphic novel. It’s not that tough. And then, for movies that change the plot, they really mess stuff up if they make a sequel. Anyway, I digress. I had fun with the movie and they could easily make a series like they did with Spiderman. The movie makes me want to go back home and get my comic book collection and re-read all my Wolverine comic books……….
Ok, so the more I think about the movie plot for Wolverine, the more I dislike it. I don’t like what they did Deathpool, although the extra bit at the end of the credits sounded cool. They didn’t do enough to convince you that there was a lot of memory manipulation with the Weapon X project. Silver Fox had the wrong mutant powers (and I don’t think she had a sister, but I could be wrong). I wonder if they’re going to quickly move to Wolverine’s time in Japan, and create story around the Muramasa Blade and the death of Sabertooth… Wolverine + Samurai = Super Awesome!
Oh, and not to mention, that they seemed to combine the characters of Dog Logan + Sabertooth and then Rose & Silver Fox. I mean back to my original post that hollywood can’t keep to an existing plot… they gotta make up, mash up and change characters. But they can redeem themselves with a good sequel.
Or how about this for the basis of a movie, from the Wolverine Marvel Universe page:
In the 2007 Transformers movie, a scratched wall makes someone say “Freddy Krueger ruined the place”. Then, Glen Whitmann (Anthony Anderson), said: “Freddy Krueger had four claws, and it’s three. It’s Wolverine!!!”. Wolverine would later interact with Transformers in New Avengers Transformers 1.
i actually thought this was the best X-Men movie yet produced. There was just too much cringe-worthy dialogue in the others, even the first one, for me to really be sold. I don’t really see the necessity of holding to a comic book plot, particularly as in the Marvel universe where there are explicitly alternate universes with different events, or even generally when plots get retconned and revised at the whim of whoever is currently writing a series.
my only real beef with the movie was that i thought they underplayed Deadpool a little bit. I didn’t need all that much more, but just a scene in the middle paralleling his Sabertooth encounter with Bradley’s would have made it flow a little better. they’re developing a spinoff movie for him, so putting too much emphasis on him over Wolverine would have been a mistake, i think.
and as for kind of glossing over the early Wolvie/Sabertooth interactions, i really don’t think they would have been all that interesting. the way they did it gives you a good sense of the initial closeness and the way they grew apart, but trying to include a bunch of stuff from the wars they fought in and such would have just ended up choppy and unpleasant, or excessively long.
and actually, their depiction of the Agent X team and their subsequent involvement with the Weapon X program was pretty spot on with the comic, only exception being the source of Deadpool’s name.
conclusion:
it was a well-acted, well-executed action movie, and i think that’s frankly a lot more enjoyable than a lot of the overly intellectual, proselytizing comic book movies that are more in vogue these days (Watchmen, anyone?).