Captain Zero (Wolverine)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Directed by Gavin Hood
Written by David Benioff and Skip Woods
As if X-Men 2 didn’t give you enough back story on the world’s most over exposed mutant since Dick Cheney, Marvel entertainment proudly brings you X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Yes we get two more hours on the psych couch analyzing Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine a.k.a. James Howlett a.k.a. the boy from Oz—Hugh Jackman. We get to see his deep motivations and careful soul searching as he struggles with his inner beast. Yeah okay, I’m gonna puke if I see Hugh Jackass screaming at the sky in one more fucking scene. Let me explain…
To be or not to be. That unfortunately seems to be the question as we move through Wolverine’s life from young boy to a really, really, really old man. We see a montage of Logan and his—as of this movie—half brother Sabretooth fighting in every war from the civil on up. We see them recruited for dastardly deeds by William Stryker, who was also the bad guy in X2. Of course, Wolverweenie gets an attack of conscience and quits, pissing off his brother and setting up all kinds of back and forth revenge. It all leads up to the Weapon X program—the people who brought you Wolverine’s metal skeleton. Along the way we get a whole lotta rushed and squeezed-in mutants—all to sell the next three movies. Wolvie’s original teammates under Stryker include the already mentioned Sabretooth. On a side note, fuck you spell-check that’s how Sabretooth is spelled. Anyways… we also get Wraith, the token teleporter, Fred Dukes/Blob, Agent Zero and everybody’s favorite merc with a mouth Deadpool. Pay close attention to the five minutes you get of that last character cause he’s getting his own movie. All in all it’s a terribly clichéd plot mix of origin and revenge. Two wrongs don’t make a right but it does get a 2 out of 4….
I’m ready for you fan boys. I expect some slack jaws will like Hugh Jackass but I’m telling you right now this guy sucks. I’d say it could be the dialogue that makes Wolverine seem as frightening as a box of kittens but looking at Jackman’s other roles I say otherwise. HUGH JACKMAN IS NOT AN ACTION HERO. That’s it. The rest of the cast, however, wasn’t bad. Taylor Kitsch as Gambit was great and for the short period of time Ryan Reynolds is in it he channels Deadpool spot on. Liev Schreiber surprised me as Sabretooth, as did Will i Am as Wraith, Danny Huston did fine as Stryker, and so did the rest of the cameo mutants. I’ll give it a 3 for acting with the weenie bringing it down the point….
Special effects were good and get a 4 out of 4. I’m ok with some of the goofy powers they gave characters for the movie. Action, however, well not so much. There’s a nice big “what the fuck” moment where Wolverine manages to launch himself off of a humvee and onto a FUCKING HELICOPTER. That was the worst but there are plenty of flying on wire scenes for all those who missed Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Another mediocre 2 out of 4 and I’m being generous. That brings this monument to apathy to a big overall 2.75. It’s not the worst but not close to best.
A note about that. It seemed to me this whole movie right up to the scenes after the credits was nothing more than a set up for the next set of movies. This seems to be the Marvel trend. It was cute when they did it with Iron Man and it made sense because it was only one scene to set up Avengers. With Wolverine, though its not likely, they’re setting up X4. This was a prequel that played like a 2-hour trailer for Deadpool, Gambit and Wolverine 2. Am I the only one bugged by this?
Review by Captain Zero