X-Men Origins: Wolverine --- reviewed by Craig the Movie Geek
Dir: Gavin Hood Stars: Hugh Jackman, Liev Shrieber, Danny Houston Synopsis: Wolverine seeks revenge against Sabretooth and goes through the mutant Weapon X program. I went into Wolverine thinking it was going to be really, really bad, based on how bad the trailers looked. It wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it would be, but I had plenty of beef with it as well. The script is clichéd, sloppy and predictably, with more holes than a big ole’ block of swiss cheese. I don’t want to give too much away, but to give you an example of sloppy filmmaking: there’s a scene where a character named Gambit gets knocked out and is left lying on the ground in an alley about 3 feet from Wolverine. Wolverine tussles with Sabretooth for a few seconds, when suddenly, the shot switches to Gambit --- on a rooftop about 50 feet away as he runs toward them. How did he get 50 feet away and on a rooftop in a matter of seconds? This might sound like nitpicking, but if you’re not even taking the normal laws of reality seriously, then how can I suspend my disbelief when it comes to the more fantastical elements of the story? The X-men is firmly grounded in reality --- except the fact that they have powers. Just because they have powers, doesn’t mean it’s a silly world where ridiculous things can happen. Some filmmakers don’t take this world seriously. The ones who do, succeed --- like Chris Nolan’s Batman movies, Sam Raimi’s first two Spider-man movies, and even Jon Favreau’s Iron Man. If you treat it like a cartoon, you lose the depth of story and character. The other thing that bothers me about this movie is the same thing that bugs me about Hannibal Lector. Wolverine is meant to be a character whose background is shrouded in mystery. Its part of what makes him so cool! I think a solo Wolverine movie is a brilliant idea --- but the origin story was the worst way to handle it. It’s a short sighted money grab, just as it was when they started giving you background and origins on Hannibal Lector. Now these characters have been robbed of their mystique. They also change whatever they want from the source material for no good reason. It’s really too bad that they’ve dropped the ball on this, because Hugh Jackman does do a great job in this role. Anyway, a message to Hollywood from a guy that likes movies and comic books: There’s no secret to making a good comic book move --- take it seriously and respect the source material. Oh, and leave the fake looking wire fighting scenes to the chop socky movies. 2 and a Half Dorks out of 5 on the Geek-o-Meter.
