The Summer Movie Blockbusters have begun and I actually got to see the first one on time. In some ways I almost wish I had been a little late. I knew going in that Wolverine was getting bad reviews and that most critics believed it to be lacking what some may call a plot. But I thought what the hell, I'll take a chance. Wolverine ended the weekend at 87 million but, honestly, I think they could have made 80 million if Hugh Jackman ran half naked through the movie just yelling with his eyebrow slightly raised. Cause that's almost what this was.
This is supposed to be Wolverine's big origin story about Weapon X and when he was born and so forth. We see Wolvie as a cub, for some un-explainable reason, he is ill and his father, who looks like Hugh Jackman, is concerned. In less than a minute there is an arguement and some guy, who kind of looks like Liev Schreiber, has apparently killed Wolvie's pop and acknowledges that the guy dead on the ground, who looks like Hugh Jackman, is actually not Wolverine's father. --Huh?-- Little Wolvie is so angry that he stabs to death his new found daddy with his bony claws and runs off with his new brother, the stable boy, Victor. Begin war montage now. This has to be the most convuluted and idiotic origin I have ever seen. What was the purpose of any of this other than to establish that Wolverine and Sabertooth, aka. Victor Creed, are brothers. I know they cribbed that from Wolverine's Origin comic book but my question is why? There is a larger story there but I guess they weren't interested in telling that story in detail. Which is the overall problem with this movie they tell bits and pieces of stories from the comics but never fully flesh them out to have them make sense in the context of the film. Which brings me back to the war montage--it looked kind of cool--Civil War, World War 1, WW2, Vietnam -- but was that it, is that all they have done with their immortality? What did they do between wars?
I will say most of the action pieces were entertaining but given that almost everyone fighting is un-killable it kind of takes the suspense out of the scenes. Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool was really fun--for the ten minutes he was on screen. And I won't go into the mess they make of his character near the end of the film. Of course we get to see the young William Stryker (Danny Huston) spend billions of dollars making Wolverine indestructable then quickly turning on him after the operation with the intent to kill. Again, wha? What was the point of spending all of that money on Adamantium if you weren't gonna let him use it? In the end it was a showcase of characters you recognize from the comics, all thrown in for shits and giggles, but given nothing of real substance to do. The Blob (Kevin Durand), John Wraith (Will.i.Am), Emma Frost/White Queen (Tahyna Tozzi), Cyclops (Tim Pocock), Silver Fox/Kayla (Lynn Collins), Bolt (Dominic Monaghan), Zero (Daniel Henney) and Gambit (Taylor Kitsch). We got to see a hint of their power so we can say oh, yeah cool mark him/her off the list and then we move on. This is not how they should be making comic book movies. I would have thought Producer Hugh Jackman would have at least understood this. The crazy thing about the whole endeavor is that I really enjoyed Sabertooth/Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) in fact he was the bright spot of the whole movie. The only problem -- how does this version of Victor Creed fit into the continuity of the other films? As my friend Cody pointed out to me -- Liev is way smaller than Tyler Mane from the first movie and of course looks nothing like him. But Tyler Mane's Sabertooth was a brutish idiot who spoke two lines. Wolverine's Sabertooth was brutal sure but he didn't seem like a fool--not to mention he was a little blabby. In my humble opinion they should have just re-booted the X-series. Start out fresh and tell the story right for Christ-sakes. From the looks of the after-credit scenes it looks like they will be re-visiting Wolverine in Japan--could be cool just this time keep out the mutants that don't belong there ok.
If you are looking for some mindless action and some pretty so-so special effects go and see Wolverine. If you are in any way invested in the character or the previous films I would avoid it like the plague because you will be disappointed.
Grade 2 and a half buckets
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