Against my better judgment, I went to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine last night, and I have to admit I didn't think it was nearly as bad as some have claimed. Is it good? No, of course not. Is it better than X-Men 3 and Spider Man 3? By a long shot.
What surprised me about this movie, in fact, was just how close it came to being good. You could tell that there was a pretty serious, Wolverine and Sabertooth story buried under too many characters and a terribly executed plot. I was expecting a movie with no redeeming values at all--literally, I said when I sat down to watch it that "I fully expect this to end up in my bottom ten of all time." And yet there was ALMOST a movie here. Liev Schreiber was a perfect choice for Sabertooth, and I've always thought Jackman was perfect for Wolverine. In a better story, these two could have been absolutely stunning together.
I even liked the inclusion of Gambit here, though it remains a crime against nature that Josh Holloway never played the character. (He was supposed to play Gambit in X3, but supposedly turned it down because it was too close to Sawyer. Which makes sense.) Taylor Kitsch does an okay job with the part, and other than the missing New Orleans accent I liked the take on the character, but I really wish he would have been in either the whole movie as Wolvie's sidekick or else just in a small cameo. As it is it feels like the filmmakers never really knew what to do with him, and his presense seems unjustified. Gambit makes a great sidekick to Wolverine, but they needed to set him up a lot better than they did.
The worst part is unfortunately the story. The original script was probably a simple revenge plot, which could have worked just fine. Instead we get unecessary plot twists, an overabundance of cameos, and general incoherence. A particular "shocking revelation" at the start of the 3rd act had most people in my theater rolling their eyes, and pretty much killed any motivation Wolverine may have had to begin with. There are great moments, particuarly the opening credits and almost any scene with Wolverine and Sabertooth, but on the whole there's nothing driving the movie forward, only a series of action sequences held together by a common theme: Wolverine fighting.
The X-Men have been my favorite superheroes (behind Batman, obviously) since I was in 5th grade, and so here's what the 11 year old kid in me got from the movie: Wolverine vs. Gambit, Wolverine vs. The Blob, Wolverine vs. Sabertooth, Wolverine vs. Deadpool, and Wolverine vs. a helicopter. All the rest is just window dressing. I'm not saying Wolverine doesn't deserve a good movie (as far as I'm concerned, there hasn't been a really good X-Men movie yet) but I had some fun with this movie despite its flaws. Nothing has ever come close to capturing the spirit of the X-Men the way the 90s cartoon series did, and most likely nothing ever will. It's just too big a universe for a 120 minute movie.
So let's be clear. Wolverine isn't very good. The story is a mess, the effects are rushed, and the characters have no motivation. It's just not nearly so bad as people have said. There are plenty of worse movies out there (right now I'm watching Van Helsing on TV). I think it's far better than something like the 2 hour nap that was Transformers, for example, and yet that garbage seems to have gotten a free pass, while this garbage is torn apart. Ah well, there's no justice in the world.
Wolverine would probably make a great video game. There's some great fights and a skeleton of a plot. They should just recut the movie as a series of cut scenes in some kind of excellent video game (actually, I hear the game based on the movie is suprisingly good). Otherwise we're just left with a very forgettable, but not terrible, movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment