Wolverine Movie review

X-men Origins: Wolverine

What better way to start off the summer than with a film adaptation of a Marvel Franchise? It’s no surprise that Marvel Entertainment is one of the reasons that superheroes have been back to mainstream is because Marvel has released million dollar blockbusters which people have absolutely dug up. From X-men to Spider-man to The Incredible Hulk and to finally Iron Man, Marvel has pushed the standard on what summer movies are supposed to be about. Not only have these films been great, they’ve been spectacular.

The reason these films do so well (with the exception of Daredevil, Elecktra and the Fantastic Four) isn’t the special effects or the explosions. Rather it’s the power pathos and humanity that makes these characters basically human. As Peter Parker once said, “Punch me; I bleed.” Thus, we do expect something fantastic from these movies.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is essentially a prequel to the X-men franchise where we finally get to learn about the rugged anti-hero, Logan. For three films, questions among questions were brought up about who was Wolverine, and how did he become as violent, yet honorable as he was? And finally, how did he lose his memory?

Well, X-Men Origins answers those questions, but doesn’t live up to the hype.

The set-up is simple. We see young James sick in bed when he hears shouts from downstairs. When he looks down, his father is slain before his very eyes, by none other than one of the drunk servants. Naturally when James kneels before his father’s corpse, he goes ballistic, grows bones between his knuckles and kills his assailant. He is, however, labeled a monster and runs away from home, only to have young Victor, the drunk’s son, join him on his departure.

There, we cut to a series of montages. James and Victor fight in every American War starting from WWI to Vietnam, thanks to being mutants and essentially immortal. However, Victor becomes increasingly more animalistic in the killings and even rebels. James stands by him, but become war criminals. Enter William Stryker, a government dog who recruits mutants to do their dirty work. But when James decides too many lives are being slaughtered, he quits.

After 6 years, Logan lives a simple life as a lumberjack in Canada. He lives happily with his girlfriend in their log cabin. However, Victor is hungry for blood and leaves a bloody corpse for Logan to find.

And thus, Wolverine swears vengeance.

Let’s start off with the latest. Wolverine had gotten a lot of bad publicity because a workprint leaked out to the internet. Thus, people had already gotten to see the movie sans the special effects. This caused a lot of bad heat because many people had complained of how bad the movie was while others stated they would wait until the graphics were finished. Having seen both, I would say this: the graphics do enhance the experience to a much larger degree but for the most part, the story remains the same.

Mainly, the story focuses on James seeing revenge for his beloved. Quite easily, Logan gets the most development in the story. Having a violent past, he is caught in-between man and animal. He walks a fine line which becomes blurred in his quest for revenge.

However, Logan seems to be the only one to get any development. The rest of the cast consist of his old team with their own individual powers. The problem here is that we barely get to know any of these characters and any of their situations. They’re more like cameos added in for the ‘cool’ factor rather than being a major player. Mainly, they basically point Logan to the direction he needs to go before the next action scene arrives.

And that’s basically the format for the movie. Each scene is that Logan finds an ally, the ally gives some info, Logan will get into fights and so on and so on. I don’t think it’s bad; granted the action scenes are pretty decent and a lot better than other movies in recent memory (Dragonball: Evolution for one). But as much as this is an action movie, this is also a prequel. That means it also has the movie has a duty to shed insight on Logan.

But what do we actually learn here that we haven’t already learned from the previous movies? That Logan values human life? That he isn’t an animal? For a person who’s lost all of his memory, Wolverine basically acts the same as his old personality. Not a vicious killer, just at time lost.

The movie doesn’t start out badly, but it quickly turns sour in the final act. Without giving anything away, there are a series of plot twists thrown as well as a fight scene that pushes believability to a very thin line. People will either buy it entirely or just shake their heads. I did the latter.

In conclusion, X-Men Origins: Wolverine isn’t as good as Iron Man was last summer. It shows a lot of cameos, a lot of action sequences but it all boils down to nilch. If you like a popcorn flick, hey go nuts. But, you might just be better off renting this flick.