Warning — some spoilers ahead.
When I first heard the announcement that a Wolverine origins film was in production, my response was a resounding “eh”. At the time, I had thought that Wolverine’s origins had been sufficiently explained in the excellent “X2: X-Men United” (and, honestly, after watching “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”, I stand by this opinion). That being said, my hopes for this film were greatly raised after viewing the first trailer — and subsequently plummeted back to their initial low once the workprint leaked and poor word of mouth began spreading across the internet. But, I vowed to see “Wolverine” in theaters and make up my own mind about it. I have fulfilled this vow, and thus feel confident in my assessment that Wolverine is, you guessed it, a great big pile of steaming, stagnant cliché.
Now let me just say this up front — I love action films. Sometimes there can be nothing greater than watching one guy take on a bunch of woefully inept cronies, pulling off astounding acrobatics in midair while destroying a few miles’ worth of public and private property. It’s just fun. Yet, the joy from most action films I watch is that they know what they are and they deliver something fresh and memorable in a “holy crap do you remember when that dude did that thing in that movie” kind of way. “Wolverine” doesn’t seem to know what it is (or else, it tries too hard to be something it is not) and it does not deliver any new, imaginative action sequences. Rather, it seems to be just more of the same. So Agent Zero can shoot people from a couple of miles away? Seen it. So Deadpool can cut bullets in half in midair? Who cares? So Wolverine is walking toward the screen in slow motion while something explodes behind him? Really? Throughout the film, there are three fight scenes between Wolverine and his half-brother turned arch-nemesis Sabertooth — three fight scenes that deliver basically the same exact thing. Logan and Victor look at each other (insert some kind of “clever” line), charge at each other, then fight for much too long in hand-to-hand combat, stabbing each other and destroying everything around them.
Jaded fight scenes aside, there is little time spent giving depth to any of the characters in the film, which would normally be fine for a typical action film if it wasn’t for the fact that “Wolverine” obviously intends for the audience to be invested in these characters. The creative team attempts to portray the pain that is Wolverine’s woeful life. They fail in that they forget to give us any reason to care about Wolverine or his relationships with those around him. The death of Wolverine’s father (and also his biological father) happens literally a minute after these characters have been introduced. The audience knows only the most superficial knowledge about them, their situations, and their relationships — and subsequently no one cares when little kiddo Wolverine offs the man he didn’t know was his biological father with a bone claw to the gut. Likewise, the character of Victor Creed is throw at us as this blood-thirsty killer, with only a brief opening montage and a couple complaints from Wolverine to serve as any indication of change in Creed’s character (again, only superficial). We are not shown Victor’s evolution. Rather, we are shown the end product (a killing machine), and then given a “oh, by the way, he used to be a good guy, but now he’s just a big jerk” explanation. Since we never really get to see Wolverine and Sabertooth develop as brothers, their angsty fights mean nothing more than just another succession of punches. Wolverine’s girlfriend Kayla is introduced after a “Six Years Later” tag appears on the screen. As with Creed, we are given no time to see Wolverine and Kayla’s relationship develop. We are simply throw into the action and forced to accept that they are oh so happy living together in the mountains of Canada. (SPOILERS AHEAD) Then bam! She dies and the audience doesn’t care because no one has much invested in this relationship at all. Not only that, but when she returns at the end of the film in one of those clichéd “I’m working with the bad guys, but I’m only doing it because they’re threatening to hurt someone I love” scenarios that films seem to use to write themselves out of a hard spot, there is still no reason to care about her or her betrayal at all. Then she dies again (for real this time), and once more her death does not impact me in the least. I realize that this is an action film but, really, that is no excuse. If an action film wants to give characterizations (and “Wolverine” seems to have this desperate desire to do so) then they can. Take “Casino Royale”, for example. Bond is given a little bit of depth, and we see the development of his relationship with Vester so that I actually care when she drowns herself after betraying him. (SPOILERS END)
Beyond the lack of characterizations, there also seems to be a conscious effort to make “Wolverine” epic, but it’s continually undermined at every turn by the use of countless epic film clichés. As mentioned, there’s shots like the obligatory “walk away calmly from an explosion” shot. Then there’s the mandatory metaphoric story that’s sure to have some deeper meaning later. When Kayla tells Logan a story about a wolverine, it is hard not to groan. Also featured is the always useful “tie the plot into some real-life occurrence” device. Does the Three Mile Island catastrophe really need to be tied into Wolverine’s origin story, or does the reference simply cheapen the film by reminding the viewer they are watching a movie?
Some parts of the film are just plain silly. Wolverine actually boxes with the Blob — that’s right, he puts on red boxing gloves and they duke it out. Name explanations are forced upon the film in an offhanded and inorganic manner. Wolverine gets his from the corny, hit-yourself-over-the-head-with-metaphor story Kayla tells. The Blob mishears Wolverine when he calls him “Bub.” And, maybe the worst of all, Deadpool is named from a bunch of genes thrown together into a ‘pool’, which was used to make him a killing machine. Can you say ‘contrived’? Which brings me to the point of Deadpool and what utter nonsense his character is at the end of this film. As you may have gathered from the explanation concerning his name, Deadpool has been created from a bunch of mutant genes all put into one guy. That’s right, one of the ‘bad guys’ (named Stryker), has rounded up a bunch of mutants, takes their powers, and gives them to Deadpool. I’ll say this again just so that you can hear how utterly ridiculous this is: Stryker takes the powers of other mutants and gives them Deadpool. I know this is a movie, but the creative team couldn’t do better than that? Next comes the obvious problem of how Wolverine doesn’t remember any of this in the three subsequent films. Enter a deus-ex machina device! Wolverine’s body is made of an adamantium skeleton, right? Therefore, it is only logical that an adamantium bullet should completely erase his memory! It makes perfect sense, except for the part where it doesn’t. At all. It feels as if it has been thrown in because the writers got too lazy to think up something a bit less illogical. And the scene where the idea of this magical amnesia-inducing adamantium bullet is introduced reeks of “this scene is only here to provide exposition concerning a plot device”.
Finally, there’s the issue that some characters act just plain stupid, for no reason other than to further the plot. Why does Gambit leap in to fight Wolverine (who, it should be noted, is about to kill the guy that previously threw Gambit into a mutant prison), only to immediately cease fighting and trust Wolverine once Sabertooth has made it safely away? Why would Stryker — who knows full well Wolverine’s erratic nature — spend a couple billion making Wolverine indestructible if he was going to give up on him so easily? Oops, he’s running away, let’s just try to kill him. How about you track him down and try to talk some sense into him first before trying to blow him to smithereens. At least make it look like you care about the piles of taxpayers’ dollars you’ve just wasted making a man unkillable. And, too, if you’ve worked with Wolverine and know how fickle he is, why not have a backup plan on how to take him out in the inevitable event that things do not go according to your plan? Also, why does every single mutant in this film have amazing acrobatic abilities? Last time their physical capabilities were not enhanced unless it was directly related to their mutation. And yet, everyone seems to be uber-agile, bouncing off the walls.
At least some of the acting was enjoyable, not counting the sub-par Will. I. Am as John Wraith. Watching Hugh Jackman once more don the persona of Wolverine was, admittedly enjoyable. It was everything else that made the film uninteresting and bland. Basically, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” takes everything potentially interesting about the X-Men and presents it as typical, clichéd action fare that tries (and fails) to be something else entirely.
Awesome review. Agreed 100%.