Sunday, May 3, 2009

Extra Credit Post 1: New Wolverine Movie is Unimpressive

Warning: This blog post contains spoilers for the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie.

The extent of my X-Men knowledge was limited to the few episodes of X-Men: Evolution I watched when I was younger. I never read any of the comics or even watched any of the movies in the trilogy so I didn't know what to expect when I went to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine yesterday at the movie theater. I went hoping to be impressed. To see something that would draw me into the Marvel Universe and spark my interest in X-Men. The movie failed to do that completely. The best movies are the ones that draw you in emotionally and keep you on the edge of your seat, but X-Men Origins was one of the most predictable movie I have seen in a while.

Within minutes of the movie's start, Wolverine as a child kills both the man he thinks is his father and his true father. He and his brother, also a mutant, make a pact to stick together and they fight together through all of the major american wars. So begins the life of an anti-hero. After being arrested for killing an officer and failing to be executed, the brothers are offered an alternative to prison by Colonel Stryker who has started a special military unit comprised of mutants. Working for Stryker is a grisly business though, so eventually Wolverine decides he has had enough and leaves not only the unit, but his brother as well. Fast forward to five years later, Wolverine has created a new life for himself complete with a job as a logger, a girlfriend, and a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Then the trouble begins. Wolverine's girlfriend is murdered and, hungry for revenge, he goes back to Stryker for help. The help he offers is in the form of a painful operation that makes Wolverine indestructible.

The rest of the movie is basically a series of action sequences as Wolverine hunts down his brother and Stryker to exact his revenge. I thought all of the dialogue was repetitive, with people either reminding Wolverine he can be good or Wolverine going on about how he's an animal and is out for blood. And surprise! Near the end of the movie it is revealed that not only was his girlfriend not killed but she's also a mutant, something I had guessed the moment of her first appearance in the movie.

Hugh Jackman's portrayal as Wolverine was as lackluster as the rest of the movie. From what I had heard and based on the opening sequence, he was obviously supposed to be a deeply troubled character who yearned for normalcy and contentment. From what his girlfriend had said to him, he was also supposed to be someone who was capable of being a decent person and a complete animal, but if it wasn't for all the times it was said throughout the movie I would never have known. He even failed to seem all that hungry for revenge which is what made up the majority of the movie. To be honest, Jackman just seemed really grumpy.

The ending was quick and fairly anti-climatic. Another action sequence and the two brothers even go so far as to make up, or something like it, which made very little sense to me after the rest of the movie. Overall, X-Men Origins came across as a movie made to milk the X-Men franchise for all it's worth. It isn't one I would want to see again or would recommend to any of my friends.

1 comment:

  1. The first two-and-a-half X-Men movies were good. This one was.... You said it well.

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