X-Men Origins: Wolverine

NEEEEEERD RAAAAAAAAAGE!

Comic book movies have come a long way since the Adam West Batman movie, which I am guessing was among the very first, gave the world a glimpse of a chubbier, more inept caped crusader than they had grown to love in the comic books. Reeve's Superman was the true breakthrough into the mainstream, which would be followed years later by the successful Tim Burton Batman duology. Marvel's first step into the industry came with 2000's X-Men, and its success paved the way two sequels and, now, a prequel.

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Hugh Jackman's Wolverine was undoubtedly the most popular aspect of those films, so making an entire movie based on how he got to be so snippy with everybody was sure money. Judging from early box-office returns, it was, but does that mean the movie was any good? More importantly, are you as the reader insulted that I would rhetorically ask you such a ridiculous question when I have obviously set this up to be a negative review? If you answered yes to either question I'm going to have to ask you to go to somewhere else. I heard that Michelle Malkin is in the process of cleansing her blog (ethnically) so that could be fun to read about.

I'll start by saying that Wolverine isn't a bad movie, it's just stupid. A bad movie implies to me that I walked out of the theater red-faced with anger out of wasting 2-3 hours of my life, only to be soothed when I come home to a six-pack of Guiness and a handful of rainbow-colored goldfish crackers (how can you be angry after a meal like that!). No, I walked out of the movie with a smile, but not the kind of smile the director had intended me to have.

The film begins by showing a pre-adolescent Logan sick in his bed in the Northwest Territories of Canada circa 1845. I honestly always thought this region was filled large bearded men wearing flannel shirts boasting incomprehensible accents who merely exist to cut down, then burn timber as they are surreptitiously filmed by Canada's desperate Ministry of Tourism. Not so in the world of X-Men, as Logan's father not only has a proper London accent, but lives in a well-carpeted mansion! Anyway, tragedy occurs and Logan is cast out along with his brother Victor (Liev Schreiber). Then we see a montage of them fighting in several American conflicts from the Civil War to Vietnam, puzzling none of their comrades as to why they are jumping twenty feet in the air like a bunch of loonies.

Later on, Logan and Victor are recruited by the bad guy, who tries to mimic the bad guy in X-Men 2 who was played by the guy who played Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter, the character of which was later featured in Silence of the Lambs in which Pat McNamara played a sheriff WHO ALSO STARRED IN SLEEPERS WITH KEVIN BACON. So this bad guy, Stryker, leads a bunch of mutants into Africa to collect a meteorite and kill some civilians along the way. Logan suddenly discovers that killing is bad and runs away. The majority of the rest of the movie involves Victor and Logan yelling at each other, and fighting each other over and over again with no result. At the end, SPOILERS, Wolverine loses his memory making the whole movie pointless anyway

Sure, there are other guys. Will.I.am plays a dude who can teleport around who dies because he is dumb. Too bad for him, "My Humps" exists and therefore he will never be taken seriously. The dreamy (he totally is) Ryan Reynolds plays a fast-talking sword-meister, who is the best character in the movie. Naturally he is given a total of five lines before, tragically, his mouth is literally sewn shut. Lynn Collins exists to be pretty and pretend to have feelings for Logan, which I never bought for a second. Gambit is there, but minus the accent that makes him awesome, and mainstays like Cyclops and Professor X appear too.

What you gonna do wit dat mutant junk all up in yo mutant trunk?

This movie could have been good, if the cast was trimmed and if it was given a plot. Instead, there are scenes where Logan literally cuts a fire escape down piece by piece, flailing his arms like a deranged cartoon character merely to get to the guy who sits atop it. With the exception of the finale, fight scenes are filmed using quick cuts that show nothing but a face getting punched or an abdomen getting slashed, which avoids the need for complicated choreography routines ala the Star Wars prequels.

Similarly, character development is done in a way which assumes that we as the viewer are to automatically insert emotional attachment into emotionless people. I was supposed to feel some sort of remorse for Wolverine's troubled life when he lets out his primal scream for the fifth time in as many minutes, but all that I really felt was hunger for more of that delicious Mexican food I ate two hours earlier. In the end, I did walk out of the theater smiling. Charades are supposed to be funny aren't they?