What is a wolverine? So once upon a time superhero movies became popular again. From this new trend sprung three movies based on the popular Marvel super-team X-Men. These movies progressively decreased in quality and increased in box office returns. Naturally, a new Marvel superhero movie must now be pumped out for mass consumption every six months. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a spin-off from the X-Men series that details the origins of Wolverine, one of the X-Men's most popular heroes. It goes without saying that this movie is not at all faithful to the comic book story of Wolverine's origin and life, and is also nowhere near as entertaining. For a good comparison check out this article on IGN.
What is the deal with this movie? Ok, so Logan (Wolverine) and his life partner Victor (Dog, the equivalent of Sabretooth from the comics, who is really just the same as wolverine but with long fingernails instead of claws) are born in the late 18th/early 19th century. Through the opening credits (easily the best part of the movie) the pair progress through the wars of American history, presumably because violence is all they are good at, but do not age a day. After about two centuries, someone finally notices that these creepy guys regenerate all of their injuries and they are recruited for a special mutant team. After a brief stint with a bunch of equally boring powered mutants, Wolverine suddenly grows a conscience and deplores violence. Wolverine leaves the team for a life of peace and happiness amidst our neighbors to the north with his beautiful and not in the least bit suspicious girlfriend. There's only one hitch, Victor and his old boss aren't about to just let him walk away. Let predictability and disappointing special effects ensue!
I don't get what is so hard about... making a good superhero movie. The script and storyboard is practically handed to you in comic book form. Hand pick some of the cooler characters, throw an ungodly amount of money at the special effects, and try to minimize the opportunity the many inevitably bad actors have to distract the audience from all the action and flashing lights. Very simple formula for success, and yet Wolverine fails epically in each regard.Most disappointing cameo: Its a toss-up between Dominic Monaghan (i.e. the hobbit from Lord of the Rings that got to sleep with Evangeline Lilly) and Will.i.am (i.e. dude from that hip hop group Fergie was in). Dominic Monaghan plays Bolt, who has the riveting power to control electronics with his mind. They had a character like this in one of the X-Men movies who was properly relegated to a two second scene where he changed tv channels by blinking. Unfortunately, the most exciting thing D-Mon does in his eight minutes of screen time is turn a light bulb on. Awesome. Similarly, we have seen Will.i.am's powers in a previous X-Men movie as well. Not surprisingly, Nightcrawler did it ten times better in X2.
Who should see this movie? Someone I went to law school with not only sees every single superhero movie that comes out, but buys the DVD as well. He should see this movie because, well, he pretty much has to in order to keep the streak alive. The utter lack of cool superpowers (or at least the boring use thereof) prevents this movie from being enjoyable to even avid superhero movie-goers.
Genre Rating: 2 out of 5
Overall Rating: 1.5 out of 5
