X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (2009)

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"Good intentions don't always result in the best outcomes. It's a mutant road trip that will either give you car sickness or have you ride shotgun."

*Spoilers

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not a horrible movie, but it does not live up to its full potential, either. It is fast paced, but often paced inefficiently, with one event after the other leading up to the somewhat familiar showdown in the film's climax. It's a story that looks good on paper, but when presented on screen obviously doesn't get the right treatment. It's a mutant road trip, and you're either along for the ride or the guy that was busy with more important things.

This first in possibly a long line of X-Men prequels tells the story of Wolverine(Hugh Jackman). The film kicks off with young Logan and his equally annoying brother, young Victor Creed, running off together, which leads into a gritty styled opening credits sequence covering the brothers in the heat of war. The two are eventually inducted into a mutant team put together by William Stryker(Danny Huston). When a mission goes haywire, Logan quits the team. Six years later, we find Logan has settled down with the hot Kayla Silverfox(Lynn Collins), until Victor(Liev Schreiber) returns for blood. Wolverine undergoes the Weapon X experiment and gets the shiny claws so he can unleash his rage on Victor and eventually Stryker.

While that sketchy plot synopsis sounds complex, the film is paced like a five year old with ADD decided to get behind the camera. What should be an epic adventure turns into a downgraded action movie with little interest in character development somewhere between Wolverine finding the love of his life dead, and a boxing match between Blob and Logan. It had a promising premise, but the movie fails to achieve greatness on par with other Marvel movies like Iron Man, Spider-Man 2, and X2: X-Men United. I realize that Wolverine is all about kicking ass and taking names, but that doesn't mean his "solo" movie needs to feel so rushed. It just doesn't have the charm and flow those movies had, even if it tries desperately. As far as Marvel summer films go, Wolverine doesn't stand a chance against Iron Man. Iron Man was successful because it had the right characters and the right development and those characters. Wolverine introduces characters you think you might like and kills them off as soon as you're starting to like them, making the point of their introduction feel, well, pointless.

Gavin Hood obviously had the right idea-set up Wolverine's childhood and wars, which will lead into the Weapon X program-but his intentions failed to produce the right outcomes during the majority of the film. What should have happened is more empshasis on the Weapon X program and Team X, with characters like Deadpool getting more screen time. I honestly think Gambit should have been held off for a sequel. He just doesn't fit in right in this movie and was introduced for the purpose that fans wanted to see him. Silverfox...well, I didn't care about her and Logan's relationship, just like I didn't really care for any other character in this movie(except Deadpool for what they did to him).

Hugh Jackman's return as the title character is a sigh of relief throughout the movie, as he still gives it his all after this being his fourth outing as everyone's favorite X-Man. Liev Scheiber is a far superior Victor Creed than Tyler Mane in X-Men, making Creed a cunning and vicious antagonist compred to Mane's brutish and dumb portrayal. Danny Huston does Stryker justice after Brian Cox had already done it with an older version in X2. As for the rest of the cast, it's a "take them or leave them" situation, since most of the characters either weren't needed, weren't interesting, or killed when they were getting interesting. will.i.am's acting debut is surprisingly not horrible and Kevin Durand's Blob is good for what we get of him, if you can pay attention to his small screen time while his neck fat jiggles with the slightest twitch...it's a really funny sight once Blob is presented in full Blobness.

Ryan Reynolds really is the perfect Deadpool even if he only shows up in the beginning of the film. The few witty lines of dialogue he has proves that he could carry the character well in a spin-off...if that's possible after the fuck up that is the "reveal" of this film. It's an interesting idea, and probably could have worked if they didn't achieve it through ruining the idea of Deadpool altogether...how is he able to sheathe those swords again? It's not like Wolverine where it's bone covered in adamantium...you can't just put swords in the guy's arm because he's Deadpool and hope people are content with it. It's just another example of the poor story options and writing done in this film. "Hey, this is a good idea...let's turn Deadpool into Weapon XI!" "Yes, that could work, but how do you explain the swords and how the hell would we be able to turn Deadpool into a spin-off?" "I don't know, but it's cool and I've run out of story options." I know that this is Wolverine's movie, but for fuck's sake...if you're going to include these characters, do them right or don't do them at all. And if you're going to change the characters, do THAT right...Wolverine does neither.

As for visuals, the scenery is beautiful, especially the film's climax, but a lot of shots are clearly CGI, i.e. planes(did I mention Gambit has a plane?) Also, apparently in Wolverine's world, mutants can leap really long distances even if that isn't in their immediate power range. It all feels too stylized to be taken seriously. Hood was most likely pressured by Fox into making the movie more family friendly, thus leading to the "action extravaganza."

In the end, X-Men Origins: Wolverine struggles to measure up to other comic book adaptations, which it tries to do. Unfortunately, it's more like Spider-Man 3: unneeded characters, bad pacing, and a big "team-up" at the end. It's not a horrible film, but it's not anything special either. It's a fun summer film, but, there's just nothing memorable about this movie, which is fitting, seeing as how the title character forgets about everything that happened.

Agent Vis's Verdict:

5 stars-Masterful 4.5-Outstanding 4-Impressive 3.5-Passable 3-Disappointing *2.5-Mediocre* 2-Below Average 1.5-Bad 1-Awful .5-Garbage 0-Unwatchable