"The Acting and Action Sequences More Than Make Up For The Thin Story."
X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE REVIEW
By J.T. Johnson
Director: Gavin Hood
Writer: David Benioff
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Ryan Reynolds, Taylor Kitsch
"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" finally reveals the origins of the memory deprived mutant, Logan. The film explores his relationship with his half-brother, Victor Creed, a.k.a. Sabretooth. The film then follows Logan and Creed as they fight briefly with Team X and the movie eventually turns into a revenge story with Logan trying to track down his murderous half-brother. This is not before his former commanding officer, William Stryker, gives him an indestructible adamantium skeleton.
Bottom Line: the film is very well made and Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber turn in excellent performances as Wolverine and Sabretooth. The two share a great chemistry onscreen and, along with the other actors in the film, do a great job at keeping the audience involved despite the fact that the story moves a little too fast for comfort.
Schreiber does a particularly good job as a character that is not unlike Wolverine himself but has accepted his animal side as a natural part of his life. The actor also plays the character as someone who feels he has been betrayed by his younger brother and wants his revenge for the said betrayal. After watching the film, I could think of no one better for the role than Schreiber and even forgot that Tyler Mane played the character before in the first "X-Men" film.
Another actor of note is Danny Huston as William Stryker, a character originally played by Brian Cox in "X2: X-Men United." Like Ian McKellen's Magneto's hatred towards humans, the audience wants Stryker to get what's coming to him but yet they understand why he has a sort of love/hate relationship with mutants. Huston does a great job of portraying a distant respect towards those mutants who serve him yet not hesitating to kill those who are no longer useful to him. One cannot help but to see where this character will eventually end up.
Since the film is about Wolverine's origin story, it is only fair that the film stay focused on him. The other characters, beyond Sabretooth and Stryker, are only in the film briefly but they use their time well. This especially goes for Taylor Kitsch as Gambit. The character is only in a few scenes but Kitsch makes you like the guy instantly and uses all of his screen time to fullest extent.
The action scenes are a lot of fun to watch as well. Whether it is an assault on a diamond smuggler's tower or Wolverine trying to get away from humvees and helicopters, the audience will not be dissatisfied in the action department.
The special-effects department also did a bang up job with the effects ranging from a young Cyclop's out-of-control energy blasts to Gambit's kinetic energy blasts. There is also a great effects sequence involving the Three Mile Island where there was a nuclear meltdown back in 1979.
This film is not without problems, however. The last film in the franchise, "X-Men: The Last Stand" suffered from too many characters that left the story very thin with too much going on. This film's big flaw is that they try to squeeze way too many of Wolverine's specific points in time into one ninety-minute long film. This causes some of the scenes to go by way too fast and leave the audience feeling that they did not really get the full impact of some scenes.
Also, on a more personal note, my only real problem with the film is the fact that I know the "hardcore" fans will nit-pick the shit out of this film and give me a billion reasons why it sucks. They'll either bitch about something being missed from Wolverine's origin or think that they totally screwed up the Deadpool character. I make this personal note because I don't care about what the producers did or didn't include in the film. I understand that the "X-Men" universe is so big and broad that they cannot possibly include everything into a ninety-minute film. I thought they did a great job with what they had and the film itself works for me.
In the end, I thought the film was exciting and that the actors did an excellent job. The special-effects and action sequences were fun and this film is a great start to the 2009 summer season.
4 / 5 Stars - Very Good
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Maybe if they had made the flick into a 2 hour movie instead of 90 minutes, they would have been able to tell the story a bit better and raised the quality of the film. It was still fun to watch though.