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X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Bullet points in search of a story
2009
Review: May 9, 2009
Director: Gavid Hood
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Will I Am, Lynn Collins
If you want.
THE SETUP:
Origin story of Wolverine… not like anyone needed it, of course.
DISCUSSION:
I had heard such bad things about this I wasn’t really interested, but my friend really wanted to see it, and I certainly wasn’t unwilling. I had read a number of poor evaluations on IMDb, including one that said it was “worse than Van Helsing.” Now, we all know that it is scientifically impossible for any movie to be worse than Van Helsing, as that movie represents the absolute nadir below which no movie can pass. Nevertheless, comments like that make me want to see it! So see it we did.
We open in the Northwest Territories of Canada in 1845, even though Canada didn’t become a territory until decades later. There’s some disturbance downstairs and baby Wolverine grows his claws, but out of bone [it’s gross] and kills this guy in rage. Turns out that guy was his own daddy! This seems to have almost no significance to the film that follows. But he and his brother, Victor, vow to stick together through thick and thin. We then have the credits, where we see the brothers grown into Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber, fighting in all the major wars of the last century. We can see that Victor really gets off on killing, while Logan [that’s Wolverine] just kills people in a straightforward manner, like he’s told. Killing people that way is perfectly okay.
So one day this fellow Stryker recruits them to be part of his special all-mutant military unit, where they meet other minor character mutants, but Logan doesn’t want to be just an indiscriminate killing machine! So he walks away, runs off to Canada and marries someone. His wife is Kayla, and an average everyday conversation-starter for her is “Do you know why the earth misses the moon?” She gives him some stock chunk of Native American hokum, which is where he gets his name. During this scene he also wakes from a nightmare, mind all troubled, and she asks if he was dreaming of the war. “All the wars,” he says, weary, ragged soul, but then you think “Well wait a minute, didn’t he VOLUNTEER for not just the first war but apparently like six wars? And he was hating it the whole time, poor fellow?” Anyway, soon Kayla is dead, killed by Victor who has SUDDENLY come after his brother. This is the main motivating event of the story, Wolverine’s tragic love for sadly lost Kayla—and she was killed a mere 12 screen minutes after she was introduced. Logan is now mortal enemies with Victor because of his rude killing ways, and you’re like, “So you guys fought alongside each other as bosom buddies for over 100 YEARS and this issue never came up ONCE?” Nor has the movie given us any reason Logan’s feelings have changed. The story just lurches from bullet point to bullet point with the minimum connective material in between.
SPOILERS > > >
So Stryker shows up again, saying Victor is going around killing all the old members of the team Logan was on… for six minutes… and would he consider replacing his skeleton with adamantium and hunting him down? Oh sure, no prob. So Logan does, getting his metal skeleton and claws, and then he hears that Stryker wants to command him as his perfect weapon! So he breaks out and runs away! And he stays with this nice older couple! And they give him his leather jacket and motorcycle! But then they get killed when Stryker comes after Wolverine! Then he seeks out other mutants to bring down Stryker’s whole operation! And this leads to several fights! And finally they get to Three Mile Island, Stryker’s mutant weapon manufacturing facility!
"And IIIIIIIIIIII-EEEEE-IIIIIIIIIIIIIII Will Always Love You..."
So at the top secret facility that Wolverine easily walks into, he finds Stryker is almost done with Weapon XI [Wolverine is Weapon X], which combines all the qualities of the 10 mutants he’s made from. We also find out that Kayla [remember her? Logan’s wife for 12 minutes?] is still alive! She was paid to seduce Logan! So his whole marriage was a lie—not to mention his whole motivation this whole movie, and she probably made up that Native American booga-boo as well, that he, like a chump, named himself over. So in order for our hero not to be an X-Chump, they make it so that Kayla REALLY loved him, but has to fool him in order to save her sister, who is being held in a flimsy-lookin’ crate downstairs with a bunch of other mutants. He fights Victor, then they fight Weapon X, although stakes are low because we know everyone is pretty much indestructible. They kill Weapon X somewhat arbitrarily [clear these folks out and get the next paying customers in here!] then Logan gets shot with the magical memory-erasing bullets! These are the only thing that don’t merit some kind of cursory explanation, they just erase memories, no questions asked. So everything you just saw doesn’t matter a whit to the Wolverine we know from the previous movies, and apparently Victor is still out there but just leaving everyone alone. Maybe he got fat and opened an Italian restaurant on the Jersey Shore.
< < < SPOILERS END
So it ends, and you think “That wasn’t so bad!” because it did flash pretty pictures before your eyes and you could follow from scene to scene. Just like I could flash one of those toys that spins around so that a plastic egg opens up and reveals a monkey figure inside, and you’d be entertained and say “That wasn’t so bad!” But afterward you’d think about it and realize there wasn’t that much to it. And then you might think a little more and say “Wow, there was almost NOTHING to it.”
It’s just kind of a series of events without much thought as to whether they all add up to something or make sense. He's fighting wars! Then he's on Styker's team! Then he's against Stryker's team! Then he re-joins Stryker's team! Then he gets his new skelton! Then he re-quits Stryker's team! Then he's on the run! Then he comes to fight! It just lurches from plot point to plot point, and lacks anything more than action, so any of the character interest or the larger social resonance of being a mutant or the larger, real-life social issues it raises, or even the personal depth of either of the Bryan Singer X-Men films is LONG GONE. This is definitely not one for the fans—this is one for the box office grosses. Most of the reviews by fans express disappointment that some of their most beloved characters show up in very small roles and vanish soon after, making it more frustrating than if they’d never shown up at all. And you know what? There’s not much more to say about this movie. Because there’s so little to it.
I would say the more you love X-Men the less you’ll want to see this movie, because it’ll only make you angry. And I wouldn’t like you when you’re angry.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
No, you should probably clean your room instead.
