Sat, May 2 2009 | Published in Reviews

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Reviewed!

By: FilmShaft Staff

wolverine-reviewed-headerThere’s been a lot of crap flying in Wolverine’s direction in the past couple of days, and whilst some of it is justified, some of it also reeks of “jumping on the bandwagon”. Well, you’ll find no bandwagons here, just a level headed, objective review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Find out more below!

Plot

Popular X-Men character Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), is a member of an elite military squadron, lead by the wholly unscrupulous William Stryker. But when he tries to break away from his violent past and settle down with his one true love, his past comes back to haunt him in the worst way imaginable. Now, on a mission to avenge the death of his lover, Wolverine hunts down his sadistic half brother Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber), only to discover that they have both become pawns in a game far bigger and darker than they could have imagined.

Review

Following the disastrous instalment that was X-Men: The Last Stand, I had very low expectations of this film from the beginning. Because of that I believe, I was thoroughly surprised to find myself watching an action packed, enjoyable entry for the X-Men universe.

Whilst it must be said that Fox are guilty on some level of including characters without rhyme or reason (Gambit anyone?), all in all the film made a decent effort at trying to claw back some of the respect earned from “X-Men” and “X2” (pun intended).

Hugh Jackman reprised his role as the feral mutant outcast “Logan” with relative ease, and despite what some critics have said, I believe he did so very successfully. Watching his character evolve into the man we would come to recognise as the brutal cage fighter from the opening scenes in “X-Men” was a joy to behold, only stifled from time-to-time by the lack of chemistry between Wolverine and Silverfox (Lynn Collins).

Whilst on the subject of chemistry, it must be said that Liev Schreiber’s turn as Sabretooth was damn near note perfect. The on-screen battles between Jackman and Schreiber were without a doubt the highlight of the film, and delivered scenes that fans have been waiting to see since forever. The only question that remains is how does Schreiber’s wicked character go from being a sadistic narcissist to the dumb, hairy mute found in 2000’s “X-Men”.

The primary shortcoming of this movie and the main point of contention for so many film critics is the sheer number of characters battling for screen time in the 107 minute production. Whilst certain mutants in the story are entirely necessary in order to tell Wolverine’s tale properly, others have seemingly been thrown in simply to satisfy fans that are still pissed off from the last film. Ironically, it’s because of that very fact that the last film failed to satisfy so miserably.

Three such examples I’ll highlight here are Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), Emma Frost (Tahyna Tozzi) and Scott Summers (Scott Summers).

Gambit is a character that X-Men fans have been screaming for since the first movie was announced in the 90’s, and that seems to be the only reason he’s been included here at all. Rather than alluding to the characters complex back-story, Gambit is reduced to a supportive, semi-comic role as an escapee and a bit of a poker player. Emma Frost, known to X-Fans as the White Queen, is portrayed in the film more as a “beige princess,” with little or no real contribution to the story at all. Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, appears as a ham-handed way for Fox and producer Laura Schuler Donner to shoehorn us into the planned “X-Men: First Class” franchise.

That, and the clunky CGI have all added up to wholly negative reviews of the film, but I implore you not to let such minor issues take away from what this film does deliver.

What does it deliver? Sheer unbridled entertainment, from beginning to end.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a film divided. On one side you have the fan-friendly plot, and on the other you have the business minded studio execs, each butting heads with one another. Whilst it’d be true to say that all in all Wolverine delivers what it set out to do, I’m also mindful of the fact that the studio have had to make huge sacrifices in the character’s story in order to clumsily fit this film in with the X-Men trilogy.

That being said, I believe that Wolverine is a thoroughly enjoyable instalment in the X-Men franchise.

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

From ORIGINAL SHARP SAYS…

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  • Anonymous
    yeah colbert metioned that on how movies are destroying the world. he was listing wolvs powers and said that he had the power to make everything behind him explode
  • Nomad
    i wondered sometimes (like during any of the explosion scenes) if the producers were trying to make fun of their own movie, or maybe the superhero genre in general
  • David B
    ..I meant 15 to 20 minutes longer...
  • David B
    ..I meant 15 to 20 minutes longer...
  • David B
    Nice rebuttal Craig. But I disagree. X2 left us with many threads that needed continuing in X3 - the government's change of stance on mutants, the return of Jean Grey, and Magneto's war. In order for Magneto to want war, he needed motivating into action (the cure). The cure and Jean Grey were dovetailed together - Magneto accuses Xavier of wanting to give Jean the cure (via psychic power blocks), Jean sides with Magneto because she doesn't want controlling or curing in the same way that Magneto doesn't want controlling or curing. The movie's main flaw was its length, in not being 15-120mins longer. But X1 and X2 left their main issues unexplored as much if not more - we didn't get to see the societal impact of the mutant registration act in X1, we didn't get to see the impact of Cerebro targeting the world's humans in X2. How did the world react to being targeted, did many people die - who knows? In X3 we did at least see a wider world, a socio-political stance. In X2, mutants were red dots on a map in Cerebro - in X3 they were protesting outside Worthington Labs, or standing in line at clinics, or gathering at a protest meeting in a church. I also think the movie took a nice risk in killing or curing characters - it at least gave the film coms consequences for actions, which is unusual in sci-fi and comic book fare. I've been reading the comics since the 70s and I didn't mind those changes at all, it gave it a sense of weight and drama.
  • Anonymous
    I just came back from watching this film and I have to say this reviewer is spot on.
  • Marelise Prinsloo
    Thank you for a more objective review, i saw the movie yesterday and i really enjoyed it. Some reviews i've read are just nasty and i don't know why they went so far. Wolverine or x-men isn't supposed to be Shakespeare or some emotion filled Jane Austin movie, it is an action movie about superheroes. It is supposed to be fun to watch, and yes, one does feel for Logan and his troubles. Here and there, perhaps at the end with the professor coming in, the script did seem a bit silly, but that doesn't take anything away from the film being a good action movie.
  • Anonymous
    I will be the first to admit that I don't have a whole lot of knowledge on the X-Men characters...nor did I see X2 or X3. Heck, I barely remember the first one, but I have to say that going in not knowing anything allowed me to LOVE it~


    So tragically beautiful, entertaining and ironically romantic.
  • D4VID
    I think Craig and David both have some vaid points. This film is full of holes, but as a Summer entertainer it does exactly what it says on the tin. There's no real way this franchise is going to recover from the massive mistakes it made with X-Men: The Last Stand, and yet it's trapped by the very story that film laid out.


    The only way to break free of that movie canon is to disregard it and start all over again, but it's still too much a new series to rewrite it!
  • Anonymous
    seen it. loved it. thank you and good bye!
  • Craig Sharp
    I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree on this occasion. Yes, X3 scores better than Wolverine on Rotten Tomatoes, but the audience scoring the film have already had to endure "The Last Stand" and so are possibly less forgiving this time around?


    X3 was less "heart" and more "half-hearted" I'm afraid to say, two great storylines (the cure and the phoenix) were smashed together with the same force as the Large Hadron Collider and neither were really pursued with much passion or intention.



    Unfortunately, as well as a plethora of unnecessary characters, X-Men: The Last Stand also suffered from too many plotlines, none of which were really given adequate time to play themselves out to the full. X3 was the equivalent of football highlights, you get to see all of the action, but none of the intricities required to pull it all together.



    Wolverine on the other hand, is in my opinion at least, a far superior movie. As previously stated, fans and critics alike are far less forgiving this time around due to X3's shortcomings and the bad memories it has left, and yet the Wolverine story is given far more time to develop and play itself out.



    While the film is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, it does make a good effort at showing respect to it's source material. But source material aside, it still needs to fit in with the three films in precedes, and as such it does suffer at some points.



    Wolverine itself is not a bad movie, the franchise has become a bad franchise. Without a reboot, the series must play out in the world and with the rules it has laid out, and in my opinion, this is where Wolverine falls short.
  • David B
    I'm not sure why you regard X3 as 'disastrous' - technically inferior to X1 and X2 perhaps, but it's no disaster. And it's had a higher rating on Rotten Tomatoes than Wolverine is getting. X3 has much more 'heart' to it, the action was emotionally driven. In Wolverine, there is no real heart. I hope someone can explain to me how Emma could be Kayla's sister and how simple wire-mesh cages could hold mutants including a woman (Frost) with diamond skin and a boy (Cyclops) with eye blasts that can slice through anything!
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