X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
Directed by Gavin Hood
Written by David Benioff, Skip Woods
Starring Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Ryan Reynolds, Dominic Monaghan
Release Date May 1st, 2009
Published May 4th, 2009
Arguably the most revered of all superheroes, among the hardcore comic book fans, Wolverine has long deserved his own place in the comic book movie world. Nothing against the X-Men movies which were of varying but often superior quality but Hugh Jackman's Wolverine always seemed to strain against the convention of the superhero team. Granted, some of that was by design, the character has always been a lone wolf, so to speak.
But more than the design of the character, Wolverine and Hugh Jackman were simply bigger than the X-Men, as the character really has always been. Thus, there is a great deal of pressure on this Wolvie movie X-Men Origins Wolverine. The pressure to live up to an outsized reputation and the pressure to live up to beyond outsized fan expectatons.
Origins traces the life of young James Logan from the day he found out he was a mutant who could grow claws of bone through years of work as a mercenary alongside his mutant brother Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber) in the US Army, to the day he tried to leave mercenary work behind and live a life of peace and normalcy.
For a time Logan worked with a team of mercenaries assembled by General Stryker (Danny Huston). Along with his brother, Logas fought alongside shooting expert Agent Zero (Daniel Henney), Swordsman Wade 'Deadpool' Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), Chris 'Bolt' Bradley (Dominic Monaghan), John Wraith (Will I Am) and Frederick The Blob Dukes. Together this team committed what Wolverine comes to believe are atrocities, hence why he walked away.
Of course, if they had just let Logan retire we wouldn't have much of a movie. Living in Canada, Logan has met a woman, Kyla Silverfox (Lynn Collins) and is living an idyllic life when General Stryker arrives with a warning, someone has begun killing the team. It's Sabretooth and he wants to make his brother pay for walking away.
With Stryker's help, Logan undergoes a procedure intended to give him the ability to not merely fight his brother but do something no conventional weapon could do, kill him. With the use of out of this world technology that bond unbreakable metal with all of Logan's bones, he becomes the indestructible Weapon X, Wolverine.
Directed by Gavin Hood, X-Men Origins: Wolverine has some terrific action and some seriously goofball stuff. The good stuff is watching Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber go claw to claw. The good stuff is Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool taking out room full of armed men with just two swinging swords.
The goofball stuff is the stuff from the trailers and commercials for Wolverine. The flying from an exploding car to a helicopter to walking away in slow motion as the copter explodes. We've seen goofball stuff like this before and have become immune to the point of kitschy laughter at how cheesy they seem and how self satisfied filmmakers seem with these scenes.
The mythology stuff, all of the back story, the Origins of the title, will appeal only to the hardcore fans who will search for their other X-Men favorites among a group of child mutants rescued by Wolverine late in the film. Hardcore fans who can name the real name of Agent Zero without having to look it up. Those fans will no doubt be stoked by the high level of efficacy or terribly disappointed by whatever inaccuracy they can seize upon. Even in the nitpicking they will find pleasure. Those not in the cult however may be a little put off by the thickness of the plotting, especially since so much of the action doesn't deliver enough distraction from the plot.
Still, what works for Wolverine is Hugh Jackman whose cut physique and cigar chomping charisma perfectly capture the elemental badass nature of Wolverine. He was the perfect choice for this role in the X-Men movies and he has only grown more comfortable and capable as the character has progressed. Wolverine gets us past alot of the troubled, overly dense plotting of X-Men Origins.
Mostly for the hardcore fan, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is sub-par by the standard set by The Dark Knight, Spiderman and Iron Man. On it's own, away from the lofty comparison, it succeeds with Hugh Jackman's performance, as a summertime filler that should please the faithful.
