X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) Review

It does feel odd reviewing a major summer release film during its opening weekend knowing that a decent percentage of you have seen it long before it hit theaters and can watch it while we’re in theaters watching it pretending you’re in theaters if theaters had screens the size of a hardback book. You don’t probably don’t have to go more than 6 degrees of separation before you can find someone who’s already seen Wolverine (I’m not writing that stupid long-ass title) or already has it and can tell you if it’d be worth paying for or not.

Because as you know, (as I’ve written about this before) Fox Studios, once again displaying their vastly finite wisdom decided to “test-screen” their summer tentpole Wolverine about a month ago by releasing it onto the web for anyone with a decent connection to download for free. Fucking Brilliant.

Now instead of Fox losing millions of dollars and audience goodwill making shitty movies like Babylon AD, trying to cockblock the Watchmen release, The limp X-Files Sequel, the 12-hour yawn-a-thon Australia, Deception, fucking up the Slumdog Millionaire DVD release, 27 Dresses (27 reasons not to see this movie), Meet the Spartans, Jumper, The Happening—

--Sorry, have to catch a breath...okay, now I can go on—

--Meet Dave, Shutter, What Happens in Vegas, Space Chimps (gee, and it sounded like SUCH a good idea), Mirrors, The Day the Earth Stood Still, that Street Fighter movie that 4 people saw, and Dragonball Evolution, now Fox can lose even more money by releasing a movie that’ll lose a huge percentage of its opening weekend audience due to having seen the entire movie a month in advance.

Fox Studios: Finding new and expensive ways to fuck up.

I’m no expert in business, but I’m guessing that having spreadsheets sport more red than the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ community Tampax disposal is not the best way to survive in our current economy, but what the hell do I know? Yes, there’s the lone bright spot Taken, but you can bet that since it’s Fox it was just an accident and whoever greenlit and marketed it has been fired for making a good movie that actually made money. Clearly against company policy.

Fox Studios: Australia’s not entirely our fault...as all the brass fell asleep through it

A question that might be burning your britches and probably why you clicked on: Is the leaked version of Wolverine any different from the Theatrical Cut and is it worth paying for? Ask your friends, because you won’t get the answer from me, not because of any sense of propriety because if any studio deserves to get audience cuckolded it’s Fox because...( see the above list). You can make a worst-of list on those titles alone.

No, I’m afraid of Fox sending their secret team of Assassins for me. Not because they’ll actually kill me, but because it’s Fox, they’ll probably end up shooting my elderly neighbor Bill and then leaving a Fox promotional DVD next to his body. Again, knowing Fox he’ll still be alive because they shot him in the toe and end up using the DVD as a coaster like everyone else. There’ll be damage done to his door (it’ll be open and unlocked but they’ll still ram thru it) and a Bride Wars onesheet tacked to his wall, and I just can’t have that on my conscience.

Fox Studios: If a good movie leaves our lot, tell us and we’ll make sure to rescind it.

Back to the actual movie. In a word, Wolverine, belaying all the unwanted hype preceding it is perfectly...adequate. A solid but unspectacular piece of entertainment. Not great, but at least it’s not the Fantastic 4 (guess which studio released those winners).

In Fox terms, it’s the best movie they’ll probably release this year not named Taken.

Within the X-men canon, it’s better than X-men 3 but nowhere near X2: X-Men United. If that meets or beats your criteria for paying for a ticket VS. having a friend burn it for you, by all means have a great time and enjoy the unofficial start to the summer movie season.

Jimmy and Victor are half-brothers with problems. Jimmy is always sickly and Victor’s always pissed off. They need an outlet to vent their normal frustrations from the toils of day-to-day existence. How about Killing? They seem to have special talents for it in terms of demeanor and it’s shown they posses physical tools that most of us don’t have...

Victor has long, lethal, sharp nails (“...like bag lady”) with animal-like agility and healing power. He also doesn’t age. He also has a rage problem, but that serves him well.

Jimmy has the same mutant abilities as his brother, but his powers are just a shade stronger than Victor’s (no doubt a source of jealousy). And instead of nails, he has even cooler looking bony claws that come out of his hands.

Jimmy and Victor leave home (after one of them kills a parent) and as they grow up they do what they do best.

Their talents don’t go unnoticed by one Major William Stryker (Danny Huston, in a role originated by Bryan Cox in X2). He’s seen what Jimmy Logan (all growd up and played by Hugh Jackman) and Victor (Liev Schreiber) can do, and he likes his men hard. As in unbreakable, not...you know.

Stryker adds the hairy brothers to a team of other mutants ready and willing to do dastardly deeds in the service of country and shit like that. There’s-

Wade (Ryan Reynolds)- he says funny things (“Okay...People are dead”) and can handle swords better than he can handle romantic comedies.

John (Will. I. Am from the Black Eyed Peas)- he’s like Nightcrawler, except he’s black and wears a cowboy hat. He’s constantly asked by other members of the team if Fergie’s tits are fake. He remains mum.

That Hobbit from Lost, McLovin, Brainy Smurf, and some other members of the team who aren’t really that important and who’ll probably die before half the movie is up.

Anyway, Stryker brings them to an African country because he wants something called Adamantium...and is willing to do and kill anything and anybody to get it. Logan doesn’t dig it because he doesn’t think it’s kosher to kill random African village people for the sake of a superhard metal alloy. He storms off in a huff and takes his toys away, pouting all the way home with his arms crossed. He tries holding his breath until Stryker stops the genocide but doesn’t make it very far. This far into the movie it’s become Wolverine: The Pussy Years.

Victor, however, is just fine with killing innocent people.

We Fast Forward 6 years later...

Logan is living in Canada and is shacked up with a schoolteacher named Kayla Silverfox (the luminous and VERY persuasive Lynn Collins). He’s working as a lumberjack and trying to put his past behind him. He has nightmares about his past deeds and is just trying to live the quiet life selling drugs to Canadian Junior High kids using Kayla as a convenient “in”. It’s his way of giving back to the community for all the wrong he’s done.

Victor is still killing, except this time it’s the other mutants from the team. Holy crap, there may be only one man that can stop him...

Major Stryker asks Logan back to the team. He needs help in finding out who’s killing the other mutants.

Logan sticks his tongue out and says no (“I’m Canadian”).
Victor kills Kayla.

Logan is miffed. He takes off his apron, stops rehearsing overly long dance numbers for next year’s Oscars, and becomes the Wolverine we’re used to instead of a little twatsicle. He’s gonna kill Victor, and no one can stand in his way. Now all he needs are directions, and some gas.

Stryker offers some very special help. Because Logan’s body can withstand being penetrated in many orifices with injections of Adamantium, he can be indestructible. His claws can also be extra shiny. But does Stryker have ulterior motives? Probably. Will you care? Now you will, because after about 45 minutes of tedium...the movie FINALLY gets going...

What works about Wolverine-

1) Liev Schreiber- How good is his performance as the main baddie in this movie? He gets some of the film’s worst dialogue- “Shiny” and “Look at what the cat dragged in” are particular groaners- but he delivers them with such panache that you don’t realize the lines are stupid until about 5 seconds after he’s said them. Notice you liven up whenever he appears onscreen, in contrast to Jackman’s whining for most of the movie.

2) Wolverine (with a little bit of help) VS. Deadpool- the only fight scene in the movie that isn’t generic or repetitive.

3) Ryan Reynolds’ one liners liven up what will be a very stagy and talky first 45 minutes. Believe me, you’ll miss him when he’s gone...and his sword assault is one of the best things in the first hour.

4) Hugh Jackman is in a halfway decent movie. Unlike his shitty 2008 when he starred in Deception and Australia. I can see you wince and I can hear you groan...

5) Wolverine’s “Birth”- the best non-action sequence of the movie (“I think he heard you”)

6) Will I. Am. proves in an inconsequential role that he can be pretty decent actor (maybe he got it from his mama). Because he’s certainly not a good rapper (he rhymes “record” with... “record”).

What doesn’t work-

1) Blink and you’ll miss him- Again, You miss Ryan Reynolds and spend at least some of the time wondering what happened to him because he livened up every scene he’s in. It’s one of those things you don’t think about until you notice you’re attention flagging, wanting something interesting to happen.

2) A Very Important Character appears in-X-plicably near the end of the movie and you wonder why this genius didn’t appear like, 5 minutes earlier, when he/she/it could have really helped.

3) Wolverine VS. Sabretooth- their periodic skirmishes are the movie equivalent of 7-year olds dog-paddling against each other.

4) Gambit- Taylor Kitch brings nothing to Gambit’s much anticipated appearance other than the worst Cajun accent this side of The Waterboy.

5) The Dark Knight and Iron Man- They may have set the bar too high for passable but middle-of-the-road entertainment like Wolverine to have nothing but a decent opening weekend and then a huge dropoff. The positive thing: Last year Iron Man opened so well that everything else was a relative disappointment until Dark Knight opened 2 months later (sorry, Indy). I don’t think you’ll have to wait another 2 months for something better than Wolverine to open. You may just have to wait...another week.

6) A credit cookie that’ll make you wonder why you stayed thru the closing credits. You might just beat traffic, though.

Overall. You can hope that Wolverine is the worst movie that you’ll see all summer. If that’s true, then the Summer of ’09 won’t be all that bad. But if you’ve got an ailing grandparent that can’t possibly go to the theaters...I hear there are some other options you can use. You’ll like Wolverine enough, but you’ll want and deserve more than you ultimately get, but since it’s Fox, this may be the best you get from them all year...

Fox: We didn’t release The Love Guru...but it wasn’t for lack of trying.