Rockblog

Origins

“Back to the Beginning” has been a marketable theme in movies lately. James Bond, Batman, and Star Trek have reinvigorated their franchises by hitting the old reset button and harkening back to the origins.

So it’s not surprising that Hollywood wanted to do so for Wolverine (despite a long tradition in the comics of having his past deliberately murky.) Having recently watched X Men Origins: Wolverine, I’ll tell you what I liked and loathed about it. Warning Clause (or claws, Bub) the rest of this post is pierced with spoilers and flecked with spittle.

3 Cool things about XMOW:
1. It’s always sweet to see Wolvie in action and I loved seeing Gambit on the big screen!
2. The acting. Jackman and Schreiber’s performances have been praised, and they are great, but I also loved Frank Dukes’ delightfully dense portrayal and Wade Wilson was hysterical when they let him talk.
3. They showed the Twighlight people what diamond skin really looks like on film. Seriously, that girl’s cell mate must have passed the time by playing Bejeweled on her face!

3 things made of Fail
1. Special effects were chancy. Some stuff looked great, but Wolverines claws in Ma’n’Pa Kent’s bathroom looked like they were moving around on his hands and the scene where the refugee mutants run toward Professor X’s plane had the oldskool Land of the Lost backdroppy look.
2. I was excited to see this movie because I heard Deadpool was in it. Sadly he never showed up. Instead there was a last minute casting replacement with his understudy: Barraka from Mortal Kombat.

3. But the part that sucked like the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy was the stupidity of the bad guys. Seriously, I hate it when the only reason the good guys prevail is because the bad guys are morons. Stryker gives the order to wipe Wolverine’s memory within earshot. Ever hear of a post-it? When Wolvie escapes he orders Agent Zero (a mutant-exceptionally capable marksman) to go kill Wolverine, and at this point even the bit-part general from central casting speaks up on behalf of the incredulous audience- You just spent half a billion to make him indestructable! As soon as Zero is gone, Stryker pulls out his pistol that shoots Adamantium bullets and shows it to Bit-Part General. “Here is the only ammunition that can hurt him!” Come on, man!!! Why didn’t you give THAT gun to the guy who can SHOOT???? Inconveniently for everyone on his side he actually waited until Agent Zero was out of earshot to mention the pistol. Why on Kobol would he do this? Well because then the movie would be over too soon.

I have other gripes but they are not as venomous. I’ll sum them up. They confuse a wolverine with a wolf (picture a badger howling at the moon.) Also good luck making me feel any modicum of danger for Deadpool in his upcoming movie after showing me he can survive losing his head.

What other heroes depend on incompetent villains? James Bond comes to mind a la the lets leave him to the slow death without actually observing it.