(Yes, that’s Gambit. Shut up, I’m a Gambit fangirl.)
My moviegoing companion, not a comics person but yet the friend who’s accompanied me to every comic movie I’ve seen in the last year, enjoyed Wolverine more than she did Watchmen.
I don’t know if I’d go that far–or perhaps, if the metric is “enjoyed,” then yes. Watchmen, after all, isn’t something to be enjoyed so much as knocked sideways by, sent spiraling into thoughts on the end of the world, what it means to be human, superhuman, and in the comic, anyway, what it’s possible to do with the medium.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine, by contrast, is meant to be enjoyed. You are meant to giggle at the sarcastic banter, lust after the pretty boys (and goodness, so many of them to choose from!) or the pretty girls (OK guys, for once you only get Lynn Collins, not that she’s too shabby), be impressed at the action and generally come out of it not a bit smarter or more thoughtful, but having had a fun, escapist two hours. It’s a popcorn movie at its finest, and the biggest contribution it can be said to have had is that the CG effects were never awkward or jumpy–oddly the fakest-looking part was Wolverine’s claws.
(Possible spoilers)
So the dismal reviews? Meh. What did they want, The Dark Knight? Admittedly, there’s probably a Dark Knight-level story that could be told about Wolverine, but this sure as heck wasn’t it. The trite dialogue at times made me roll my eyes. “I’d kill you, but then I’d be just…like…you!” This woman’s done Shakespeare, people!
But it was fun. I loved the opening montage of Logan and Victor fighting war after war, the way it used the credit sequence to subtly show Victor growing less and less human, to show the split between the two without (for once) resorting to hackneyed speeches. I love Ryan Reynolds and his wiseass mouth, and Hugh Jackman and especially Liev Schrieber are actors who can make any material watchable. Schrieber nailed the animalism and the strange integrity of Victor, and managed to make each shift believable.
Also, um, Gambit! I spent three X-Men movies hoping my favorite character would make an appearance. Yes, I’m a girly cliche, but I don’t care. Taylor Kitsch was what we could’ve asked for–a pretty face and a not-cheesy accent, a killer smirk and the right attitude. Gambit movie NOW please. There was not nearly enough of him in this movie.
The other day, I linked to a piece where an Entertainment Weekly writer asked if Wolverine was the most homoerotic superhero movie ever. And I noted that having men with their shirts off is always assumed to be targeting gay men, rather than heterosexual women. Let’s face it, the other X-Men movies had compelling female characters for female fans to relate to–this one has one girl who is very obviously the Girlfriend (and yeah, she does get a better ending than I’d hoped for–so I will forgive the screenwriters the cliches). And I wouldn’t be averse to some tension between Wolvie and Gambit, but no luck. I think the prolonged shirtless Ryan Reynolds and the naked Hugh Jackman (played for laughs for the most part) were clearly designed to be eye candy, but eye candy can be for gay and straight alike. I like seeing a movie for once where men provide most of the visual pleasure.
I’m not terribly familiar with the Deadpool character, so forgive me for complaining if it’s a vital plot point that he not talk at the end. But taking away Ryan Reynolds’ best asset (aside from his torso) in his best scene? It’s just not fair.
The ending of an origin movie can’t really be an ending. In this case, it not only had to lead into the X-Men flicks we’ve already seen, but also to leave room for other possible prequels with the excellent characters introduced here. So the ending here was as good as could be expected, leaving beginning threads all over the place. Where did Gambit go? What happened to the mutants we saw leave with Xavier but didn’t see in the X-Men films? Is Deadpool really dead? And of course, there are hours and hours of Wolverine stories still to be told.
If none of them are any better than this was, I’d still be satisfied.
May 10th, 2009 at 9:47 am
“So the dismal reviews? Meh. What did they want, The Dark Knight?”
Some of them? They probably did. Not all reviewers are worth reading. Actually, most reviewers are not worth reading.
But some obviously wanted something they could just enjoy, and they flat out didn’t enjoy this film.
“Admittedly, there’s probably a Dark Knight-level story that could be told about Wolverine, but this sure as heck wasn’t it.”
You’re right, it wasn’t, and that’s a shame.
May 10th, 2009 at 9:56 am
The most homoerotic film of all time, superhero or not, is The Fast and the Furious. Take out the cars and it’s all pouting, oiled muscles and lingering meaningful looks.
Gambit was just a plot device with a stick in this movie and the only thing that made his presence bearable was the amount of fun Taylor Kitsch was obviously having in the role. My friend (another non-comics person) enjoyed it too but knowing how good it could have been marred the whole experience for me.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
But see… After TDK and Iron Man last year, and I’ll even throw the first two Spider-Man and X-Men movies into the mix (not to mention V for Vendetta, which I loved every bit as much the original books), we should be expecting more out of comic book-based films. And, man (and woman), did Wolverine fall short of the mark… And Gambit? Yeesh… Don’t like him in the comics (what little I’ve seen of him there) or in the movie. No way that character can carry a film of his own. Not a good one, at least.
As for Wolverine’s ending… If an “adamantinum bullet” (oh, whatever) through the brain, conveniently taking Logan’s specific memories makes any sense to anyone, well then please explain that bit of logic to me. Sorry, but the movie was crap. The way to go would’ve been making X4, and somehow trying to undo the damage of that movie. Really, the whole X-Men franchise is messed up… It’ll likely never get fixed, so long as FOX retains the rights.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I didn’t think that the adamantium bullet was a bad way of doing it. Presumably, adamantium would be able to break through adamantium, so that part of it works for me.
As for the memory part, well, I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that the bullet would cause severe brain damage. He managed to survive by his healing factor, of course, but that doesn’t mean his memories would come back, too. It wasn’t specific memories that seemed to vanish, but rather everything, the same way somebody who received brain damage might develop amnesia.
May 10th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
@Shaun: FWIW, it seemed clear that the bullet took all of Logan’s memories. Not that it makes much sense still, but it’s not as nonsensical as a bullet taking only specific ones.
May 10th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
I felt the movie was too cluttered with Mutants. I wanted a Wolverine Story not a Weapon X team story
May 10th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
“Is Deadpool really dead?”
i guess you left during the end credits …?
May 11th, 2009 at 8:05 am
“forgive me for complaining if it’s a vital plot point that he not talk at the end.”
Actually, to the contrary, its quite the opposite of vital.
May 11th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Wolverine was terrible. So terrible that when I hurried out of the theatre, I noticed Star Trek was playing in 10 minutes, so I bought a ticket and went to see that to clear all the awfulness outta my head. It seems like the whole point of the movie was to cram it full of crappy characters and see which ones would stick and deliver a whole new franchise, not to tell a story about Wolverine.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Remember that Marvel turned the rights to the X-Universe to FOX. Iron Man was spectacular because Marvel creative had its fingers in the pie… The movie (Iron Man) reflected a clear creative vision and respect for the source material. With X-Men (specifically X3 and Wolverine), FOX was free to do as it wished, and it was obvious they were going for the “throw 1000 ideas against the wall and see what sticks.” Which is why we’ll get a Wolverine sequel, a Deadpool movie, more than likely a Gambit movie, etc, etc, etc.
As far as the “magic” adamantium bullet? I guess it works this way: A regular bullet will just flatten or disintegrate against an adamantium skull (which is what happened in X2). The bullet dissipates it’s velocity not against the skull, but against itself, which is why it pancaked. But remember that scene in X2… Wolverine was knocked out for a minute or so as the healing factor kicked in. A regular bullet rattled his brain enough to knock him out. Adamantium bullets likewise cannot penetrate adamantium skulls, but its velocity has no where to go. The force of the bullet cannot be dissipated against anything except the skull and itself equally, which means Wolverine’s brain didn’t just get rattled. Wolverine’s brain had a seismic event. Wolverine’s brain got hit by “the big one.” As the brain healed it created new gray matter to replace the damage. Hence the memory loss. They’re in there somewhere (and Professor X helped pull them out in X2), but it’s damaged or buried.
May 11th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
With this movie, I think that they’ve really exhausted the usefulness of the whole “drop in cameos of a variety of x-characters by just giving the name to a character who resembles the one in the comics almost not at all* or hinting at the powers of a familiar character” strategy. Either adapt the character a bit more closely (it doesn’t have to be slavishly devoted to comics canon, or hog up time from the main character, just… a little bit more effort, not so seemingly arbitrary with the assignment of names to characters with completely different powers and personalities) or come up with totally new characters.
*Like Callisto in X3, and the evident total lack of upper-class bitchiness on Emma Frost’s part in this film. There are several others in the last couple of movies like this.
Oh, I almost forgot: as a longtime Gambit hater I just have to mention that you can’t ruin something that already sucks.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
But wouldn’t they have noticed in the first X-Men movie that he had a couple holes in his skull?
May 18th, 2009 at 4:22 am
Oh boy did my giant ballon of hope get deflated quickly! Ok, there are certain things I am willing to forgive. Some of the way off story lines, fine. For the sake of a move to the public, and not just the marvel fans, I can understand that. But FOX is doing a MARVEL movie, and its just silly to add off the wall things for no reason. Why in the hell did wolverine have bone claws??! I cant get over that. Also, the whole thing was this crazy run through action fest. There wasnt even time to deliver a good acting performance. Think back to X-men one (or x-men 2, or iron man, or spider man) and look at the comparion. I think it is possible to have a good, well acted, well exacuted movie, and still have awesome action scenes. Marvel already wrote a great story, that made sense, and would make movie sense with just small changes. If marvels continues to let this happen, their movie characters will become a joke, and people will further latch on to the other, non marvel, and well done films about super heroes.