X-Men Origins: Wolverine
I haven’t even started this movie-film-fest-party yet and I’m already three movies behind. Time to start taking this thing seriously, huh? OK, sure.
The Long Version:
The summer movie season kicked off with Wolverine, and for a beginning-of-the-summer superhero flick, it was perfectly adequate. Certainly not going to elicit any comparisons to Iron Man or Dark Knight from last summer (or at least positive ones), but for a simple, fun, comic book action movie, it was everything someone could expect or want. If this came out in the preceding decade, it would have stood head and shoulders above the rest of the super powered crowd, but with the increased quality of this decade’s selections, it comes out as… well, perfectly adequate.
Hugh Jackman pulls off a perfectly adequate performance as well. He didn’t do anything to really detract from the film, but I didn’t see anything new. To be fair, though, he has played this character in three movies prior, so it’s hard to think of what else he could add. The appeal in this movie was seeing all the new characters fight and shoot lasers out of their eyeballs and carve each other up, and he provided a great base for everyone else to work from. He gave us the same old tough as nails canuckle head, and I can’t really fault him for that. Plus, this sets up more Wolverine movies without Halle Berry (or Will.i.am- more in a few paragraphs) in them, which I like.
I will see any movie that Ryan Reynolds is in, be it action, slacker comedy, drama, romantic comedy, or s&m porn. I have seen “Definitely, Maybe”, I have plans to see “The Proposal” and “Fireflies in the Garden”, and I have been hunting down “Whips and Quips” for the better part of the last eight months. While Spider-Man will always hold a special place in my heart as the number one superhero of my youth, Deadpool has been the object of my adulthood affection, and I can’t think of a better actor to portray Deadpool than Ryan Reynolds. I can’t talk too much about his performance without giving away spoilers, so I’ll just say he is true to the character and does a fantastic job. And with recent news of a confirmed Deadpool spinoff, my man-crush (EVERYBODY GETS ONE… OR FIVE) is both satisfied and excited.
Liev Schreiber as Victor Creed (curiously, he’s never called Sabertooth) does a great job humanizing a savage killer, which I always admire. It’s easy to write a villain, but to show the audience why that person became that villain takes talent, both from the writer and the actor, and I commend it. Dominic Monaghan is woefully underused, as his character is pretty quickly killed off (that’s in the trailer, and it’s been three weeks, your spoiler complaints are quickly reaching their statute of limitations). My only complaint for him is that I didn’t see enough of him to get any kind of read on his performance. What I saw I liked, and I would have liked to see more of him than, say, Will.i.am, who was terr.i.ble. Every scene with him in it felt like pop musician trying to start an acting career. And who the hell is the John Wraith character? I feel like they just pulled a black mutant character out of 1980s obscurity to give Will.i.am a character to play. His acting was wooden and recited, and any number of other characters and actors could have filled the role in the story he did. I guess he had to start his shitty acting career somewhere, and I’d rather it be Wolverine than something he could have really screwed up.
Danny Huston does a good job setting up General William Stryker for his heinous self in X2, though I noticed a continuity issue. Stryker has a son in X2, which I think has generally been presumed to Mastermind, yet there is absolutely no mention of him here, though another son of his plays a major role. You’d think there’d be at least some sort of mention of a second son, unless they’re implying that the two sons are one and the same, which I don’t exactly buy. If you’ve seen both movies, you’ll know what I mean.
The Short Version, where I recap:
Wolverine’s a solid action movie to kick off the summer movie season with. Hugh Jackman gives us a steady leading man for the supporting characters to work from. Everyone else gives acceptable to excellent performances, except for Will.i.am, whose acting career hopefully ends with Wolverine. I am excited as hell for the inevitable sequel and Deadpool spinoff. All in all, this isn’t a movie that’s going to stand out like an Iron Man or Dark Knight, but it’s a fun movie, worth your $12, and something I’d take the time for when I see it on FX in three years.
