X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the spin-off of the incredibly popular film franchise by the simple name X-Men, may hold you as rigid as the nearly indestructible adamantium that coats Wolverine’s bones, but the sloppy plot and uninspiring special effects leave something to be desired. Directed by Gavin Hood (Rendition), the film follows the revenge-based vendetta of James Howlett, better known as Wolverine or Logan, who chases after his psychotic brother, involving himself in a number of life threatening situations in the process.
The film begins with the advent of Wolverine’s powers (super fast healing and retractable claws made of his own bone), and continues with a quick overview of his involvement of every significant American war since the Civil War during the opening credits. In a mission in Africa, Wolverine’s brother and fellow mutant Sabertooth goes on a bloodthirsty rampage, providing the basis of the competitive brotherhood between the two. Many years later, following the murder of Wolverine’s girlfriend by Sabertooth, the true action finally begins as Sabertooth hunts down the remaining members of his military party and Wolverine attempts to get his revenge. In an early fight between the two Wolverine is eventually trumped, prompting him to receive the life threatening surgery that results in his trademark silver claws and bulletproof, near indestructible, adamantium clad body. Powered up, Wolverine continues on his quest, eventually climaxing in a standoff at the always aesthetic 3-mile island nuclear site.
While Hugh Jackman continues his role beautifully as the vein popping, scream bellowing Wolverine, the characters in the spin-off tend to be less interesting than their earlier roles. Most notably the roles of William Stryker, played by Danny Huston, and Sabertooth, played by Liev Schrieber, don’t live up to their predecessors. Stryker, who was originally played by Brian Cox in X2, is made to be more governmental, and less controversial than the uncompassionate and slightly deranged scientist who turned his own son into an experiment. We grew to be mystified with Sabertooth in the first X-men movie, where he was played by Tyler Mane. Sabertooth was much more interesting in the original than the Sabertooth seen in Origins, who seems to have no limit to the number of cliché one-liners to drop mid-fight.
While Origins is undoubtedly an entertaining movie, for fans of the X-men series, it fails to fully satisfy. The action is suspenseful and exciting, but the loosely tied plot leaves some people scratching their heads, and the great special effects which fans have come to love (especially in X-men: The Last Stand) is missing from the film. Hopefully in the rumored upcoming X-men themed movie Deadpool, they pick up on these losses and run a little tighter ship when it comes to making a movie with such a large fanbase. But when adamantium claws clash, there is little to no thought left for something so trivial as plot holes, and one is lost in the battles between superhumans.
What about Gambit played by Taylor Kitsch? Did you like that character, which I hear might have a bigger role in future films? Well-written review, which makes me think I'll avoid it. Still, I'm a big fan of Liev Schrieber, Hugh Jackman and Taylor, so I might have to eventually rent it on Netflix.
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