X-Men Origins: Wolverine (review)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

While certainly flawed, Wolverine is still an entertaining movie.

This movie had a lot going against it. It was being produced by the silly studio FOX. The early buzz for this movie was bad. Then there is that story about an early print being leaked online. Then there were the reports of major re-shots. In other words, Wolverine was screwed.

Well, not so much.

Under the some of bad lines, there are some truly fun action scenes thrown in with some amazing special effects (For the most part. The Chopper scene with Logan on top is still a bit fake.)

Wolverine is faithful enough to the Wolverine comics as much as it can be. However, it must stay in-continuity with the last three X-Men movies as well. The movie does ‘fit’ into what we’ve seen before from the last three X movies. In a weird manner, it is more of a prequel to X2 than anything else in the series. (William Stryker plays a huge role in this movie.)

I’m going to sound like a broken record, but the last 20 minutes needed some major re-writes. There are some story structure problems there. Two characters that disappear from the movie are thrown in rather haphazardly, one of them should have never returned and that person weakens the impact of the story.

Gavin Hood does a decent job directing the film, and keep in mind FOX was battling him all the way to the wrap-up. Hood does one thing really good. He keeps the damn camera still enough to understand the action. Imagine that…

Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) and Liev Schreiber (Sabretooth) make this movie more entertaining than it deserves to be. Schreiber and Jackman really do play off each other, and you get the feeling they are brothers.

Here are a few things…

-Why is Will i Am in the movie?

- Ryan Reynolds is okay as Deadpool.

- Composer Harry Gregson-Williams (Metal Gear Solid series and a Media Ventures guy) has an okay score here. It works but never really stands out with the exception of the Opening credits.

-The opening credits are wonderful. You get to see Wolverine and Sabretooth interaction in most of the wars around the world. Kind of reminded me of the Watchmen opening credits.

While certainly not a great movie, it is still better than the mess that was X3. Brett Ratner really screwed that up and Hood is a better director. (He’s no Bryan Singer) There are many flaws with the dialogue and some acting problems, but it is still an action movie worth seeing if you’re into the X-Men franchise.

Grade: B-

(Look for a major cameo toward the end of the film.)