This is the Wolverine that I wanted to see...For some reason, it's BLOCKBUSTER time at ol' Hoyts. The first big-budget action flick of the year is the X-Men spin-off bonanza that is 'Wolverine.' Well, it's actually 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine" but for the sake of keeping things simple, let's just call it 'Wolverine,' even though my mate Todd couldn't remember what movie we were meant to be seeing when it came time to buy the tickets and we almost ended up seeing 'Ghosts of Ex-Girlfriends' or whatever the fucking thing is called. You know it, it's got that guy without a shirt in it. But in this one, he wears a shirt. I know, Matthew McConaghey certainly has a wide acting range.
But enough about Matthew McConaghey - I think I misspelt his name - today I'm talking about the other guy who refuses to wear a shirt, Hugh Jackman. Hugh has regrown his sideburns and furrowed his brow to step back into the role of Logan McWolverine, or just Wolverine to his mates. Joining Hugh (we're on a first name basis) is Liev Schreiber, who has a very odd name. Liev (is that seriously a name?) plays Wolvie's brother Victor Von Sabretooth. These two guys are mutants whose bodies heal themselves; Wolvie has claws (cool) while Sabretooth can grow his fingernails (gay). Seriously, my mutant power of having a toenail that falls off is more impressive, and about as useful.
Sabretooth isn't as happy as he could be, and is sort of becoming a bit less than nice. He has come down with a bad case of 'being psycho' and starts killing the superteam. What a bastard, hey? I mean, imagine if the guys that you went to primary school with turned around and started trying to kill you a few years later! Talk about annoying! Sabes moves on from killing his team and goes after Mrs Wolverine. Wolverine vows revenge and goes back to Stryker who gives him even more superpowers by coating his skeleton in adamantium, the strongest metal in the history of strong metals. It's inde-fucking-structible. So Wolves goes out and tries to fuck Sabre's shit up, and this is where the movie falls apart in a bad, bad, bad way. Like, really bad.
If you haven't seen the movie, don't read those last paragraphs, or you'll ruin the flick for yourself.
...but this is the Wolverine that we get
'Wolverine' goes in a steady downward spiral as it tries to introduce as many other X-Men characters as it can into the final quarter of the movie. We get Cyclops, Emma Frost and Gambit, and they are basically just there to fill screen time. They add fuck all to the storyline, and the character of Gambit is especially wasted. Nice fight scene though.
I'm going to echo every other person who's reviewed 'Wolverine' and compare it to movies like 'The Dark Knight' or 'Iron Man' which deal in origin stories as well, but do it sooooooo much better than has been done here. I didn't see 'Wolverine' to watch Cyclops cutting his school in half with laser eyes. I don't even like Cyclops. Nor did I see 'Wolverine' to see every fucking X-Men character in the entire Marvel universe run around and save the world. Surely that's Wolverine's job? And I especially didn't go to see it to have Deadpool completely fucking destroyed. MY GOD. One of the coolest background X-Men characters is brought to life on screen and then ripped apart in the worst possible way. I'm not asking much here, Hollywood, but all you had to do was read a comic and not completely fuck up a movie. That's all.
There's also the oddity of having characters whose main attacking weapons are to stab and scratch... yet not a drop of blood is spilt. Wolvie spends most of his day up to his elbow in people's chest as he digs around, but there's no gore to be seen. There's no chunks of flesh on the tip of his claws, there's no spatter when he slashes around. There's not even a fucking drop of it on his singlet. I dare say that the budget of this movie was blown out due to the dry-cleaning bill. Well it wasn't due to script-writing, was it?
'Wolverine' is not a complete waste of time - I wasn't expecting movie magic, but I was expecting at least the illusion of a decent flick. It has its moments; Hugh Jackman is good, Liev Schreiber does a decent job at being a bit crazy... the special effects are nice... the action is decent... the photography is pretty good... but there's probably more wrong with this puppy than there is right. The worst thing is that there is a very good movie hiding underneath this thing somewhere. Also, don't bother forcing your friends to wait until after the credits to see the 'extra scene.' It's a piece of shit and you'll just embarrass yourself.
I give 'Wolverine' $8.
Apparently this guy likes Wolverine a lot. Personally, I'd just stick to collecting comics and stuff.
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