Tuesday, May 5, 2009

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE

------SPOILERS-------

By: Judson Rusk

Of the four X-Men films, this one had the most successful opening weekend, and I am throughly and deeply ashamed to say that I had a hand in that. Or, rather, that Mitch had TWO hands in that (sorry Mitch). The feeling I had while leaving the theater was not one of disappointment due to the fact that I didn't expect this film to be very good anyway, but was more sort of a "angry befuddlement mixed with slight disgust." I'll explain...

Anger: Everyone has been suspecting that Hollywood is out of good ideas for quite a while now, and this movie takes that suspision and shoves it down your throat sideways. This movie is a cross between the "throw-as-many-characters-in-your-face-as-we-can" of X-3 mixed with the "more-stupid-action-sequences-loosly-strung-together-will-make-up-for-our-shitty-plot" style of film making that we were privy to in last November's Quantom of Solace. A 12 year old kid with a camera, a G.I. Joe, and a firecracker could make a more realistic action sequence than anything that is found in this movie. And yes, I KNOW that "realistic" isn't exactly what X-Men (or any comic book movie for that matter) is really going for, but THERE IS a line that can be crossed, i.e. Ghost Rider. And this movie crossed it. A lot. Hollywood has, with this release, proven that they have no more need to make smart movies. As long at they can blow up a barn and have a man drive a motorcycle out of it and then drive that same motorcycle through a forest, Mr. Average Fatass American is going to go see it. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm angry that we've lowered out standars SO FAR that there isn't an uprising about this crap that is being served to us as "entertainment." If you went to a restaurant and your meal was cooked with the same blatent disregarg to quality as this film was made with, you would send it back. And never go back to that restaurant again. But for some reason, we're still eating this shit.

Befuddlement: THIS IS NOT A RE-BOOT!!! Whoever wrote this movie aparently forgot that there are 3 movies that are ALREADY OUT that are supposed to flow seemlessly after the events of this film. Take for example, the character of Sabertooth, played in this film by Liev Schreiber. He is a main character with backstory, personallity, and most importantly, very HUMAN tendancies. You know, like, ...talking. Lets not forget that in this film, he is Wolverine's older brother. Yet, in X-Men, which takes place just about a decade after ORIGINS, Sabertooth now is played by a different actor, looks completely different after growing a lion-esque head of hair, and don't have a personallity nor does he talk. He just growls like an idiot. And he is completely emotionally void when he has to confront his brother in a battle to the death on top of the statue of liberty. You would think that he would have said...SOMETHING. But no. On the set of this movie, did no one really put those things together? 
Comic movies have SO much to work with, it's not even funny. Since most comic lines, including X-Men, have so much story and history behind them, why do people still feel the need to fundamentally change characters that are already very set and respected? And above that, why do you need to change or completely make up new story lines? Needless to say, this movie does not answer those questions. Three examples in particular. 

1) Adamantium bullets are what erases Wolverine's memory?!?!?! Thats retarded. 

2) I really hate it when the character is only out for revenge because of the death of a sub-par love interest. They did it to Darth Vader in Episode III. They did it to Two Face in The Dark Knight, and now they have done it to Wolverine. God dammit. 

3) Deadpool. Or in this movie, Weapon XI. For YEARS we've been hearing rumors about Ryan Reynolds playing Deadpool in a movie and everyone thought that would be amazing. And we finally get a movie where that comes true. They promote the hell out of it and use that as a selling point, and then they royally screw over the fanbase by giving him about 5 mins of screen time. And then when he comes back at the end as Weapon XI, he aparently now has every mutant power that you've seen in the entire movie, including Wolverin's Adamantium Skeleton and retractable blades. That NEVER happened in ANY incarnation of Deadpool EVER! And this pisses me off because Deadpool is an awesome character by himself. That is why we even wanted to see him in this movie, but instead, we got that. Ew. WTF were these people thinking?

Disgust: I went to see this movie.

Trust me, I could go on for pages about all the little things I hated about this movie, but I'll just sum them all up in one final paragraph. CONCLUSION: This movie blows. The acting was the best part by far, but was in general dissapointing. The CG was terrible for such a big budget movie. The action sequences were TOO over the top. And they took a story that had a lot of potential and completely bastardized it, ESPECIALLY if you watch the scene that is after the credits!!! I didn't even pay for my ticket to this movie, but I still want my money back.

2 comments:

  1. i didnt actually believe that this was real... This is bad ass

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  2. some parts of this movie were okay (like anything with Liev Schreiber or Ryan Reynolds)... but almost everything else was oozing with generic, canned cheese

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