‘Wolverine’ claws its way to mediocrity

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” takes one of the most beloved Marvel comics characters and whores it out for a quick buck. Comic book characters come with a built in audience, and that gives movie companies power. With that power comes responsibility.

In the latest of the “X-Men” franchise we are introduced to the mysterious Wolverine. Wolverine, or Logan, (Hugh Jackman), is familiar to fans of the previous X-Men movies. This, however is a prequel, and that removes all of the tension they tried to build in the film.

Sabertooth (Liev Schreiber) fights his half-brother Wolverine in the first X-Men movie. So no matter what happens, the audience knows they both will survive. Logan starts out in the X-Men movies with no memory. Instead of focusing on the conflict between Sabertooth and Wolverine, which will have no closure, they should have in¬vested some time into a better storyline.

We already know that Wolverine will get adamantium attached to his skeleton, and that at some time he must lose his memory. There will be no surprises there. However, the reasons why turn out to be some convoluted conspiracy that makes you wonder why they bothered.

Wolverine is not a new character in the Marvel universe; his story has already been written, so why would anyone go through and make changes? There are a lot of points they tease you with in the movie that keep disappointing. “The island” they refer to isn’t Genosha like you would expect. And the Weapon X project is explained as “Roman Numeral 10.” If there is a Weapon X and a Weapon 11, where are Weapons 1-9?
This is “The Hulk” all over again ruining an established character in a lame attempt to update them. When leaving, someone commented that “Wolverine” was like the “Daredevil” movie. The comparison is not far off.

If you are a long time Wolverine fan, you will leave disappointed. If you have never picked up a comic book, you will be lost. The only people who walked away satisfied were the ones who only know Wol¬verine from the previous X-Men movies.

The movie relies heavily on special effects, but knowing who will survive the movie removes the tension from the fight scenes. The movie also tries to insert too many characters. Is Blob really an interesting character? Other than an excuse to throw someone into a fat suit, I don’t understand the reason.

Gambit has too little screen time, so little it isn’t worth introducing the character. Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is an awesome character, easily a new fan favorite. Yet they deprive him of his most endearing feature. Making a wise-cracking character mute ruins the character for the fans.

Logan is supposed to be like a feral animal, but in the movie he is more like a sensitive kitten. The special effects are cool, but the storyline is disappointing at best. If you must see it, forget everything you know about Wolverine, turn off the brain from any real thought and just let the pictures amuse you.

I walked away thinking that all I had wasted was my time, pleased that I didn’t have to pay for it, until I left the parking lot in downtown Seattle. Losing two hours of my life had cost me $9, the full price of a movie. Damn.





*Reprinted with permission from The Triton Review