Stryker recruits Logan and Victor to serve in Team X, his top-secret black ops unit consisting of mutants Wade "Deadpool" Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), teleporter John Wraith (Will.i.am), Bradley Bolt (Dominic Monaghan), and Fred J. Dukes, who will later become The Blob (Kevin Durand). When Team X's activities become too gruesome and morally dubious for him, Logan -- always called "Jimmy" by Victor -- quits the team, a move that pisses his brother off to no end. Flash forward a few years and Logan is living in rustic tranquility with girlfriend Kayla Silverfox (Silver Fox in the comics) in Canada, where he makes an honest wage as a logger.
When former Team X members start getting killed off, Stryker tracks down Logan to warn him. But things are more than they seem -- aren't they always? -- and Wolverine is brought back into the fold to hunt down his brother after Victor attacks Kayla. Agreeing to let Stryker use him as a guinea pig in order to gain an advantage over Victor, Logan is given his adamantium skeleton and claws. With help from Wraith and a New Orleans cardshark/mutant nicknamed Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), Wolverine takes the fight to his enemies as he uncovers what Stryker is really up to.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine turns out not to be the train wreck many had expected. No, it's merely passable entertainment, undone by the same factors that bedevil so many other big genre releases: bad action direction, sloppy storytelling, and breathless pacing that sacrifices character development in favor of rushing into the next big set-piece. It's still better in many ways than X-Men: The Last Stand, but that's not saying much, is it? The story, particularly near the end, attempts to be more clever with its plot twists than it needs to be or can handle (although, in fairness to writers David Benioff and Skip Woods, they're simply taking their cues from the comics); sometimes a straightforward revenge Western is good enough.
Director Gavin Hood, a filmmaker whose strengths lie in dramas not action films, seems out of his depth here. Studio interference has long been blamed for this, but at the end of the day it's his name on the credits. The trend in recent years has been to hire non-action directors (e.g., Christopher Nolan, Ang Lee, Jon Favreau) to helm comic book movies. Even the best of those filmmakers, though, still cannot call directing action their strong suit. Many of the fight scenes here overuse wire work, a technique which had gotten tired by the time X2: X-Men United came out. Of the major set-pieces, the helicopter/motorcycle chase widely seen in the trailers and TV spots is the most inconsistent; the quality of visual effects in this sequence alone range from cool to Sci Fi Channel bad. A more effective sequence is the climactic battle waged between Wolverine, Sabretooth and Deadpool. Overall, though, the caliber of the fight scenes are not much better than those seen in Twilight, another movie made by a filmmaker better suited to helming drama than action.
The concern held by many fans that the film would be overcrowded with characters turns out to have been justified. While not as poorly handled as in X-Men: The Last Stand or Batman & Robin, Wolverine shoehorns in way too many mutants, supporting characters arbitrarily included (e.g., Blob) for no other apparent reason than to sell toys or establish spin-off films. Take Deadpool and Gambit. While Reynolds is perfectly fine as merc with a mouth Wade Wilson, he's not in the film enough to be a show stealer or even truly memorable. I can't imagine there being much demand from audiences after watching this film to see further adventures with Deadpool, which is a shame considering how devoted Reynolds has long been to the character. Taylor Kitsch initially plays Gambit as the Doc Holliday of mutants, a smart approach that unfortunately disappears almost as quickly as his southern drawl. Continuity-wise, both characters seem to be screwed out of becoming part of the X-Men films' timeline since their scenes take place in the 1970s and '80s.
Huston nicely underplays William Stryker, even when saddled with melodramatic dialogue so on-the-nose as to be laughable. Schreiber is serviceable as Sabretooth, but the story gives him a one-dimensional snarling baddie to play who would twirl his mustache if he had one. Lynn Collins is fine as Kayla, but her character is never really fleshed out. But this film obviously belongs to Jackman, who is in nearly every scene and is ultimately the only reason why the movie works to any degree. While it's nothing we haven't seen Jackman do for the last nine years, this Logan at least gets his edge back after becoming a curmudgeonly father figure in X-Men 3.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not a love it-or-hate it kind of movie. It has its moments, but it's ultimately a by-the-numbers tale that will leave you feeling ambivalent about it and the prospect of any future X-Men films. Perhaps a more extreme reaction (good or bad) would have suggested a more interesting film.
When former Team X members start getting killed off, Stryker tracks down Logan to warn him. But things are more than they seem -- aren't they always? -- and Wolverine is brought back into the fold to hunt down his brother after Victor attacks Kayla. Agreeing to let Stryker use him as a guinea pig in order to gain an advantage over Victor, Logan is given his adamantium skeleton and claws. With help from Wraith and a New Orleans cardshark/mutant nicknamed Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), Wolverine takes the fight to his enemies as he uncovers what Stryker is really up to.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine turns out not to be the train wreck many had expected. No, it's merely passable entertainment, undone by the same factors that bedevil so many other big genre releases: bad action direction, sloppy storytelling, and breathless pacing that sacrifices character development in favor of rushing into the next big set-piece. It's still better in many ways than X-Men: The Last Stand, but that's not saying much, is it? The story, particularly near the end, attempts to be more clever with its plot twists than it needs to be or can handle (although, in fairness to writers David Benioff and Skip Woods, they're simply taking their cues from the comics); sometimes a straightforward revenge Western is good enough.
Director Gavin Hood, a filmmaker whose strengths lie in dramas not action films, seems out of his depth here. Studio interference has long been blamed for this, but at the end of the day it's his name on the credits. The trend in recent years has been to hire non-action directors (e.g., Christopher Nolan, Ang Lee, Jon Favreau) to helm comic book movies. Even the best of those filmmakers, though, still cannot call directing action their strong suit. Many of the fight scenes here overuse wire work, a technique which had gotten tired by the time X2: X-Men United came out. Of the major set-pieces, the helicopter/motorcycle chase widely seen in the trailers and TV spots is the most inconsistent; the quality of visual effects in this sequence alone range from cool to Sci Fi Channel bad. A more effective sequence is the climactic battle waged between Wolverine, Sabretooth and Deadpool. Overall, though, the caliber of the fight scenes are not much better than those seen in Twilight, another movie made by a filmmaker better suited to helming drama than action.
The concern held by many fans that the film would be overcrowded with characters turns out to have been justified. While not as poorly handled as in X-Men: The Last Stand or Batman & Robin, Wolverine shoehorns in way too many mutants, supporting characters arbitrarily included (e.g., Blob) for no other apparent reason than to sell toys or establish spin-off films. Take Deadpool and Gambit. While Reynolds is perfectly fine as merc with a mouth Wade Wilson, he's not in the film enough to be a show stealer or even truly memorable. I can't imagine there being much demand from audiences after watching this film to see further adventures with Deadpool, which is a shame considering how devoted Reynolds has long been to the character. Taylor Kitsch initially plays Gambit as the Doc Holliday of mutants, a smart approach that unfortunately disappears almost as quickly as his southern drawl. Continuity-wise, both characters seem to be screwed out of becoming part of the X-Men films' timeline since their scenes take place in the 1970s and '80s.
Huston nicely underplays William Stryker, even when saddled with melodramatic dialogue so on-the-nose as to be laughable. Schreiber is serviceable as Sabretooth, but the story gives him a one-dimensional snarling baddie to play who would twirl his mustache if he had one. Lynn Collins is fine as Kayla, but her character is never really fleshed out. But this film obviously belongs to Jackman, who is in nearly every scene and is ultimately the only reason why the movie works to any degree. While it's nothing we haven't seen Jackman do for the last nine years, this Logan at least gets his edge back after becoming a curmudgeonly father figure in X-Men 3.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not a love it-or-hate it kind of movie. It has its moments, but it's ultimately a by-the-numbers tale that will leave you feeling ambivalent about it and the prospect of any future X-Men films. Perhaps a more extreme reaction (good or bad) would have suggested a more interesting film.
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