johnlink ranks X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (2009)
Here’s a case of ‘it can’t possibly be as bad as I’ve heard’. People coming out of this movie last summer hated it. Critics hated it. Comic book fans hated it. It seemed as though they actually did worse than the third X-MEN installment. But the Wolverine origin story had been playing on HBO and I figured I’d at least check it out. How bad could it be?
I watched X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (2009) on 6.14.10. It was my first viewing of the film. TRAILER HERE
So what is bad about this movie? The special effects suck hardcore. Specifically, though, it’s the brutally realized Wolverine claws which were done well a decade earlier when the first film came out. I mean, comically bad. I think that the special effects ruin what would otherwise be decent action sequences. And, really, why do we watch a movie like WOLVERINE if not for the action?
Also, the plot is nonsensical. It is full of holes and does not mesh with the story told well in the first X-MEN film. So amnesia is fine, but why does Sabertooth forget who Logan is? Did he get amnesia too somehow? I just felt like the whole thing was lazy. Where it should have been fun to see Scott Summers as a kid, or to see some of the connections made to later films, it instead felt forced and from a different universe as the other films. The most recent HULK film walked the line VERY well, and was much more entertaining than I thought it would be. WOLVERINE? Not so much.
They did get an amazing cast. I love Liev Schreiber, and Ryan Reynolds and Dominic Monaghan are effective in their few scenes (this film has three different LOST alumnus). But mostly, these guys are all wasted on a vastly underwhelming script. There’s no soul here. In that way, it felt much more akin to the last X-MEN film than the first two.
The bottom line, here, is that this could have been a strong film with a few million dollars in special effects and a rewrite on the script by someone who would do it justice. Instead, we end up disappointed.
SCORES
FILM: 3; MOVIE: 7; ACTING: 4; WRITING: 2: BONUS: -1
The negative point bonus is for the brutal special effects. It should almost be a negative two with how bad those claws are.
3+7+4+2-1= 15
FINAL SCORE: 3.75
johnlinkmovies 