As any comic aficionado would know the X-Men comics were originally created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby. This movie was based off of work that came a little after that. The script was created by writer and comic book fan David Benioff, who pushed for the project to be made for almost three years before he was hired to write the script. Then he worked for another three years to develop the script; this guy really wanted to make this movie and make it well. I’m not sure how true to the comics the movie is but Benioff pulled inspiration from Barry Windsor-Smith’s Weapon X story, the 1994 limited series, and his favorite storyline – Chris Claremont and Frank Miller’s 1982 limited series on the character Wolverine. Hugh Jackman also worked on the script, wanting his character to be more developed than in the previous X-Men movies.
Ok, that’s it for the comics now onto the movie. There’s not really much I can say about the story without giving anything away. Basically in the beginning you get to see Logan as a little kid followed by seeing him fight through various wars; the American Civil War, World War I and II, and Vietnam. I saw clips of him fighting these wars in the trailer with excited anticipation and frankly, I was sorely disappointed. Nothing particularly cool was shown and to make matters worse, some parts were down right cheesy. After that the basis of the story is Logan’s woman being killed, him joining William Stryker to get his memory wiped, his realizing Stryker isn’t such a cool dude and then he’s like “Peace, I’m out,” and other mutants following suit….. filled with lots of action and literal crap in-between. And the action isn’t even as good as I thought it would be. All the cool characters you get to see doing stuff in the commercials…. yeeeah, that’s basically all you get to see them do. On top of that, Will i Am from the Black Eyed Peas plays a mutant and…. damn, that guy can’t act worth shit. It’s like he’s reading from a teleprompter or something. His character is pretty sarcastic but you almost couldn’t tell that because Will i Am uses the tiniest increment of snarkiness possible and is totally monotone the rest of the time.
*Begin Spoilers*
Here are just a couple of things I had to rant about and couldn’t put into the main article. The kids playing young Wolverine and Sabretooth were both pretty lame over-actors. Liev Schreiber did a pretty good job in his role but I just couldn’t get over his tiny little teeth, I mean he IS playing Sabretooth right? In the beginning war scenes he does his growling-baring-teeth thing and it’s just so cheesy with the little teeth. The uber-weird fight scene with a bloated disgusting Fred Dukes and Wolverine… lame. Ryan Reynolds doing his comedic relief bit as Deadpool? That felt like a sellout move to me. Yeah Deadpool might be snarky like Ryan, but Ryan is so cliche, he plays that character in every movie he’s ever been in. And on that note, I felt that casting Will i Am was also a sellout move and one that didn’t pan out well at all. Why did Gambit, Emma Frost and Cyclops have such small parts? I mean Gambit had a little bit more than the other two but Emma and Cyclops had like one shot of them using their powers each for like two seconds, why show them at all?!?! The false advertising on their parts was so frustrating to see.
*End Spoilers*
So yeah! That’s basically the movie. Compared to the other X-Men movies X-Men Origins: Wolverine is like the weird step kid that nobody likes. I heard lots of people didn’t like this movie and whether you’re an X-Men fan or not you probably won’t like it either. In fact if you’re an X-Men fan you’ll probably dislike it even more because they showed so little of your favorite characters or made them seem incredibly uncool. If you must see it you won’t be traumatized afterwards or anything it wasn’t that bad, but if you can resist it I’d say save your money.
The Movie Lady
themovielady@comicattack.net
I haven’t even seen it yet…
I just saw this movie on DVD, and I think I agree with Movie Lady here. One of my biggest problems with it was casting Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, give me a freakin’ break.
Emma and Scott were never meant to have a larger role in the story hell were they never in Wolverine’s past in that manner according to the books. They were just shown in the TV spots and movie trailers because people who don’t read the books but were first introduced to scott by the movies would make that connection. A young Storm was seen in the trailer as well but obviously they cut that part of movie out and it’ll probably show up on the DVD bonus scenes. For a lot that was wrong with the movie there was just enough that was right so it’s not a complete waste of film. Were there parts that just made me roll my eyes in disgust? You betcha’!! But there were also parts i was pretty impressed with visually and with the script..hey it’s Hollywood where you take the good with the bad!
Me either. I protest anything Wolverine, unless Iceman is involved.
Ugh that’s such a tease though! They should have just never shown Emma or Scott at all. At the least not featured them in the trailers making you think you’d see more. Then when you saw the movie it’d be a bonus!
This movie was a bit of a disappointment for me as a comic book fan but as a movie fan I thought it was good. It really burns me up to see these comic book movies not being true to the comics. I know there are somethings that just wouldnt translate but it seems like the producers go out of their way sometimes to stray from the characters true history.
I am amazed that even with this review and the commons listed the atrocity that was Deadpool was never addressed. First off, I think Reynolds is a great choice for Deadpool, like him or not as an actor, he is funny, he can do action rolls, he isn’t concerned about his face time like a certain “Spidey” actor and he is a fan. What more can you really ask for?
What I am referring to is the complete raping of the Deadpool identity. Not only do they disregard his appearance entirely they don’t even get his power set correct. They take the biggest wise ass in comics and sew his mouth shut. He randomly becomes a mutant power sponge, and worse yes he doesn’t even have cancer, which is one of the single most humanizing elements of the character.
As far as the lack of screen time for characters like Gambit and Emma, I am far more upset that they were there at all. Wolverine Origin is one of the most classic in all of comics, and rather then represent it as the great story it should have been, they decided to well… I am not sure what you would call that result.
I remember clearly when I left the theater that I leaned to my girlfriend and said the following, which I still thinks somes up the movie well, “It was an entertaining movie, but it has nothing to do with Wolverines comic origin. It was designed to try and grab as many fans from the X-men movies as possible and that is what they did. I just hope that with the success of these movies that take “liberties” with an actual comics story we will get more literal versions of the books as well. So if Wolverine has to suffer for me to get a good Goon or Deadpool movie somewhere down the road, I can live with that.
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