Monday, May 18, 2009

X-Men Origins: Wolverine review

Well, I finally made it to the theatre last night to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It was better than most the reviews had made it out to be, but I do see what some of their nagging issues were about.
First of all, it was a pretty decent action movie. There were some decent fight scenes and the special effects were good. It's when you get to the overall storyline that things tend to get a bit weak.
Since Wolverine's on screen debut in the original X-Men movie, he's always had a "mysterious past." He's trying to figure out who he is, and why he is the way he is. By the end of this movie, everything is explained. However, after all of the explanation, you sort of sit there and say "that's it?" To me, alot of the explanations seemed overly simplified, like there should be more to it. The entire Weapon X procedure scene takes up about 5 minutes of screen time. In fact, they don't even explain it to Wolverine until he's laying on the table and they casually say "We're going to bond adamantium to your bones to make you indestructible." It just seems like there should have been more prep work to it. Maybe a montage of tests and calibrations being done. Instead, he gets on this table, lowered into some water, and a few minutes later has an adamantium skelton. I think the X-Men cartoon did this scene better, especially the dramatic break out. In the movie, Wolverine hops of the table, takes a bullet to the forehead, gets pissed off and runs out the door.
In X-Men 2, they showed a flashback of him running out of the facility at night with bloody claws. In this movie, he runs out in broad day light and jumps down a waterfall naked. It just seemed to be missing the intensity.
I also preferred the memory implants used in the comics that have made Wolverine confused about his past and who he is. The way he loses his memory in the movie is again a little too overly simplistic and a bit out there.

SPOILER ALERT:
He loses his memory by being shot in the head with an adamantium bullet. One shot takes him down, and then he is shot again in the head. It is said that "An adamantium bullet is the only thing that can take him down," and it does. They then say that it won't kill him. That his brain will heal but his memories won't. I think this could have been done differently. Instead of getting shot in the head, they could have had Silverfox use her powers to make him forget about everything for some reason. That's just me ranting though.

A lot of people have also been complaining about the appearance of Deadpool in this movie. I think they went a little too far with his extra powers, but I didn't mind him. I just wish that in all of these X-Men movies that the villans weren't under some sort of mind control. Toad and Sabretooth in X-Men are mindless henchmen somehow under Magnetos control. Lady Deathstrike is under Stryker's control in X-Men 2. And once again, Deadpool is a remote control puppet in this movie. I would have liked to have seen him have some motivation for going after Wolverine here.

Anyways, the rest of the movie isn't all that bad. I would give it 3 1/2 out 5.

Check back again soon for my Star Trek movie review!

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Last night, X-Men Origins: Wolverine made it's theatrical debut. I'm sure there were plenty of lines and excited fans all across the country, but I wouldn't know as I had a night out at the bar with the guys instead.
I had two reasons for this. One; I want to go on a night where the crowds won't be so huge; and two; it's my birthday!
Anyways, back to the point of all of this. I am excited to go and see Wolverine. He's always been my favourite X-Men character. I've read some of the reviews for the movie, and they aren't incredibly favourable. They say it's enjoyable, but not a great movie (see this review on ign ). I'll leave myself to be the judge of that. You can't always trust the critics opinions on things like this after all.
A friend of mine had downloaded the "leaked" work print of the movie, and we watched the first 15 minutes of it. Aside from the horribly unfinished special effects, it wasn't that bad. I had to tell him to turn it off after 15 minutes though as to not spoil the movie. I hate spoilers, but sometimes, it's just too hard to avoid them on the internet.
Anyways, check back here on Monday and I'll have my full review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.