Wolverine: Origins
X-Men is a movie franchise that is extremely hit and miss. For every X-2, there’s a Last Stand. For a First Class, there’s a Days of Future Past. The wobbly series has marred an audience against the collection of mutants who delighted us all in comics and two great television series (annnnnd now the nineties theme song is in your head.) Our heroes have been through many challenges, including different directors each putting their own spin with varied success and for a while it looked like Brett Ratner was our go to stain on a formidable, excellent trilogy (or, indeed, film industry)
Then Wolverine: Origins came along. And now we can all collectively agree with how shit it was.
Apparently the franchise favourite, so much so he has to oust females out of their pivotal roles, Wolverine: Origins was the backstory everyone wanted. Until we got it and we screamed “no, put it back up the rectum of whoever shat it out. Origins was intended to be a series until it bombed as hard as “Patient Zero” did falling off that cylinder type nuclear thing (I’m so glad my vernacular has improved).
Basically, Wolverine was a young laddy in Colonial America and finds out that the local drunk is actually his father who has just murdered his fake father. Angry, Wolverine murders him and absconds to fight wars with his new half-brother Sabretooth. Then they get involved in a secret military. Then he gets married. Then there’s a whole thing about experimenting on mutants.
Why Is It Bad?
They pretty much made a great character and tore him down so much that we began to hate Hugh Jackman. Unless you are Dr. Cox from Scrubs, and I’ll presume you aren’t because he is fictional, it is so hard to hate him. The annoying part of director Gavin Hood’s film is that it cuts up this backstory and makes it completely inaccessible. Sandwiching a hammy love story, destroying many beloved characters that the book, television AND film series established characters including the beloved Gambit and Deadpool (oh Deadpool!) The film also Wolverine this sappy hero who saves everyone only to have his brain wiped clean by a bullet. This actually makes the entire thing completely pointless. It’s dull, boring and mind-numbing (pun fully intended).
Why Is It Good?
Ok. I can pin-point three scenes where this film excels. One: The title sequence which shows the brothers warring in different battles side by side and showing exactly how immortal their immortalness is. Two: Hugh Jackman arises naked from an experimental pool, all equipped with metal bones and runs naked down corridors. Three: Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds version of Deadpool appears momentarily and it is awesome. He gets the sarcastic tone and skillset down corrected. The beautifulness of it is squandered later when he was melded into this shoddy collection of powers. But other than that, Reynolds excels as the pre-deformed character and it’s a shame he didn’t get a bigger platform to explore it.
Instead, we got to see Will. I. Am teleporting about.
Every day, we’re nearing closer to the Deadpool movie he so richly deserves, it’s a shame Wolverine: Origins did so poorly to completely mess up several well-known characters. What needs to happen is that we all collectively agree to take one of the adamantium claws off of Wolverine and strike a massive lines through the film.
Except for the aforementioned scenes. We’ll gladly keep them.