Panel from Fawcett Movie Comics Ten Tall Men with Burt Lancaster, 1952
I'm a sucker for superhero movies. I have fond memories of reading comics as a kid, and I still pick up the occasional graphic novel. In fact, I'm currently rereading Mike Allred's excellent Red Rocket 7. I loved the Tim Burton Batman movies, as well as the recent Nolan ones (the ones in between I've never seen, believe it or not). I'll defend the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies against all comers. I liked the old school Superman movies, Iron Man, The Incredibles, and Hellboy. I'm even fond of Ang Lee's incomprehensible Hulk. And there have been good X-Men movies - the two that Bryan Singer made were a lot of fun if lightweight. Unfortunately, X-Men Origins: Wolverine continues the hyphenated terribleness of Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand. My complaints about the new Wolverine flick may sound like the issues of a superhero-hater. But that's not me, so I think that the terribleness of X-Men Origins: Wolverine must be a matter of degree, taking usually tolerable flaws and expanding them to a level of intolerability.
Directed by Gavin Hood, an inexperienced director and former attorney and action-movie also-ran (did he really play "German Champion" in Kickboxer 5?), X-Men Origins: Wolverine was bound to exhibit a certain dullness and lack of artistry. But the movie's problems are deep and structural, mostly due to it being a prequel that only fits into the timeline of the previous X-Men movies when you use a certain twisted logic. This tenuous connection is then compromised by X-Men Origins: Wolverine setting itself up for its own sequels (or se-prequels?) And prequels are always at a disadvantage anyway. They have all the downside of a sequel, lacking the newness and freshness of something original, without having the advantage of building on the escalating drama of the preceding film. It's unoriginal, AND it's starting from scratch in the momentum department.
It doesn't help matters that the plot of X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a muddled mess. I'm familiar with the need to reboot superheroes every decade or so to prevent them from having to age at all, but I still find it jarring to see Wolverine in pre-superhero form working as a government agent in Nigeria in the mid-90s. I'd been reading X-Men comics for nearly a decade by that time, so I can vouch for the fact that Logan already had an adamantium skeleton. And that's the biggest problem with the movie - I don't want to ruin the plot (so-called) for those who haven't seen it yet, but the machinations required to turn Logan into Wolverine are so convoluted that they strain even the threadbare logic you usually apply to superhero movies. At one point the villain tells Wolverine, "If you go down this path, you're not going to like what you find." Boy, is he right.
The movie does have its good points. The fight scenes are choreographed well, and the special effects rarely look cheap (although one surprise cameo at the end seems to have been quickly stitched together with bad CGI). Many of the actors turn in surprisingly good performances, particularly Liev Schreiber and (most surprisingly!) will.i.am, although some actors with good chops, like Taylor Kitsch and Dominic Monaghan, get nothing to sink their teeth into. And Ryan Reynolds? Seriously? Ryan Reynolds? Just one bafflingly bad choice among many, I suppose, but it's the kind of thing that totally tanks a project that by its nature could only ever have been fairly good in the best hands. There's probably another sequel/prequel in the works already after its boffo box office last weekend, but, at this point, I'd be more excited for X-Men Origins: Dazzler.
"Folded Claws" by Robert Pollard
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