Movie Reivew: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

The reviews for X-Men Origins: Wolverine were pretty bad so I put off seeing it. This YouTube spoof didn't help, Wolverine (in 30 Seconds)


I have two friends that saw it and said it was ok, so I caught a matinee. It was a perfectly reasonable summer action film but oddly, even though it tried, it's not emotionally involving at all. The action sequences were as good as the ones in X-Men 1 or 2. That is they made sense given people with these powers and weren't just unfollowable punches being thrown. I particularly liked the one with the helicopter though the others are fairly forgettable.

There were also a lot of different mutants in the film. While I didn't know most of them from the comics, it was still fun seeing lots of new characters and watching them use a variety of powers. But you really don't get to know any of them in any depth, not even the lead.

The film certainly makes an attempt to have some emotional weight and an interesting story. Wolverine's rival is his brother, the man he believes is his father is killed when he is young, he fights in many wars and lives as a lumberjack in Canada with his love Kayla. There's more in the film, but even that much should be enough for an interesting character. However it doesn't work at all. The characters are all nothing more than manipulative killing machines and from a filmmaking perspective I'm curious as to why that is.

The above spoof is accurate in that there is a lot of screaming and very little dialog. That might have something to do with it but there can be depth in silent films; the Little Tramp evoked sympathy. The lack of dialog does hint that there's very little humor and hence it's much less fun than a film like Iron Man. It could be that this is a prequel so we know who survives. Or it could be that the two main characters have healing abilities and can't really be hurt.

Any way you slice it, it's just ok. It's a mindless summer action flick and it's mostly forgettable. Enjoy the popcorn. If you want laughs, look at the list of plot keywords in IMDb, it's a riot.