The “origins” chapter for X-Men: Wolverine barely even serves
as filler. At the end of the movie, Wolverine loses his memory. This
implies that viewers shouldn’t be bothered to keep track of Wolverine’s
backstory, when he can’t even remember it. The only justice is that the
movie’s forgettable, anyway.
It lacks a concise emotional drive. The appeal of this project is
finding the exciting roots and superhero potential in Logan/Wolverine’s
mythos, and placing them in a 1970s action-movie setting. It’s
unfortunate the storytelling is so awful that there’s nothing
indicating what decade it is. Wolverine’s slow-aging process isn’t
addressed—deflating expectations that an “origins” story should
explain a couple things, like how he fought in so many wars, during the
opening credits. The only thing less clear than his own motivation is
that of his nemesis. His brother Victor (Liev Schrieber) turns against
him because that’s what happens with mutant siblings (?).
The first half of the movie is about Logan trying to live a normal
life in Canada (as a lumberjack, of course), living with his girl,
after breaking free from a Special Ops mutant sector. He then vows to
avenge his girlfriend’s death. Physically upgraded into a more lethal
weapon, Wolverine breaks free from his science lab rebirth-fluid,
growling at the sky (a trope director Gavin Hood uses repeatedly).
Whether Logan should embrace his animal side is one of many unexplored
themes. Rather than a motivated story, X-Men Origins is guided
by Wolverine running from things, getting angry and following leads.
His friendly visit with an elderly couple at a farm is a nice detour
recalling Kal-El’s upbringing in Superman: The Movie. But the
film hasn’t figured out the attraction of its superhero to make his
empowerment and rage focused and thrilling.
This article appears in May 7-13, 2009.
Palermo, you actually expect a movie titled X-Men Origins: Wolverine to have “emotional drive”? You are what’s wrong with movie critics. It’s a bleedin’ X-Men movie, not Taxi Driver.
Thought the action in the first half of the movie was great. Fell asleep at the end. It wasn’t that engaging for me but I think with an X-Men movie you might expect more ‘fun’ and ‘action’ – which I felt was supplied.
You hate every movie. I think you LOVE to hate every movie. You get off on it. Somehow it makes you big to tear apart a movie. And that’s fine on your own time, but I don’t understand why the coast pays you to do this.
Seriously; scraping up that WOLVERINE has no “emotional drive”… gimme a break.
Oh, come ON, people! We settle for far too little in our entertainment these days. Seriously, compare X-Men Origins: Wolverine to the first two X-Men movies. They delivered the action required, but also made you feel something for the characters. Without that “emotional drive” Palermo is talking about, there’s no investment in anything going on… here I didn’t care about Wolvie and his issues. Worse, the fact that the movie made no sense and there were big problems with the internal logic, made the whole thing fall apart. Has anyone asked why it is Sabretooth, a prominent (if hairier) character in the first X-Men movie, didn’t recognize his brother in that film? Has anyone asked why if Wolvie’s girlfriend could get Stryker to walk until his feet bled, she couldn’t get him to release her sister? Has anyone asked why it is Logan and Victor don’t age? Or why they fight repeatedly for the US military if they’re both, as Logan points out, Canadian? Have we been shovelled so much shit in the summer blockbuster that we’ve started to like it? Hey, I loved Iron Man, Dark Knight and many other superhero movies, but I’m with Palermo on this one. They spend so much money on the way the movies look, it’s great when they care about the way it’s written.
And, incidentally, Palermo’s favourite film from 2008 was Tropic Thunder. A really big movie.
Even though I’m sure this topic is dead, I’d like to answer some of this guys questions. Why do they serve the military if they are canadian, dude the military gets what they want its how they are, a bunch of bullying jerks, do you think two canadians, even with mutant powers are going to say no to the military, especially since all they were asking them to do, is to kill people for them, something Sabretooth got off on, and wolvie ended up regreting if you payed any attention to the opening sequence in which sabertooth would constantly tell “jimmy” to do as he said and follow what he does. They don’t age cuz of his healing factor, that’s a question any mediocre fan could guess. She couldn’t control the boss because the boss has the people with the guns. If she tried to do anything they could have just shot her. Instead of trying to look for things wrong with a movie, why not just stop watching the genre. I mean come on, a person can only make something completely fictional as realistic as humanely possible without removing the element we enjoy most, the cool explosions and magic of it all. Sheesh, go back to watching war movies, if you don’t enjoy a good mutant story.