Wolverine : Double fisted.

Well I have both enjoyed the Wolverine Origins movie and the Wolverine un caged on the 360. Both made me happy. But today we'll start with the movie as I've seen it twice now and I'm still in the mindset that I enjoyed it. Question is, does it live up to the hype?


Lets start with the movie shall we? Once again we see Hugh Jackman or Jeeekmeeen (if your from Australia) puts on the mutton chops and claws to play wolverine once more. This guy was born to play this role, looks and style wise, they couldn't have picked anyone better.

Firstly I want to draw attention to the casting for the movie. All in all, I was impressed, as the characters seemed to fit the actors for the most part. I will explain in detail later.

!!!!!SPOILERS AHEAD ME HEARTIES, GO CRY TO YER MOMMA!!!!!!

X men Origins: Wolverine starts us off with an interesting ideal of how the killing machine we all know and love came to be. As young children both Logan, (born James Howlett) and Victor creed are living in the 18th century. During a rather confused scene over who is the true father of Logan, Victor's father kills the apparent 'father' of logan. Out come the claws and Wolverine Jr decides to exact some old school justice.

The ideal that wolverine and sabretooth were brothers was always hinted at in the comics, but they some how seem to make it work from the get go of the movie. From the average movie goer's perspective, it works. I'm sure however, like other parts of the movie, this will have the nerds clawing for their inhalers due to the comic induced inaccuracy of the movie. From there we are thrown into an awesome scene through the various wars both Logan and Victor have fought through. I thought this worked perfectly and was seem less in the transition. The opening scene got me on the edge of my seat. However, I feel that the movie didn't keep the adrenaline injection constant.

The weapon X program is the centerpiece of the movie. Everyone wants to know where Wolverine came from. Not being the most dedicated of comic book fans, but knowing the general synopsis for the story, I felt this was generally easy to understand for the average movie goer. I know there are some massive inconsistencies and mistakes throughout, which deviate wildly from the comics, but unfortunately, that's Hollywood kids.

Colonel Stryker makes his reprise, but not played by Brian Cox this time around as we are indeed, in the past. The story focuses on Team X - a group of mutants that were assembled with Strykers blessing. This consisted of Wolverine, Sabretooth, Wraith, Agent Zero, Bolt and Deadpool. With a brief intro to all the characters, and their super powers displayed for the audience, which is awesome, but again, hardcore fans will be upset. I will be honest as I have not read the Team X comics that were produced, but knowing the characters, I felt that this first scene was really stunning to watch.

The story also focuses on Logan's first love of his life as he abandons team X to live a life free from killing. Soon enough though he is tracked down by Victor and the fun ensues. Styker then offers Logan a chance into the weapon X program. This is the point of the movie where most of the semi serious fans will pick up right away and be generally happy with the plot from this point.

There are other mutants in the main story, but they don't really get much of a look in. Wraith, Blob and Gambit all make very small contributions to the film. It felt like Gambit was an after thought. They left him out of the original X-men movies, so by giving him 10 lines of dialogue and some cool FX, every thing would be better. I thought the actor that played gambit was excellent and it was a shame they shunted him to the sidelines so quickly.

Although Hugh Jackman always pleases in his wolverine outfit and does the character justice, I feel that Liev Schriber stole the show with Sabretooth. While Hugh was roaring on set, I felt that Sabretooth seemed so much more natural. He had the whole calculated killing machine mentality down and with a very dark sense of humor, it brought the whole package home for me personally.

Like I said before, there are some HUGE deviations from the true story arc, however, you've got to look at it objectively. Stan Lee was on board for this, so it had to get his blessing before someone completely butchered a story line. I think adaptive change and a fresh look is good for a movie, however, there were some parts I really thought crossed too many lines.

For most serious fans though, there was one mistake that I feel might have damaged the upcoming Deadpool origins movie. Deadpool was taken on somewhat of a tangent. He was literally the 'DEAD POOL' and by this they turn him into the ultimate mutant with multiple powers.
Yes unfortunately, the beloved Deadpool was really really REALLY messed up. Now with Stan Lee on board as a producer, you think that red alarm bells and shiny lights would be going off when they thought of this idea. I guess the green money printing Cha Ching noises must have drowned the other alarm out. Now for the movie though, it stays in line with THAT story. However, it doesn't make a lot of sense and will leave a lot of the marvel fans with a very bitter taste in their mouths.

Ryan Reynolds however should be noted. In the first part of the movie before the butchering happens to his character. He actually has the attitude and the never ending mouth down perfectly. Katanas spinning and people getting killed, he pretty much nails Deadpool's persona, albeit there are a few inconsistencies.I won't go into every little character flaw that was made with him, but I felt that initially, he was going to be awesome. Having already known what happened to Deadpool from a friend that had seen the movie, I was prepared, but still, I wasn't quite prepared for this. Just for comparisons sake...here's some food for thought....




Baraka - Mortal Kombat




Oh look Kids! It's Deadpool, now with LAZOR vision. Oh and if this didn't piss you off enough. He teleports too.Fantastic. No wait. It isn't.Katanas in his hands, oh my word, this is a strange similarity. Oh and if this wasn't enough. They sew his mouth shut to make it ironic as he is the 'merc with a mouth'. Ha. Perfect. I bet the execs spent all night thinking up that little gem. Terrible. To cap it off nicely, they make him a robot essentially that follows Stryker's commands. In the process the space around his eyes looks eeriely similar to Deadpool's actually facemask in the comics. Weird ain't it?

The only reason this is a bit of a bum rap for the movie is because in essence, they spent so much time at least TRYING to keep true to the original characters, why would they go this strange route. With the upcoming Deadpool origins movie in the works, this might damage Marvel's chances of making it stick with the comic fans. I mean if they are trying to make him marketable, then...they should make a toy too...that would follow.

OH SNAP!

SPOILERS END!!!!!!

In all seriousness however, I felt the movie was entertaining. Nothing ground breaking and certainly not as hyped as I felt it could have been. Blame that on the movie leak if you will, but they could have really mopped up at the box office if they kept the story a lot tighter.

As previously mentioned, I feel that Sabretooth stole the show, and even with out adamantium claws, he proved to be far more menacing than Wolverine.

The special effects, although there were some glitches in parts of the movie, were pretty decent. The action was balanced and kept you pretty much interested with the movie for the most part. Personally I enjoyed the character backgrounds to some of the more minor mutants such as the Blob and Wraith. They were interesting sidelines, but I truly wish that they had given Gambit more screen time.

All in all a solid film, which delivered the back story of Wolverine. Comic book fans will hate many aspects if not all of them in the movie. As I previously stated, although it's nice to think that the director is going to do justice to the comics, sometimes that just isn't realistic when cramming it all into two hours.

Frankly, I think it's a great start to the summer movies that are coming out and I look forward to the future blockbusters.

RATING : B - Solid but lacks the pace of Xmen 2.