Many movie and comic book fans credit Bryan Singer’s original two X-Men films (“X-Men,” “X-Men United”), along with Sam Raimi’s “Spiderman,” with reintroducing the superhero genre in today’s film industry. Following the success of Singer’s revival, filmmakers gained enough confidence to treat audiences with the effective restoration of both the Superman and incomparable Batman franchises, along with the introduction of Iron Man.
Unfortunately for fans of the famed mutant legacy, director Gavin Hood’s addition to the storyline could possibly result in the death of a previously respected franchise. After realizing the plot’s failure about 15 minutes into the story, the film’s short run time became one of its most appealing aspects. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” starts off bad and closes in an even worse state, representing everything that is cheesy and generic in derivative comic book movies.
The movie begins with our young hero James Howlett (whose eventual name change to Logan is oddly enough never explained) in mid-1800s Canada, realizing his mutation for the first time after witnessing the death of his father — at the hands of his real father. His newfound half-brother and best friend is Victor Creed, a character who eventually becomes Sabretooth, portrayed efficiently by the talented Liev Schreiber.
What follows is the title sequence, which for me proved to be this film’s only enjoyable scene. It encompasses an impressive sequence of transitions showing Logan and Victor’s service side by side in every major American war, culminating in Vietnam. After Victor lashes out at a fellow soldier through the subtle means of decapitation, he and Logan are both sentenced to death by firing squad, a punishment they obviously survive as a result of their mutations. They soon garner the attention of Gen. William Stryker, a character we were previously introduced to in Bryan Singer’s second installment. Stryker, played by respected veteran Danny Huston, wishes to recruit Wolverine and Sabretooth into his newly formed special unit, a group of mutants that carries out secret operations. Logan however eventually abandons his ‘brothers’ after witnessing the slaughter of a number of innocent civilians in Nigeria, a decision that does not sit well with Victor. To his dismay, Wolverine later learns that the group’s main goal is actually to capture and experiment on other mutants, attempting to realize Stryker’s dream of creating the ultimate mutant killer, Weapon XI, who has a variety of powers that includes Cyclops’s eye lasers combined with Wolverine’s own healing power and retractable blades.
Films like this are disappointing not only as a result of surprisingly boring action sequences, but also because of disrespect and negligence in to the source material. Essential fan favorites like Deadpool and Gambit are degraded and altered to the point of randomly mouthing off witty comments and killing a few bad guys.
Gambit was one of the main reasons why so many fans were eager to see this film, but unfortunately I realized the filmmakers had demoted him about two minutes into his first scene. This unfortunate revelation instilled the feeling that this film could have been equally as terrible even if these characters were omitted and “saved.” There is little dialogue, except for Wolverine’s growling and Stryker’s lecturing, and the plot encompasses the reiteration of the same lines over and over again. All that exists is chaos and the annoying use of computer generated images in many scenes that don’t even need it. However, what surprised me the most was the fact that this film was directed by Gavin Hood, who gained the respect of almost every critic with his Oscar-winning foreign film “Tsotsi.” He almost surely took this job in order to reach a more commercial fan base, a trap that is all too familiar with Hollywood directors.