Rating:
3 out of 5
Short version: While not exactly great, Wolverine is better than X-Men 3 and is a decent start to the 2009 Summer movie season.
Screen Rant reviews X-Men Origins: Wolverine
So it’s finally here… The next X-Men movie, Wolverine. There’s been MUCH controversy surrounding this film (at least to fans of the comic book titles) – certain characters injected into the film that shouldn’t be there (a young Cyclops, for example), the height difference between Wolverine and Sabretooth (silly, in my opinion), whether Gambit would have an appropriate Cajun accent, and the biggie: The depiction of “Deadpool” (played by Ryan Reynolds).
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For details and reader comments on all this check out this summary post of the Wolverine controversies.
In addition to that we had the April Fool’s day bombshell of a workprint of the movie making its way onto the internet. Would this hurt the box office? Early opening weekend ticket sales indicate that it probably didn’t.
Wolverine follows the life of James Logan from a young boy (in the late 1800s?), through (briefly) a number of wars and takes us through his adamantium skeleton implantation and right up until the point where he loses his memory. As a young boy, we discover that the older boy (Victor Creed) who will become Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber) is actually Logan’s brother.
After a death, the boys go on the run and during the opening title sequence we watch as they fight side by side in a number of wars. During this sequence (which is quite possibly the coolest thing in the entire film) we watch as Victor becomes more and more bloodthirsty as Logan tries to hold him back. Eventually it culminates in the murder of an officer, and the army attempts to execute them both. Too bad both of them have regenerative healing powers and can’t be easily killed.
This is where William Stryker (Danny Huston) comes in and offers them the chance to “really serve their country.” Here is where we meet the other members of Stryker’s team: Agent Zero (not clear on his power), Wade Wilson (assassin with healing ability already?), John Wraith (teleporter), Frederick J. Dukes (future Blob and incredibly strong and resilient) and Bolt (telekinetic powers).
They go on a mission, things get out of hand, and Logan bails on the team. Six years later we find him living in Washington state as a logger with a beautiful woman in a lone cabin. Things look good, but of course they don’t last. One thing leads to another and Logan goes back to Stryker, who wants to turn him into a super-weapon. Logan agrees if he can get revenge on Sabretooth – and warns Stryker that he is now the animal that Stryker always said he was.
As indicated in the previous X-Men movies, things do NOT go well directly after the adamantium implantation, but it is pretty cool to see exactly what went down during and after the procedure.
In order to track down Sabretooth he comes across John Wraith again and the (now) Blob, where we get a bit of a funny scene between the two. From there he seeks out Gambit who, yes, has a slight Cajun accent (almost unnoticeable). [MINOR SPOILER AHEAD] A battle soon ensues between Sabretooth and Wolverine, which is for some bizarre reason interrupted by Gambit, allowing Sabretooth to escape. Within the context of the story and considering Gambit’s reaction to the mention of Victor Creed, it didn’t really make any sense to me. [END SPOILER]
Eventually Wolverine makes it to the secret base where a bunch of mutants who could very well be the cast of the in development film X-Men: First Class. He runs into Weapon XI (previously Wade Wilson aka Deadpool) and the big final beat-down ensues.
So after all this, what’s the verdict?
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not that bad. In fact, I’d say it’s pretty decent – IF you’re not a hardcore fan of the comic book universe. If you’re a fan (which I’m not, really) I’d say all of your fears about characters and their relationships will be realized in the film.
From what I’ve read, fans are going to be pretty mad about the depiction of Wade Wilson (I don’t want to call him Deadpool, since he doesn’t seem to be that character yet) in the film. There’s also the issue of Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Wolverine having met prior to the events of the first X-Men film.
Some of the “adamantium claws” CGI was pretty poor. Why, I have no idea since I thought the claws looked pretty darned good in the previous films. Did the maybe go from mainly mechanical effects to poorly done CGI? Also, with two primary characters using claws to basically rip, shred, stab and disembowel their opponents, the lack of a single drop of blood being shed is highly noticeable and ridiculous. Ane the way in which Wolverine loses his memory… it’s not the actual way in which he loses it, but the certainty on the part of Stryker that it will work that seemed pretty silly.
There was also a scene early on where Agent Zero reloads a couple of handguns in the most ridiculous way possible – I actually laughed out loud when it happened, and that was not the intention of the scene. Then again, that could just be because I’m pretty familiar with handguns.
As to Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson, I’m conflicted. I think Reynolds was a good casting choice, but especially considering that they supposedly went back and added more shots with him, he didn’t have much face time as himself (as opposed to Weapon XI). He got off a couple of minor zingers, but nothing really substantial as far as wisecracks. He did have a very cool scene early on in the film however, where he gets to show off his skills.
So what was good? Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber were great – both individual and when sharing scenes. Some of the action was pretty great, especially the few scenes where Gambit was utilized (would’ve liked to have seen more of that). I also really liked Lynn Collins as Logan’s love interest. Oh, and Wolverine is no longer the “wuss” he was being turned into more and more with each subsequent X-Men film – here he is a bad-ass once again.
Overall X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a not-very-deep, surface-level kind of movie where you don’t really get drawn into the characters very much (although I imagine that’s what director Gavin Hood was trying to accomplish). You just don’t get to know the characters very well outside of Wolverine. Even with all the screen time given to Creed, he still seems one-dimensional (at least until the very end of the film). It’s not as good as the first two X-Men films, but it’s better than X-Men 3.
However if you’re not hung up on the comic book details and don’t look for too much from it, I think you’ll enjoy the film as an action-packed popcorn movie, and a decent opener to the 2009 Summer blockbuster movie season.
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148 Comments
I’m trying to understand why sabretooth looks so different from his appearance in X-Men 1. Does anyone have an explaination?
Just watched it. And it was worth the money I paid. Thats good enough for me. Better than X3. Claws did look a little funny sometimes. Liev was great as Sabretooth.
Hopefully makes enough money for a sequel. Wolverine in Japan could be very interesting.
<<>>
I think Quicksilver was one of the caged mutants.
The scene where Logan checks out his new claws (in the farmers bathroom) lacked good graphics. It looked unfinished. I hope that they make improvements to the CGI before this movie goes to Bluray.
@NHOZ:)
I’m not postive about this, which really makes me want to brush up on my Sabretooth history. But i think when sabretooth was younger he looked more human like and mutated further after the weapon X experiments or something like that to become more animalistic. Similar to the way Beast has mutated further over the years. If you follow the comics, beast began look human when he first joined the school, he was just really smart and agile. over the years he has grown the blue fur and has as of the past few years has begun to look even more like a feline. But like I said, I’m not positive. It could just be fox’s attempt to make sure you know hes supposed to be younger
Looks like I’ll be the one swimming upstream on this post.
I loved it. I thought it was great and give a 4 out of 5 easy.
In fact, after reading all these posts and the review by Tom Charity on CNN I thought it would suck.
I wish I could have seen more of Gambit and the part after the credits was plain stupid but necessary I suppose.
Good movie. I don’t think this one will be dropping 70% by the next week and 60% every week after like the last comic movie did.
i agree that Fox F’d up Deadpool.
i also got the Deadpool/Weapon XI Ending.
and i quote:
retracting Katana-arm Blade “SniKt”
Head obtained
&
“SSHHHHHH… ”
i have so many issues with this Flick.
escpesially with Gambit (Who i went dressed as
“i looked better”)
and 1 thing i hated was that FOX Changed Gambits eyes Like 2or3 times and we get 1.5 seconds of his eyes.
and the fact that Gambit was Like Vaulting thru the air like he could Super jump angered me.
the acccen was weak as where the eyes,
Wilson and gambit needed alot More screen time (i think)
the majority of this film completely controdicts the comics.
and i gigled when they showed the Yound toad.
and good point VIC about the majority of the cast of “first Class” being in that scene.
i saw :
quicksilver
toad
iceman
cyclops
emma frost
and many others.
but 1 thing they never touch on is :
THAT EMMA FRoST IS A FREAK’IN TELEPATH !
I feel robbed like most of you all…I just wish they could get this right…there were plenty of villians the x-men could fight that were somewhat realistic. Im still waiting for a “Days of the Future Past” movie…one that would introduce Bishop and Cable. Yeah Im a little angry too about Deadpool…But I knew that Ryan Rynolds could kill the role (they could have at least put the mask on him at the end)
Oh yeah I think Jubilee was part of the mutants running away…looked like an asian teen with a highlight in her hair)
I just saw it actually, my friend called and said they already got tickets, so I just went, might as well. And it was OK, not really good at all. The CGI was pretty bad, I also agree with the memory loss thing. If they would have simply cut out Stryker actually SAYING it, and had it just be a side effect of what happened, it would have been 10 times better.
I was actually surprised with the cameo at the end though, that was cool. And the twist at the end wasn’t badly pulled off either.
The meeting Cyclops thing isn’t really a big issue because he barely saw him and he never really showed him his abilities. When Wolverine saw Cyclops he was just one of the many people he rescued. Sabretooth on the other hand, it is weird that they are brothers and yet they don’t know each other in the X-Men movies, lol.
Some of the action sequences were pretty cheesy, like the bike/helicopter chase scene, there was just so many wrong things about that scene…
And Deadpool… why did they do that with him???
Anyway, overall it was entertaining. It wasn’t good, but wasn’t at all as bad as I had expected it to be, so I guess it’s ok…
Claude Vic isn’t being hard on it because it strayed from the comics I think over the years he has made it pretty clear he doesn’t care that much about straying from the comics which is one of the things that makes me use this site. It’s refreshing to see a scifi/comic movie fan that doesn’t care if it strays from the source material. His problems with the film are mostly problems that he would find with any film. Although I do agree it was way to generous with Punisher War Zone that movie was pure crap.
Also hard to believe your a very big comic fan when you say things like “The wolverine solo comic was epileptic. Usually a mini-series or graphic novel. Wolverine was more of a team character than a Spidey or Batman.” With a comment like that maybe you were a Marvel fan, but haven’t been the last few years because in the last few years Wolverine has ended up with multiple solo titles that are not simple mini series. He had two full fledged solo series one simply titled Wolverine and one title Wolverine: Origins (not to be confused with the similar titled mini series).
lol Ken J, in X-Men 1 Logan doesnt remember Victor(because of his memory loss) but there are signs that Victor does remember Logan, like how he keeps Logan’s dog tags after he fights him the first time.
I actually heard that there were two deadpool after credit endings, one that seemed pretty explanitory of what they did to him in the movie.
*****Spoiler*****
I think it showed someone pick up the head of weapon XI and say something like “Who are you supposed to be?” then it pans around and shows Wade Wilson(Reynolds) in a black coat.
I guess they didn’t really screw him up like people are complaining about, I never read the comics so I don’t know, but that’s a pretty cool little twist they they just cloned him, at least I guess that’s what they did.
*****Spoiler*****
Thanks Daniel F. You’re right. I’ve not read comics for a long while now.These days i prefer movie adaptations-probably cos they seem more realistic?- All this Ultimate/alternate universe thingies are hard to swallow at my age now.Haha! Anyway,glad Wolverine has gotten up for himself these days- a spot for a select few then like Spidey and Hulk.
As for Vic, I didnt mean to imply that he was against going contrary to the mythos; more like the other commentaries i was reading. Lets not all be too fanatical. Ok i keep the spoilers close to my chest for now as well. Sssh, my inner lips are sealed.
So I just seen it. 4.5/5. It was the Sabretooth and Wolverine story that always should have been told, but never was. They changed alot, but i guess they had too or itd be a 12 hour movie. Gambit is by far my favorite XMan and they did him terribly but thats my only complaint. He needed a better accent and the black eyes with red pupils. The accent he did have kept fading in and out. It was a great story though. I loved what they did with deadpool. I didn’t like, however, the after credits ending i saw with (spoiler alert) him reaching for his head and saying sshhh. What was that about? Definitly a great movie and a perfect film version of a Wolverine origin. Couldn’t be happier with it. i do believe they showed Quicksilver, which was wicked.
@Claude, right you are. I have heard of that Punisher movie but I have never seen it, forgot about it completly. I’d like too.
Good movie..served it’s purpose and entertained me and I felt it was worth my 11 dollars…Will buy the BluRay..Great start to the summer movie season I think..My wife and I already have our tickets for Star Trek next week..May should be a great month with T4 as well..
I think Terminator will be the biggest money maker in May..
I think Terminator will be the movie of the year.
I am so stoked for that movie, favorite actor, T2 is one of my favorite movies and this looks so freaking epic.
BTW,
You guys DID know that this movie has 4 alternate endings shown after the credits?
I’ve seen 2 of them, one better than the other.
Hmmm…. time to voice my opinion [Possible minor spoilers].
—– How do I feel about the movie?
It was better than expected and enjoyable to watch, but not a “great” film by any means. It felt like a good comic book translated into a decent movie. The way certain shots were presented, the way certain transitions and plot devices were used, all felt like a comic book to me and I applauded it for that as opposed to picking at it like many blogs out there are unfairly doing.
The morning before seeing the movie, I watched the first X-Men movie to prepare myself and at great decision that was.
Boy, does the first X-Men film ever hold up – it is my favorite Comic Book film to date and despite some deviations from the comics (understandable for a movie adaptation to a certain extent), it was a great movie on its own and it does everything right. A lot of folks and critics like X2 better, not me, not at all. X3 on the other hand, I absolutely hated and didn’t enjoy watching it. This Wolverine prequel was very enjoyable and while not nearly as good a film as X2, I found it more fun as a theater experience.
What I looked for specifically in watching this movie was the flashback scenes of Wolverine in the first X-Men movie of when he was in Weapon X. Unfortunately they didn’t match up to what we saw in this origins film. The way they presented the whole adamantium-grafting scene didn’t make any sense, a very weak point of the movie for me.
The humour and action scenes were very effective for me as well. The theater I was in was laughing out loud over everything Wade Wilson said – it’s too bad he’s barely in it before he becomes… well whatever the villain is supposed to be.
—– Characters
The weak points of the movie are how some characters are mishandled and some cheap/unfinished special effects.
Deadpool was ill-used and Gambit was completely unlike Gambit. If you’ve been following Screen Rant’s coverage on this flick, you know how I feel about the character portrayals in the films.
In the film, Gambit is not very cool, has no Cajun accent, and doesn’t use any of his famous french catch-phrases, nor does he really look like Gambit… so why is he in this film for only 4 minutes of screen time? They should of saved him for the X-Men: First Class film and done the character right. He comes off as some cocky punk kid with a southern accent, oh and he uses his cards once, never again.
Another annoyance for me is Agent Zero who’s scenes are weak. In his first action sequence, Stryker tells him to take down all the guards at this building by himself and we get to see some stupid gunplay. Whoever deals with action planning behind these X-Movies needs to be replaced (anyone remember Magneto’s stupid strategy in X3 of having half his mutant army get taken down before taking out the soldiers’ guns?). Stryker have an entire team of mutants, why not send in Wraith to take out a bunch of dudes behind cover while Agent Zero is taking out others? – a SIMPLE thing would make such a difference. Or Monaghan take out the lights, Blob distract and take the gun fire while others are taking them out, etc. etc.
My favourite X-Character is Gambit and I have zero interest in seeing a solo film of him now… isn’t that sad? As for Deadpool, if in his spinoff film they somehow get rid of the blades and laser eyes, then he’d be ripe for making a proper movie (since he would have healing and teleportation abilities only then).
As for the other characters, Jackman is a superstar and is an absolute workhorse in this movie. The faults are not his own, but really, he should be a little more gruesome and this movie needs some more gore (any gore at all actually) to make it seem genuine.
Liev Schreiber was fantastic too and I don’t get any criticism towards him. His character made total sense to me and was a great villain. Again, the problem relates to how he goes from this dude to the dumb and quiet thug with long blonde hair and black eyes in the first X-Men. Hopefully that’ll be explained in the sequel.
Dominic Monaghan is a great actor and he played his part perfectly… he just had little purpose in the film unfortunately. He had more screen time than Cyclops and Emma yet they were advertised and he wasn’t… interesting how that works eh?
—– The Magic Bullet
About the memory issue. The adamantium bullet thing works for me, and if you hate that, you know very little of the Wolverine comics and how ridiculous and contradictory his stories are in the Marvel universe. A great point is made in the comments above though is that if Stryker hadn’t said anything and shot him thinking it could kill him or something, it would have been slightly better. But at the same time, they know that wouldn’t kill him since parts of his brain were burnt to hell with the adamantium grafting so I don’t know how they could of done that properly.
It’s a comic book plot device which says if his brain is completely destroyed by the bullet, it’ll heal after a while but memories stored within will be gone – but how are his basic functions still there and his ability to speak, etc, etc. I don’t know of a better way to have done that but if they wanted him dead earlier in the movie, Agent Zero should have been given a bunch of adamantium weapons… (his scenes were pretty stupid too and easily correctable)
—– The final word
If you’ve seen the other X-Movies or are a comics/action movie fan, I highly recommend this film. It’s not as bad as Rotten Tomatoes makes it seem and too many folks are jumping on the Hate Train.
I had a good time, perhaps because I went in with low expectations, perhaps because Jackman was awesome in this (although not as vicious as I’d hope).
@Rob
i completely agree with you,man.
{Warning: Spoilers [edited by SR]}
i to am a HUGE fan of Gambit as many here know.
the manny issues of this film anger me.
weather it be the characters, story, acting, or FX.
there is 2many to touch on in one comment so i’ll hit My main issues.
Gambit’s Small amount of screen time.
the way he was portrayed.
1 thing i hated was the massive Jumps he was doing Like at the End when he preaks the Slab of the Nuke-tower.
just made me crindge.
also like ROB said the advertising was way miss-leading.
Being a Huge fan of the comics i went in prepared for disapointment.
in all the promos the emphisize on gambits eyes&cards and we get about 2.5 seconts of each.
oh and his Staff….. WHY !!!!
of course we dident get a Telescopeing Bo Staff, we get Som kind of Pimp Cane with a rock on it.
now dont get me wrong i liked him fighting with the staff,up in till he started Climping the wall.
i Was waiting the whole time for sum French-slang intigrated with his english, and again nothing.
Call me Obsesed but i really wanted Logan to Just call him “Cajun” once in the Film.
but NOTHING !
i Really enjoyed the Logan & Victor scenes.
also the never touched on the Fact that EMMA is a Telepath.
i like that they Spent 1 scene and introduced the Muntants of Tomorow.
“quick silver”
also ROB i have 2 qustions for you sir.
1. what ending did you get?
and
2.what did you think of the Super DE-aged Prof.X ?
@ Brodie Bruce,
[Spoiler Warning]
I threw in a quick spoiler warning into your post so others who read your comment know.
In theaters, I got the Stryker ending which was not very exciting, although I saw a low-quality version of the Deadpool ending online.
De-aged Prof X looked a little off, they still need to work on that tech. Because Patrick Stewart will definitely be in X-Men: First Class, I’m a little worried about what they’ll do with him in that.
Seeing those mutants really makes you wonder about the cast of First Class, could Emma and Quicksilver be in First Class? It could make for some interesting Magneto-related stuff.
@Rob, if you watch X3 again, when they showed Magneto and Xavier in the “20 years ago” segment, the deaging they did on Magneto was HORRIBLE. He looked like a cartoon head floating around, lol.
You didn’t stay long I enough Rob. everyone gets the Stryker ending in the middle of the credits the changed up extra endings are after everything is completely finished and you think it’s all over.
Just horrible! They should really think about revamping the whole series. Which I doubt they will. Didn’t they learn anything from Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk?
@Agustin
Marel revamped Incredible Hulk because Ang Lee’s one didn’t bring in the money they wanted and they had the rights to it. Fox owns the rights to the X-Men movies and since they all made Fox a lot of money, I doubt they’ll be revamping it.
I agree withRob Wholeheartedly that the originaslX- men film is the best of the lot.
It focuses on the chracters more then any of the others do.
Wolverine was decent.
not great,
but not X3 bad either.
I couldnt help but wonder as I watched,
how many who only follow the X- Men in the films,
KNEW this was a prequel?
How many were dissapointed by the amnesia thing?
just a thought.
I got the non Deadpool ending .
didnt it ever occur to fox that everybody who diodnt get the deadpool ending WONT know what really happened to Wade?
Saw the movie this morning. Gambit’s hat still sucked even for the 20 seconds he had it on, and as a whole was a let down. Ryan Reynolds was surprisingly bearably. The movie wasn’t bad, but they strayed too far from the original story of Wolverine’s origin. I thought that because of the adimantium bonding that it messed up his mind and memories, not some adimantium bullet. I mean it still works but its like ok. Liev Schriber was decent as Sabertooth. I got the Wolverine ending which was just like wow they could have saved that for the DVD so i could fast forward to it instead of staying through the credits for basically nothing. Nice to see that they counter fanboys(I am fan of Xmen/Wolverine so hush) belief that Wolverine can not be killed, which sorry having adimantium covered bones does not mean u can not be killed, and if u can’t get signals from your brain tot he rest of your body to heal because your head is gone then also means dead. I think the 3 stars is right on, I would of said 3.5 but that damn hat on Gambit (even for 20 seconds) took away that half a star.
@ Brodie Bruce
THAT PIMP CANE WAS HOT!!!!! THE HAT WAS NOT!!!!!
I liked his hat so I’ll go from my 3.5 to 4
OMG Vic it makes so much since now. Deadpool is 1 of my fav mutants and I loved the news of Renolds being cast but then pissed when there was 0 footage of him in his trademark costume. I became even more frustrated when I saw the bald guy with no shirt. But I saw the film and it hit me that not until he is horribly disfigured did he need 2 wear that full body suit. And he broke the 4th wall just as he always should. Which makes me long 2 see Ryan Renolds suit up in a future installment
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