Wolverine's Origins

Leaves you wondering what you missed

Scripted by David Benioff and Skip Woods, this film has no plot. Scratch that, too many plots with no tone taking the film in one direction. Gavin Hood directs the arguably star filled cast of Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Durand, Dominic Monaghan and Will i Am.

The film starts off with an error only Canadians will notice, reading “North-West Territories, Canada, 1845”, the writers have established a place and timeline for the origin but it’s a shame it wasn’t “Canada” until 1867. After that, it started out promising, and when I say that, I mean the opening credit sequence showing Logan and Victor fighting through many of the wars fought throughout the early 1900s and later. This was a magnificent piece that showed us the camaraderie the two brothers had, but it was only downhill from this point.

For a budget over $150 million this should look near perfect from a CGI standpoint. Yet it was so poorly handled that when Wolverine moved, his claws shifted from the top of his knuckles and around his hand. Not sure what they did differently from the first 3 X-Men films but it didn’t work at all. Green screens were used for many aspects of the film with some that look fantastic and others giving the impression of a new technology that is being tested for the first time in the early 80s. Some of the effects looked top notch, with Scott/Cyclops blowing out the roof of his school being the best.

A darker, more savage Wolverine tale was what Fox was marketing it as, and at times it felt like that. Until they brought in yet another funny moment or heartfelt outlook on Wolverine from Ma and Pa Kent, oh wait, this isn’t a Superman film. More marketing mayhem was the use of some big name characters being brought into the film, which they were, just never developing any story for them, a quick introduction and on to the next character once the preceding character leaves the screen. The writers seemed to do the same thing with the plot, introduce an element and then quickly jump to the next one without fully finishing the previous plot point.

Not all was horrible, as a big hand has to be given to Jackman, Huston and Schreiber who carried the film with fantastic acting. Some of the lines of dialogue they spewed out were corny and almost out of character but they miraculously pulled them off. Schreiber ups the ante for the Sabertooth character of the original X-Men (played by Tyler Mane), showing he can be animalistic and frightening. Ryan Reynolds was cast flawlessly as Deadpool, but after 5 minutes he was never heard from again.

Aside from a few moments that caused me to smile, I was mostly groaning throughout the entire film. The good news, Reynolds should be back as the “merc with a mouth” as a Deadpool spin-off has been confirmed. Not only that, but a sequel to this film was also confirmed, with Jackman returning and the plethora of Wolverine material they are bound to get it right eventually, sadly this was not that time.

1 out of 5
Colin Enquist