Leaving X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I had several lingering questions. The first was, “I waited through the credits for that?” The second, and more important was, “What exactly was the point?”

Wolverine is an exercise in futility; a movie with no stakes, no consequences, and no real thrills. It’s just an excuse to get Hugh Jackman back in his star-making role without having to pay the entire cast of X-Men. It’s supposed to shed light on his beginnings and explain how he became a killing machine. But the bulk of that was effectively covered in X2. Wolverine’s relationship with Stryker in X2 is more of a father-son deal. It implies their connection is fairly complex. But as Origins shows, Stryker’s just the guy who injects Logan with adamantium. Sure, he also orchestrates a fake marriage and steals his DNA, but if their relationship is (and should have been) the crux of Origins, it fails completely.

The other important relationship in the movie is between Logan and Victor Creed, his brother (Liev Schreiber). Unfortunately, there’s no motivation for Sabretooth, except that he likes to kill things. And when Wolvie objects to the killing of innocent things, Sabretooth takes it personally. Uh, okay. Wolverine does gain motivation when Sabre kills his wife, but that proves to be useless and false anyway. Again, exercise in futility. Especially when, at the end of the movie, Victor has a change of heart for the stupidest of reasons. (“Nobody kills you but me.”) Everything is painted in broadstrokes like this.

As I mentioned in Sticky Floor Friday, there are about 30 mutant jammed into this movie. And every single one of them is useless. Take Gambit, for instance. It really feels like there was a meeting where the producers said, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if we had Gambit in this movie? I don’t care if the script is already written, just stick him in there somewhere!” I love me some Tim Riggins (Friday Night Lights fans represent!), but Taylor Kitsch is given nothing to do in his three scenes as Gambit. He doesn’t have a memorable introduction or a memorable line, and he exists based solely on his reputation from the comics. Anyone who didn’t know him before this movie won’t know him after.

How about the team Stryker forms to pull off missions? The elite group of mutants consisting of Deadpool, The Blob, Bolt, Agent Zero, Bolt, John Wraith, Wolverine, and Sabretooth? We see them go on one and a half missions. That’s it. I would have loved Ryan Reynolds to be on screen for more than 4 minutes. This section of the movie could have really shaped Wolverine and shown him transforming from killing machine to a man with regrets. Instead, it’s just an excuse to throw a bunch of mutants together, then execute a half-assed, Watchmen rip-off, someone’s-killing-team-members storyline.

There are a few other mutant cameos, including Scott Summers, Emma Frost, and Prof. X. Not to get too nerdy, but did anyone else think it was weird that Scott could hear Professor X, but Emma, whose main power is telepathy, was totally oblivious? I guess she had diamonds between her ears.

But wait, there are EVEN MORE mutants! How about the main villain, Deadpool? An indestructible amalgam of the Weapon X team that has blades coming out of his hands, Cyclops’ beam coming out of his eyes, Wraith’s teleportation, and healing powers? Turns out you need to use a keyboard to make him work. And…he can’t be killed! Do you want to know how to take any tension out of a movie’s finale? Pit three unbeatable mutants against each other. What’s at stake?? NOTHING! In the Hulk Vs. Wolverine comic book, Hulk rips Wolverine in half and throws part of his body on a mountain because he knows he can’t kill him. That’s creativity! Deadpool/Wolverine/Sabretooth just punch and stab each other.

I think all of this would have been okay had the movie just stayed enjoyable. Even if the story’s weak, just make it FUN! We’ve seen Wolverine done better in the previous X-Men movies. He was funny, sarcastic, and viscous when he needed to be. I can’t remember more than one or two times that Logan even attempted to crack a joke in Origins. He’s so deadly serious that it drains any sense of fun from the movie. And he’s not even deadly! He has a bad dream and growls one time, that’s about as ferocious as I remember. At the end of the movie, Gambit returns to tell Wolverine something like, “You weren’t kidding when you said you were gonna kill everyone.” This line is hilarious because Wolverine doesn’t actually kill ANYONE during that sequence. For the majority of the movie, he doesn’t kill, he doesn’t crack jokes, he just exists. He’s never given anything interesting to do. This isn’t the fault of Hugh Jackman, or any of the actors for that matter. They do what they can, but it can’t overcome the mediocrity of the script.

You know, I remember seeing X-Men in theaters, and getting chills the first time I saw Wolverine on screen. Comic fans had been reveling in the aftermath for years. The first REAL Marvel movie and the beginning of the comic book movie boom. Since then, the bar has been consistently raised year after year, hitting the stratosphere last year with Dark Knight. The anemic effort put forth in X-Men Origins: Wolverine just doesn’t cut it anymore.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 9:45 am and is filed under Comics, Film, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.