X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Like a lot of people who write movie reviews I complain quite a lot about CGI.  Truth is I like it when it is done right, and I find myself quite amazed by how well a number of films from the 1990s and 2000s have stood up.  There are some problems here and there, but the first three X-Men films (yes, even Last Stand) have managed to still look good.  So, when Wolverine's adamantine claws come out in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, there was no excuse for a movie made three years after the last one to have them look like an outtake from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.

It's not just his claws, but pretty much every effect, and there are so many of them in this movie.  Though Hugh Jackman was hoping the writers and director Gavin Hood would humanize Wolverine and make this movie more of a "character piece," it is wall-to-wall special effects and action sequences, and all of them either look like the effects team gave up halfway through or just forgot they were making a live-action comic book movie rather than a cartoon.  What's even more frustrating is that, at least in the beginning, his original bone claws don't look half bad. 

Besides bad CGI this movie is also notorious ruining Deadpool, at least until Ryan Reynolds (who also plays him here) got his chance to make his own movies based on the character.  He begins as a toned-down version of the sarcastic character, but then spends the major part of his time with his mouth sealed shut - and most of that time is played by Scott Atkins rather than Reynolds.  Deadpool had been a popular character for years, and one that Reynolds had been trying to get a chance to play, and everything that made the character was stripped from it. 

The shame is that the majority of the movie, though nonsensical, isn't that bad.  It does give us a Wolverine origin story as promised, goes further into a number of events mentioned in X2: X-Men United, and somehow sets up a side series that would end with Logan, considered one of the best superhero films of all time. 

Logan (Jackman) and his brother Victor (Liev Schreiber) possess the power to heal as well as the ability to grow different kinds of claws.  Through the years they fight in many wars, always on the side of the U.S., until in Vietnam they are executed by firing squad of killing a superior officer who is committing war crimes.  Since their execution doesn't take they are recruited into a special mercenary squad with other Mutants by a man named Stryker (Danny Huston).  During a mission in Africa Logan parts ways with Victor and the rest after becoming disenchanted with their actions.

Seeking a quiet life in the Canadian Rockies with his girlfriend Kayla (Lynn Collins), he soon agrees to undergo an experimental procedure proposed by Stryker after Victor, who has been killing other former members of the squad, murders Kayla.  In order to get revenge against his brother he agrees to have his skeleton fused with adamantium.  When he survives he finds out that Stryker intends to wipe his memory and use him as a weapon.  Wolverine escapes and soon contacts Remy LeBeau (Taylor Kitsch), aka Gambit, who knows where Stryker and Victor are working so that he can take revenge.  Unfortunately Stryker has been working on the ultimate mercenary, and his creation is waiting for Logan.

With a name like like X-Men Origins, I can't help but picture a whole lineup of movies that were planned, similar to what Disney was going to do with Star Wars until Solo fell victim of fanboy backlash over The Last Jedi.  Instead, it looks like all the movies that were supposed to be part of the Origins series made it, as there was no grand design.  Magneto's origin film ended up becoming X-Men: First Class, while Deadpool got his own series all together.  It was probably wise to keep the Origins reference away from them due to how badly this movie was received.  Still, it did well enough to spawn two sequels, although the follow-up was simply The Wolverine.  

Despite how terribly this movie was botched Jackman still puts in a great performance and Schreiber provides a great nemesis as Sabretooth, retconning them as brothers (Taylor Mane played Sabretooth, completed different in form and as one of Magneto's group, in the original X-Men) and giving some reasoning behind both characters' behavior.  The big bad guy is Stryker but, like in most James Bond films, the henchmen are always more interesting than the boss, and that doesn't change here.  One big addition, other than Deadpool, is Gambit.  His appearance kept getting pushed off in the previous movies and Taylor Kitsch does a great job with the character here despite the terrible effects associated with his powers. 

Even with better effects, X-Men Origins: Wolverine may have been just marginally better than X-Men: The Last Stand, but it still never ends up being the character piece Jackman wanted.  Luckily, it didn't kill the series, and there was a lot of life left in it until things started falling apart with X-Men: Apocalypse.  Still, a lot of what saved it was taking the whole X-Men universe into a different timeline, thus undoing much of the damage this movie did.  

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Time: 107 minutes

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Danny Huston, Ryan Reynolds

Director: Gavin Hood