Theatrical Review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine

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"Strike a pose
Strike a pose
Vogue, vogue, vogue
Vogue, vogue, vogue

Look around everywhere you turn is heartache
It's everywhere that you go [look around]
You try everything you can to escape
The pain of life that you know [life that you know]"

-"Vogue" - Madonna


As you probably know, a pirated copy of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" was leaked about a month ago. It was a more or less final cut of the film but with "unfinished" special effects, producing titters throughout the comic book blogosphere. Allegedly, the official theatrical cut released by 20th Century Fox has "finished" special effects but the finish didn´t take.

A globule of brightly colored pixels flutters around the screen like a Chihuahua in a wind gust and lands weightlessly in action figure pose. Ah, now the globule has resolved into Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) who springs into action against Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) in a CG fight we get to savor slowly because the two men spend the entire battle frozen in slow-motion action figure poses.

Did I mention action-figure poses? Hugh Jackman, still reigning as World´s Sexiest Man, vogues his way through the majority of the film with claws out and neck muscles bulging in one poster-ready shot after another. Strike a pose. Strike a pose. As required by law in over twenty countries, the buff Aussie plays it shirtless in several scenes and even butt-nekkid in another. But it´s all to no avail in this fashion show masquerading as a super hero movie.

Director Gavin Hood appears completely overmatched by his first big budget action extravaganza. "Wolverine" is a concatenation of action movie clichés, not just from the shopworn screenplay by David Benioff and Skip Woods but also in the selection of shots. There´s our hero setting off an explosion and walking in slow-motion (did I mention the slow motion?) towards a camera with a flinty stare as the flames billow up behind him. And there´s our hero walking away from the bad guy he´s decided not to kill, only to turn slowly back (with a flinty stare) as said bad guy reveals a dramatic dollop of previously privileged information.

Virtually every action sequence is filmed in the same way. Characters pose down (Vogue. Vogue.) then launch at each other at super-speed only to be suspended zero-G style as the camera pirouettes around their digitized avatars who then leap back into motion. The fights are short on detail and, except for the final set piece, short in duration. A blur here, a freeze frame there and we´re out. Your average HeroClix tournament has more exciting battles.

Wolverine has no definitive origin story but rather a handful of muddled origin stories of dubious reliability,a product of his equally muddled and unreliable memory. The film combines them all, beginning in 19th century Canada when Wolvie was a sickly boy named James Howlett. This chapter of the Wolverine mythos was only created in 2001 but has been accepted, with minor resistance, as official Marvel continuity. Thefilm sticks with its basic structure while playing with a few significant details. Chief among them is that James´ brother Victor is now the man who will become his future arch-enemy Sabertooth (Live Schreiber). A familial relationship between the two characters has long been implied but never defined in the comic books. Here it is spelled out with certainty and milked for all its dramatic value: it´s brother vs. brother to the bitter end.

James fights alongside Victor in a special ops force consisting of mutants and headed by the merely human Colonel Stryker (Danny Huston.) When the group turns increasingly violent, James quits, adopts the name Logan, and hides out in rural Canada. He lives the simple rustic life, lumberjacking by day, and snuggling up with his sweetie Kayla (Lynn Collins) by night. Logan´s Edenic existence cannot last and it´s his brother, of course, who expels from the garden. In the grand "girlfriend in a freezer" tradition of comic books, the hero´s true love is killed (by Victor) in order to test him and to propel him on his quest for righteously macho vengeance. You might think this is a spoiler but it really isn´t. I hope that isn´t a spoiler.

Logan returns to Stryker who promises to help him kill the bigger, stronger, faster Victor. Through an experiment so painful it would make Mel Gibson swoon, Logan´s skeleton is infused with adamantium, the hardest substance in the world, and he becomes an even more efficient killing machine than before. The usual plot twists commence. Stryker has a hidden agenda, secret identities are revealed, brother fights against brother, brother fights alongside brother, human sacrifice, dogs and cats, mass hysteria. You know the drill. The climax is telegraphed well ahead of time and plays out precisely as expected. The final three-way battle is the best effects-oriented sequence in the film, but it´s not nearly enough to make the journey worthwhile.

In order to produce as much merchandise as possible, super hero movies have increasingly begun to stuff as many characters a possible into a single film; an anonymous two second shot is enough to justify an action figure for the completist collectors. The only supporting player given any opportunity to distinguish himself is Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. Reynolds brings a snappy, self-conscious energy to the part but, despite the character´s outsized place in the promotional campaign, the film gives Deadpool shockingly little screen time. After a prominent role in the opening act of the film, he disappears from the story all but completely. In "Spider-Man 3," Marvel squandered its most popular character of the 1980s, Venom. In "Wolverine," it squanders perhaps its most popular new character to emerge from the 1990s. A spin-off is always possible, but the way Deadpool is casually discarded here is simply baffling.

It´s not just Deadpool who is squandered. As far as the "X" series goes, "Wolverine" may actually be a step down the Brett Ratner hackjob "X3" (2006.) All superhero movies are advertisements for their merchandise department, but "Wolverine" is more obvious than most, with product placement substituted for compelling characters or an engaging storyline. Combined with Hood´s limp direction and the sterile and thuddingly unimaginative special effects, the movie has little worth recommending. Even Jackman´s natural wellspring of charisma isn´t enough to triumph over such limited material. But he sure can strike a pose.

It´s odd that Wolverine was fleshed out so much better in the first two team-oriented movies than in his first solo effort. Bryan Singer and his teams got it right in the first two movies, and a host of writers has exploited the character to great effect in comic books for three decades and counting, so there´s really nowhere to lay the blame other than at the feet of the filmmakers. "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" is a can´t-miss idea that misses every target.

A 4/10 on the DVDTown scale.

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