If the directors and producers of comic book films spend equal amounts of time on the rest of the film as they do their opening credits, there would be a lot of original, quality superhero films. We saw it a couple of months ago with the release of Watchmen, which was a stinker, but contained an original and mesmerizing credit sequence that parsed out exposition cinematically. During the credit sequence for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, we learn that Logan (Hugh Jackman) and Victor (Liev Schreiber) are brothers who are seemingly invincible-one has the power to grow claws out of his knuckles while the other, well, has long fingernails-fighting side-by-side in every major conflict since the American Civil War. It is during the Vietnam War that Logan and Victor are recruited for a Dirty Dozen-style posse, organized by a shady government agent named Stryker (Danny Huston). After the initial opening tease, we learn all we need to know about Logan and his alter ego, Wolverine. He was a government contract killer who rebelled, became a lumberjack in the Canadian wilderness, and then sought revenge when his former employers killed the love of his life, Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). For a film purporting to be an origin story, Wolverine seems more interested in pyrotechnics and Hugh Jackman’s bulging biceps than in firmly establishing the iconic X-Men character’s intriguing backstory.
The rest of the film pits Wolverine and a host of sidekicks against Stryker and Sabretooth. To say it’s ultimately dull is an understatement. The only interesting conflict in the film is the one between Victor and Logan, but because both of them are seemingly invincible, their meetings are exercises in excessive destruction. I refuse to believe that the only way to dramatically heighten the brotherly conflict between the two is to have them destroy city blocks. It’s not interesting, but more than that, it’s not even exciting. The action is loud and pretty to look at but vacuous and repetitive. Pitting two equal foes, with no apparent weaknesses, against each other is dull and lacks any sort of dramatic tension. As a result, we’re left with a series of actions set pieces that have little to no setup and even fewer moments of payoff. Sure, some of these moments are exciting, including Wolverine’s battle with a marauding helicopter, but they don’t excuse the rest of the film’s tedious storyline. Director Gavin Hood seems more interested in populating the film with weak sidekicks that do nothing to advance the story. Out of all the X-Men characters from the first three films, Wolverine is by far the most interesting and the most personable. Here, though, he’s nothing more than a freak with anger management issues. He’s a bit player in his own film.
Richard Saad
© Cinephile Magazine, 2009