X-Men Origins: Wolverine

To say that the production of Wolverine has been something of a disaster would not do it justice.  It's been through rewrites, reshoots and a multitude of edits, only to see a workprint leaked online weeks before the film's actual release.  So it really isn't much of a surprise that the film is a mess.

Our story begins in 1840s Canada when the young James Howlett (later Logan/Wolverine) erupts in a fit of violence upon the death of his father, forcing him to run away with his half brother Victor. 

They, being indestructible mutants, spend the next 120 years or so fighting in every American war from the Civil War to Vietnam.  James (Hugh Jackman) fights to protect others, while Victor (Liev Schreiber) enjoys every minute of it.  He's basically an animal, always giving in to his worst impulses.  Which is all hunky dory until they kill a superior officer during Vietnam and sentenced to death.  Only it's pretty hard to kill someone who's indestructible. 

So Major William Stryker (Danny Huston) recruits the brothers into a special team of mutants that he leads.  This team carries out secret missions around the world to protect the U.S. and its interests, by any means necessary.  Which, oddly enough, doesn't square too well with James, so he leaves them all behind, including his brother.

But, as with most things in movies, you can't leave the past behind forever.  It comes back into his life with a vengeance, taking away the woman he loved (Lynn Collins) in the process.  So he has to fight with, and against a host of other mutants, including John Wraith (Will.i.Am), The Blob (Kevin Durand), Bolt (Dominic Monaghan), Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), Agent Zero (Daniel Henney), and Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) to avenge his lost love, and try to live his own life.

Telling Logan's backstory, and how he became the Wolverine we know and love shouldn't be the hardest task in the world.  He has a well defined character, and personality with a wealth of backstory going back decades in the comics.  Most of which is either ignored, or jumbled together into some amalgam for the film.

The Wolverine we see in this film is much closer in character to the one we see at the end of X-men 3: The Last Stand than it is to the angry, bitter, loner that came before he met Professor X.  His characterization is just not right.  The entire purpose of a Wolverine origin film (which I'm not sure is even a good idea in the first place) is  to show him at his most desperate and angry.  I'd have liked to see him actually confronted with a moral decision, and making a mistake once in a while.

At the beginning of the film you can see the potential for this type of story in the Wolverine(Logan)/Sabretooth(Victor) relationship.  Victor has always been like the dark aspect of Logan's own personality.  He embraces all the rage and animalistic tendencies that Logan tries to overcome.  In the opening sequence showing Logan and Victor through the years you get a glimpse of both their closeness, and the differences that would eventually pull them apart.  The film should really be focused on this dynamic, and on these characters.

Instead what we got was an almost disconnected series of events that does more to set up future films, than it does to tell a coherent, interesting story.  We get moments for Deadpool, Gambit, and even a host of young mutants that will go on to be X-men.  Which is fine, as far as these things go, but doesn't really help this film much.  I'd love to see the proposed Deadpool spinoff (maybe a little less now than I would have, after seeing how they treat the character in this film), or Wolverine in Japan (the supposed followup to this) or possibly even X-men: First Class (the young mutants at school), but I don't see why they had to set all of them up here, and ruin this film.

Most of the performances are fine, but they don't exactly have much to work with.  Jackman could play this character in his sleep, Kitsch's Cajun accent is terrible, but with some work I could see him making an adequate Gambit, and casting Reynolds as Deadpool was an inspired choice.  I'd like to have seen more of Liev Schreiber, but they just didn't give him enough screen time to really develop the character.

Wolverine is just a big, dumb, action movie.  Somewhat entertaining, without much intelligence, and pretty terrible writing (amnesia bullets- WTF?).  It'd be nice if the effects were better, instead of just looking cheap quite a bit of the time, but they're serviceable.  I can't really recommend it, but if you go into it with low expectations you'll probably find it mildly entertaining.  It's more on the X-men 3 level than it is close to the first two films in the X-men series.

Grade: C-

Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter

Within the Watchmen graphic novel there is just way too much information to fit into a film.  So some things had to be cut back.  The easiest things to cut have always been Tales of the Black Freighter, the comic within the comic, and Under the Hood, Hollis Mason's (the original Nite Owl) autobiography.  They don't directly relate to the main storyline, but inform on it, expand the world and give background information on it.

What's amazing is that in the course of the production of the Watchmenfilm is that Zach Snyder was able to convince the studio to fund the making of both and animated Tales of the Black Freighter and a faux documentary based on Under the Hood, both included on a DVD released this week.

Tales of the Black Freightertells the tale of a mariner (voiced by Gerard Butler) who's ship was attacked and destroyed by the ghostly pirates on board the Black Freighter.  All the rest of the crew was killed during the attack.  He'll do anything to get back to his home, and his family.  It's violent, grisly and disgusting at times.

I was never the biggest fan of the black freighter sections of the graphic novel, but I think that this film more than does them justice.  The animation is quite good.  The extremely dark tone and tension is spot on.  I appreciate the story more in this context, and am intrigued to see how sections of it are incorporated into Snyder's director's cut of Watchmen.

But, in my opinion, the best thing about the DVD is Under the Hood.  It takes the form of a 1975 television program that looks into Hollis Mason's book, and interviews some of the major characters.  We get to see the beginnings of the costumed heroes, Mason's start as Nite Owl and the formation of the Minutemen.  Seeing the young Nite Owl, Silk Spectre and Comedian is quite a treat.  It really brings some depth to the world.  We even get to see more from minor characters in the film that have a larger part in the comics, like the newsstand owner and Rorschach's psychiatrist.

If you're thinking about seeing Watchmen, or have already seen it, then you really should check out this DVD.  It will expand the world, give you insight into the characters, plus tell you a creepy pirate story.  It's a little pricy for the relatively small amount of content that's on the disk (which is really my only complaint), so rent it if you aren't a big fan already.

Grade: B