Fox Botches Another Marvel Adaptation

Rating: 5/10 (21 September 2009)

All right. Seriously, 20th Century Fox needs to throw in the towel and give up on comic book movies. The X-MEN trilogy had a decent run (and X2 is one of my favorite comic adaptations) but every other attempt has ended in mediocrity or failure. Their WOLVERINE spin-off is no different; it teeters on the edge of both. The movie attempts to fill in film audiences on the history of everyone's favorite member of the X-Men, including how he acquired his adamantium claws and his amnesia. Somehow, that equates to an uninteresting story with the usual Fox mutant cameo-fest. When will they learn? I've read a bit of Wolverine's origin story in the comics and was a bit upset that they crammed his childhood into a four-minute opening sequence. They've also taken some annoying creative license with the details of Weapon X and Wolverine's team members, about which I wasn't too thrilled. Lack of faith to the source material aside, I can still enjoy a comic book movie as long as it's entertaining enough. Sadly, this movie didn't fit the bill. The story was unimpressive and never really grabbed me and some of the plot devices were just ridiculous (adamantium bullets...really?!). As has become the norm, Fox included an abundance of unjustifiable character cameos, just for the sake of having them: Gambit, Cyclops, Blob, etc. None of these characters were necessary but they felt the need to include them anyway, which I feel detracts from the story.
Performance-wise, the film is hit-or-miss. Jackman did a great job as usual in the title role; he really appears to have embraced the character and I wish they'd given him better material to work with. I absolutely LOVED Liev Schreiber as Victor Creed/Sabretooth! I feel as if he did a better job of making a solid character of him than Tyler Mane did in the original film. As pointless as I felt the character's inclusion was, I felt Taylor Kitsch did a good job in the role of Gambit and I'm hoping he gets some stronger material in the future and a chance to develop the role. Danny Huston was decent as General Styker though I still prefer Brian Cox. And, of course, there's Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson/Deadpool; he always would've been my first choice for the character and he does a great job for the measly 5 minutes we get of him.
For a blockbuster movie that came out nine years since the original, I have to question the poor CGI. There are too many moments in this movie when it just looked terrible and pulled you out of the film. Come on now, Wolverine's been in three previous movies...we STILL haven't perfected his claws?! Honestly, the lame outweighs the good for the first X-Men spin-off and it doesn't bode well for the future. The 107 minute runtime feels as if it takes forever and the movie frequently grinds to a halt. With as much bank as the film pulled in, a sequel is inevitable. Let's just hope they learn from their mistakes and Wolverine's next solo outing does the character, and Marvel, justice.