Missed the Mark... Big Time.

Rating: Null/10 (16 September 2009)

It's just a shame that the most famous Marvel character was treated this way in Xmen Origins: Wolverine. The cast did a good job and the visuals seemed to be in line with the other Xmen movies of this series, but I hate to say it, the directing was just not that good. The over-stylized use of Wolverine cutting things was obviously abused and every time he extended his claws he "posed" which really hurt me being able to emotionally connect with his character. It was the equivalent of seeing the outline of earlier green screen special effects in films in the 80s and 90s. Also, the story (not Gavin's fault) ended up in a really bad place; far from the actual history of Deadpool. I get it, creative license, and that's fine to a degree (like making Juggernaut a "mutant" in Xmen: The Last Stand when he's actually not one), but Deadpool's finishing end character seemed like it was ripped from the television show "Heroes" and stolen from the character "Sylar". C'mon Marvel!! You don't need to pull from that storyline, because you're... well... MARVEL!!! You've got an infinite supply of good story lines and the histories of your characters are solid. They had to be in order to sell enough books to the point where you are making movies about them. Lastly, I wasn't able to really emotionally connect to the entire storyline and the characters. Maybe the acting was a bit off, maybe the story didn't help, but in the end THAT comes down to the director and his ability to pull some really good content out of his actors. Example: George Lucas screwed up Star Wars Episodes 1, 2 and 3 because he didn't allow the actors to "act" and perform their craft. Instead he tried to make them EXACTLY like the original three films (4, 5 and 6) and it turned out very poorly. The same thing started happening here. Bryan Singer started something great and introduced a new style of time to this comic book/graphic novel genre of films, then Brett Ratner took it further and more emotionally deeper, then Gavin Hood tried to copy that. Gavin might have a career in directing, but I don't think he should take on such a big project again until he gets more experience directing under his belt. On the flip side, the studios shouldn't take on a newb when filming a movie of this magnitude and shell out the bucks for some very experienced talent. Better luck next time Gavin and FOX. Maybe Disney's acquisition will be a good thing... we'll see.