A Big Middle Finger to All X-Men Fans

Rating: 3/10 (9 May 2009)

How on earth can you make a Wolverine film and have no concept of his character? Logan is supposed to be an animal, impulsive, angry and ready to pick a fight. Someone who is giving into his dark urges that makes a decision to be better than he is. It is this war that he wages within himself that makes him a complex and identifiable character. He represents an extreme example of the struggle that all of us face within ourselves. This is the Logan that was built up in X-Men and X2. Logan in Origins is so far removed from that character and it is supposed to be a prequel. In the first two films Logan is shown as someone who feels pain but in Origins Logan doesn't even bleed.
This film just plods along with events happening without any real significance to the plot, character development or any sort of climax. Without going into any spoilers the plot is convoluted and everything in the film is rushed. Origins is devoid of anyway for the audience to connect to any of the characters or even care about what is going on. It even fails on any basic level to engage an audience as a pure popcorn action film with poorly built up and sloppily shot fight scenes. Some of the special effects look downright awful especially Wolverine's claws. All of the humor in this film misses the mark with the exception of the one scene Ryan Reynold was in. Other mutants just pop up without any build up or reason. Deadpool was completely ruined by the end and Gambit is in only two scenes. They did do a better job with the character design for Sabertooth than the previous films and Liev Schreiber did an admiral job trying to portray him, but he isn't given much to go on. For all it's flaws if they had done a decent job portraying Wolverine right Origins could have been at least enjoyed but it fails on every level possible. Gavin Hood made a film that is a big middle finger to all X-Men fans and finds a way to further drag down the franchise.