Boring, predictable, pointless.

Rating: 4/10 (1 July 2009)

his was a film which something in my gut told me was going to be awful. I can't explain it. Call it what you will, instinct, a hunch, women's intuition, but I just wasn't looking forward to it. Maybe it's because I'm not a fan of prequels in general (seriously, name a good prequel. I dare you), maybe it's because I felt after Wolverine's origin was dealt with so well in "X-Men 2", or maybe it's just because Empire magazine had been building it up for months. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Empire fan, and find them generally reliable, but I wish they were occasionally less optimistic about upcoming films.
Don't get me wrong, I really wanted this to be good, but less that 30 minutes in I knew my fears were concerned. It feels muddled and redundant, telling us little we didn't already know about the character. It's a strange film in that it is almost completely brainless, yet has too many ideas going on. I'll try to clarify this: at the heart of the film is a very clichéd and revenge storyline, while in the occasional back-stories there is really interesting stuff that isn't explored at all. In the first 20 minutes or so, we see Wolverine participating in three major wars, any one of which would have made an interesting subject. All are glossed over, when a film concentrating solely upon Wolverine in 'Nam, or WW2, could be potentially fascinating.
Then, in the only interesting part of the film, Wolverine and Sabertooth (who's apparently his brother?!?) join a special forces team made up of really cool mutants like Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds, stealing the whole damn movie even though he's only in it for about a minute), Agent 0 and, Er, will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas (no, I don't know what the hell they were thinking anyway). Again, there's a really interesting group dynamic here, and the film could have just focused on these guys, but its over with in a short scene.
Then its plodding nonsense with goodies (Wolverine, Gambit) and baddies (Stryker, Sabertooth), with slow motion walking-away-from-explosion shots, helicopters, and all the usual turgid action nonsense that looks like its wandered in from a Dolph Lungren film. The whole thing doesn't cohere at all, its a film where the writers have just gone: "wouldn't it be cool if..." made a list and got on with ticking stuff off. The scenes which should be emotional, like the death of Wolverine's wife, are handled poorly (including an unintentionally hilarious NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! moment) while a slow moment where Wolverine hides out on a farm with an elderly couple is just far too Norman Rockwell, like it's wandered in from a Superman film. Then the old couple get killed pointlessly just to make Wolverine angry again. It's all very cynical and exploitative on the part of the writers.
And these are just the beginning of the film's problems.
The main issue of the film, apart from the ever mounting number of visual and narrative clichés, is that it is inherently suspense-less. We know that Wolverine doesn't kill Sabretooth or Stryker because they're alive in the original series. We know that Wolverine is going to survive everything thrown at him for the same reason, and by putting the stress on his indestructible nature, we never really feel he is in peril. They're retreading the plot of X2, but nowhere near as well. At times, you wonder whether they've actually seen Singer's films, the whole thing seems so amateurish and poorly written (and indeeds, in the end scene completely ignores continuity). There isn't any of the depth or complexity of the proper films. Hell, this makes Brett Ratner's movie look like "The Dark Knight"!!! And it isn't just that. The whole film is just box ticking of fan favourites that producers thought would sell tickets, and nobody is more than one dimensional. Deadpool walks away with his head held high, and I look forwards to the spin off movie with him, but Gambit is very poorly done and the others, like Emma Frost or Blob, are just cameos that add nothing to the film.
The acting isn't especially great either. Jackman plays Wolverine with none of the sarcastic fury of the Singer movies, Taylor Kitsch is rubbish as Gambit and Danny Hudson as Stryker is about as menacing as a poodle. Why they couldn't have got the fantastic Brian Cox back completely baffles me. Only Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth is any good, and even then he isn't really given enough to work with.
Badly written, Badly acted, Badly directed and an insult to both fans and audiences. The worst film I've seen so far this year.