X Men Origins: Wolverine was a disaster!

Rating: 4/10 (15 July 2009)

I'm sorry to report that all of the terrible things that critics have been saying about this movie are all totally true. A major let down. I grew up a huge fan of Wolverine. As a kid I collected the comics and they were my favorite from X Men because they were darker and more psychological. When the movies came around they reignited my interest in the character. The movies changed some aspects of his personality and such but I thought that in general the character was treated with a lot of respect. Especially the first two with the third film being a bit of a disappointment. When I found out about this Wolverine movie I was immediately excited about it. Especially after the first awesome trailer came out, which very deceivingly, made the movie look like it was taking a cue from Batman Begins and handling the material with great respect. The more I read from the filmmakers the more I got pumped because they went on and on about how faithful they were going to be and how mature the film was going to be. It was my number one pick for the summer.
Then the reviews started to come in and almost all of them were bad. I kept hoping that the critics were wrong but my interest in the movie did get shaken. It's a good thing too because had I seen this movie with the amount of faith in it that I had then I might have thrown burning fuel at the projector. Even with lowered expectations the movie was a massive disaster. They were neither faithful, dark, or mature in how they handled the movie. The whole movie is pretty much a spit into the face of the fans of Wolverine. They turn the whole thing into one big promotion for other mutants and their possible spin off movies. They promised that they would make a deep psychological Wolverine and here they couldn't have failed any more in that attempt. I thought that this was going to be as epic as Batman Begins and instead it was about as epic as a Saturday morning cartoon. True Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber did the best they could but they were surrounded by one of the worst productions I've seen in a super hero film.
The script was filled with every predictable cliché in the book. I felt like the whole movie script was a scrap book to previous action and comic films. The comedy was always misplaced and always fell flat. The direction was totally uninspired and unoriginal. The special effects are bad enough to earn a razzie award. There was a kid behind me that called out, those look like cartoons the first time Wolverine inspected his adamantium claws. If a kid can spot that out then that really tells you something. I have no idea where all of the money for budget went but it certainly wasn't much towards the effects. Last but not least, the movie totally butchers the back story to the character. For months I've been reading interviews with people from the movie promising that this movie was for the fans and how faithful they were going to be to the source material. They basically lied to everyone. The movie has none of the weight or depth that was promised. Having a running time of only 1 hour and 45 minutes was a pretty good indicator of that. This movie should have at least been 2 hours 10 minutes to fit in everything the way it was meant to be.
Marvel could have had themselves their own Batman Begins but instead have a film with depth of a cartoon. Now it's not the worst comic book movie of all time or anything but it's very far cry from the best. There are entertaining action scenes. Some small moments of something hinting at the depth that the whole movie should have had. It wasn't boring or anything. Just irritating. It's really a shame. I think if there was ever a movie that should be remade immediately then this would be it. There is an amazing film waiting to be made for Wolverine. This certainly wasn't it. If they just treat the material with respect they will be off to a good start. They should have paid Bryan Singer any amount of money that he wanted to come back for this. Or get Chris Nolan who of course is busy with Batman. Imagine how amazing this movie would have been though if Chris Nolan had been in charge. This movie was supposed to show the birth of Wolverine and instead I felt like I attended his funeral.