X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) Review

"Did you just call me Blob?"
-Fred Dukes



Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and his brother, Victor (Liev Schreiber) are recruited by William Stryker (Danny Huston) to join a special military squad of mutants.  When the squad starts to kill innocent people, Wolverine quits.  Years later, someone is hunting down the members of the team and Wolverine is pulled back into a violent world of death and betrayal and allows Stryker to experiment on him to make him an even more powerful weapon.


What Works:

As always, Hugh Jackman is perfect as Wolverine.  Even with a terrible script, he sells his part.  Liev Schreiber also does a solid job as Victor.  He and Jackman have great chemistry and Schreiber sells Victor's savagery very well.

Finally, I do really like the first 10-15 minutes of the film.  It's cool to see Wolverine and Victor fighting in a bunch of different wars and the one mission we see the mutant squad go on is pretty cool.  Each of the mutants play a part and I wish we had gotten to see more of them in action.


What Sucks:

How long have you got?  This movie is an utter mess with an extremely messy script.  There's a lot going on in this story and it doesn't make a lot of sense.  It's way more complicated than it needs to be.  There's a scene where Wolverine, Victor, and Stryker all confront each other on the island and it's impossible to figure out anybody's motivation.  Wolverine leaves the room at one point and I have no idea why and Stryker just lets him go.  Why?

The CGI is utterly abysmal and frankly embarrassing.  None of it looks good, especially the scene where Wolverine examines his claws in the mirror.  How did any of this get approved?

Apart from Wolverine, Victor, and Stryker, none of the characters are well developed.  We get a whole new cast of mutants with great actors and all of them are underused.  None of the have any development and simply feel wasted.

Finally, we have Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds).  When I first saw this movie I didn't know anything about the character so it didn't bother me with his mouth getting sewn shut.  Now that I know how amazing this character is, who thought this was a good idea?  I mean really?  How did this movie get made?  Reynolds is perfect in the role, but he is barely used and ultimately this character is simply a travesty.


Verdict:

While Jackman and Schreiber are great and the first 15 minutes are solid, the rest of the movie is absolute trash with terrible characters, embarrassing CGI, nonsensical writing, and the abomination that is this version of Deadpool.  This is the low point of the X-Men series and it isn't close.

 3/10: Really Bad 

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