X-Men Origins: Wolverine Review

My boyfriend called me yesterday and asked if he could come into town and see me, because he really wanted to see this new Wolverine movie with me.  So he showed up and we went to the cinema and got our tickets.  We sat down and the previews started, which was great.  I love the previews.  My only problem with them is that they get me so excited for the movies that they’re previewing that I forget what movie I am actually there to see…and then when I remember what it is, I’m disappointed, because I wanted to see the movie in the previews.  This was the case with X-Men, also.  For about two seconds. 

As soon as the movie started, I felt a wave of disappointment, and then interest, and then…”Holy God.”  I was sucked into the movie even during the credits.  It was fantastic.  There was plenty of action, lots of interesting back-story (of course), lots of Hugh Jackman (which was the biggest reason I wanted to see the movie), and you just can’t beat comic book movie humor.  I only had a couple problems with the movie.

Right after Wolverine’s claws become metal, they look so fake – I could tell it was a CGI for a little while.  I expected them to just disappear.  But it got increasingly better after the first scene where he realizes what he’s become.

Also, the dialogue was so predictable!  Maybe it was just because it was a Marvel script, but I have never had that much trouble with knowing what the characters were going to say long before they said it.  I sat in the theater and finished their sentences for them in my head.  It was painful.

As for character glitches and plot holes, there were only three that bothered me.  The first was Gambit.  I would like to know how he could watch Wolverine beat the hell out of a mutual enemy and still think that Wolverine was on the side of said mutual enemy.  I think Gambit may have been retarded.  Also, the only reason he had for wanting to attack Wolverine was because he was wearing dog tags…and the people who hurt him were wearing dog tags.  …Seriously.  It didn’t matter to him that the United States military is huge and many, many people wear dog tags.  That doesn’t mean they’re all out to get you.  Again, Gambit may have been retarded.  And then after he interrupts what could have been the end of the movie (had he just minded his own **** business) he actually looks up at Wolverine and tells him that it looked like he was actually on his side.  Because it apparently didn’t occur to him that Wolverine was about a millisecond away from killing the bad guy…until Gambit stepped in and let said bad guy get away.  Gambit can go suck an egg.

So about the plot holes, you would think that if someone were made out of an indestructible metal, anyone who hit that person would feel pain…because of the metal.  Well, apparently not.  I can’t tell you how many times someone hit Wolverine and HE was the one who felt the pain.  He was THROWN INTO ANOTHER PERSON and nothing bad happened to that person.  The guy probably weighed about a ton and no one noticed.  If someone threw a big, metal guy on top of me, I’m sure it would hurt.  I don’t care if these people have super powers…if the metal guy can feel pain when something that isn’t even half as heavy as he is falls on top of him, then everyone else should be able to feel pain when they run into his fists.  Or vice versa. 

The last thing that got to me was the laziness of the writers after Wolverine became Super Metal Wolverine (I need to copyright that name before someone else uses it).  As I recall, Stryker said that Wolverine would become indestructible.  I’m just assuming that indestructible actually means indestructible.  But it seemed like after they made him indestructible, the writers said, “****…how do we end this movie now?”  So throughout the movie, they kept adding little disclaimers to his indestructibility.  “Oh, I could do this to kill him.”  “Also, you could use one of these.”  No.  He’s indestructible.  You already said it.  Now stop.

Anyway, the movie was pretty fabulous.  No gore, just action (is anyone else sick of directors thinking that they can make a movie better by adding blood?).  It took a while to realize what was going on…and I saw so many obvious plot holes, but the end of the movie really filled in all those little holes.  It has been a long time since I’ve sat in the theater and watched a movie and not wanted to know what time it is so I can count down the minutes until we can leave and go do something that isn’t quite so boring.  Also, it was only 107 minutes, which is the perfect movie length for me. 

Go see this movie.  You’ll regret it if you don’t.