I am of two minds when it comes to this Wolverine movie. There is Movie Tony, who looks at it like a movie and Fanboy Tony, who looks at it from a perspective of a comic book turned into a movie. Let’s see how they shake out:
Movie Tony: The X-men franchise returns with a Wolverine movie. Foreshadowed in the previous X-men movies, the Wolverine movie is a lukewarm addition. Although it’s chuck full of action and interesting powers, the characters themselves are pretty two-dimensional.
Fanboy Tony: WTF? Wolverine is kind of like the Boba Fett of the X-men. He’s a badass supporting character that you always want to know more about it. The problem this movie has is the same problem the comic book has, when the badass becomes the main character, he ceases to be mysterious and cannot maintain his badassitude. Since he’s got to grow and go on a “journey”, it ends up compromising the stuff that made him cool.
Movie Tony: The fact that Wolverine and his brother, Victor, lived over a hundred years doesn’t seem to come into play beyond the opening credits. It just seems like fanboy candy that doesn’t pay off.
Fanboy Tony: I thought that was cool and it stuck to the basic origin of the characters. Except, of course, that Sabretooth was always kind of implied to be Wolverine’s dad. Making them brothers changes the whole dynamic!
Movie Tony: My problem with the brother’s relationship was that Wolverine seems to abrupt leave his brother after spending years killing people. There’s no explanation. Wolverine says, “We didn’t sign on for this.” But clearly, in the opening montage, they did. Are we expected to believe that after over 100 years together that Wolverine wouldn’t figure out that his brother is a psychopath. There seems no event to trigger Victor and push him over.
Fanboy Tony: That’s another thing! They keep calling him “Victor”. What happened to Sabretooth? Where’s the blonde hair? Also, the addition of Deadpool and then the big change in his origin was not cool at all. Partially I didn’t mind because Deadpool is kind of a lame character, but he’s normally a joke in the Marvel Universe. Why try and make him serious?
Movie Tony: Yeah, all those characters didn’t seem to add much. When Wolverine calls the fat guy “bub” and he thinks it’s “Blob”, that’s apparently some sort of revelation. It didn’t feel like one.
Fanboy Tony: It’s a lame revelation. Blob is a bad guy. I think it would’ve been better to show him turning bad. Gambit was sort of cool, but again, he’s just more window dressing in a plot that’s too convoluted and doesn’t even follow the comic book.
Movie Tony: Convoluted is exactly right. The movie is brimming with characters and since it’s a prequel, it’s largely dependent upon the audience’s knowledge of X-men lore. If you don’t know that, those scenes fall kind of flat.
Fanboy Tony: Yeah, after X-men 3, you really can’t fix this franchise without starting over. Like the comic book, pretty soon everyone in the movie is using powers and they just sort of blend together. And the end with Wolverine forgetting everything was soooooooo lame.
Movie Tony: As a movie, it doesn’t really hold up. And the reveal at the end of how they dupe Wolverine is kind of a cheat and not a very clever one. I give this movie 4 keggers out of 10. Mindless action, if you like bright shiny things.
Fanboy Tony: I give this movie 3 keggers out of 10. Wolverine works better as a supporting character and the changes of Marvel continuity didn’t seem to get the filmmakers anything.
