We’ve all seen countless movies. We have our favorites and our least favorites. Some of us have seen enough movies to place them into categories. These categories can be as simple as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and ’like’ or ‘dislike’, and there can even be subcategories. We are able to group films we have seen into our personal genres. After seeing X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I believe that I have seen enough modern Marvel movies to have a Marvel genre in my book.
In my opinion, Marvel movies are all very similar. Spider-Man, X-Men, Hulk… they all contain very similar elements. They all pull on the nostalgic strings that connect us to the characters in the movies and those same strings make most true fans want to puke once they’ve had a taste of the updated story their favorite characters are apart of. All of the movies have experienced actors in the credits, but there are also quite a few inexperienced actors. I blame the direction for the actors’ lack of convincing performance mixed heterogeneously with higher quality acting throughout the movies. Even more iconic of the Marvel movie than its range of above average to disappointing acting/directing talent is its visual effects.
Some of the special effects, though they are stunning when compared to the graphic design and rendering capabilities of any random person, make us cringe to look at. CGI does not seem to be one of Marvel’s strong points. Look at any Marvel movie and there will, most likely, be a scene in which a character is completely CGI rendered, looks and moves in a very non-human manner, and is completely unnecessary, lowering the overall quality of the film. Sometimes, Marvel tries to get away from CGI, but replaces it with a mannequin (see Spider-Man).
Moving away from the irritations of most Marvel movie projects, allow me to address the most recent one, and the subject of this article. In the genre of Marvel Movies, I rate Wolverine as an 8/10 (hey, no Marvel movie is perfect… except, maybe, Iron Man). If I were to rate the Wolverine movie with all other movies that you could possibly watch, instead, I would rate it a 6~7/10.
THE STORY:
The story was very easy to follow, unless you had never heard of Wolverine and got a little lost wondering where you could get answers concerning your various questions about Wolverine, in which case I recommend that you watch an origins movie! Oh, wait…
This version of Wolverine’s origin is just as good as any other, but I am glad that Marvel chose to use their most recent publication of Wolverine’s origin to base the movie from. I have to admit that it was pretty bad ass to watch the sequence after Jimmy (Wolverine) and his brother (Sabertooth) run away from home and fight together through many of the largest military conflicts in the history of the world. I also, very much, liked how many important events and aspects of Wolverine’s life were not left completely out of the story, but in fact twisted into the story in such a way that left even a fan wondering (in an interested manner) how those essential parts of Wolverine’s life would be inserted, later.
There were a couple parts of the story when a sort of fact was merely stated concerning a character’s persona, instead of established. I mean to say that a character would just completely break down the fourth wall, look at you, and proceed to tell you all about themselves. This always annoys me. They would even rank each other to show who was more powerful. At one point, Wolverine says “I’m the best at what I do.” Really, Wolverine? And what is it that you do, exactly? Since you joined the Rape Brigade (you’ll see), all I’ve seen you do is stand to the side and bitch about having to kill innocents while others do all the work. Meh…
THE CHARACTERS:
There’s quite the list of famous mutants in this movie. Keeping in mind that Marvel tends to change “story universes” when the medium of the story changes, it wasn’t too hard to accept all of the chance runnins that Wolverine had in this movie.
As it turns out, Wolverine had some form of interaction with such high profile mutants as The Blob, Scott Summers (as a child), Gambit (who didn’t have a cajun accent, damnit), Emma Frost, John Wraith and even had a hand in creating Deadpool. BTW, Deadpool is relatively humorous before he becomes Deadpool ( and is played by Ryan Reynolds), but is simply a mindless, killing machine, later (as played by Scott Adkins). Also, a walking Professor Xavier is seen in the movie, but Wolverine does not meet him. With all these chance run-ins, I felt as though I had watched a movie about the origin of human mutation, itself. I also felt as though Marvel knows how sick people will soon get of its movies if they don’t change their gameplan and was trying to shove as many characters in as possible.
THE SPECIAL EFFECTS:
Although, Wolverine had a distinct Marvel movie feel to it, it also had some nice CGI touches not seen in other movies. Most notable are the effects showing wound regeneration on Logan. The most unnecessary, gratuitous scenes of CGI were (coming in at number two) when Sabertooth runs along the walls of the high school chasing young Scott Summers and (coming in at number one) when Logan is thrown into a semi and roles along the length of its trailer. The most awful non-CGI special effect is when Sabertooth is doing his falling/leaping/running thing. It’s just as silly as watching a live performance of Peter Pan with a character who is a retarded man who thinks he’s a tiger, running on all fours while suspended by wires… and isn’t Robin Williams.
The best special effect along the whole movie isn’t any one, single effect. I think the entire chase scenario when Wolverine is riding a motorcycle being pursued by military vehicles and a chopper is the best special effect incorporating action part of the movie.
OVERALL:
Well, I guess I would watch the movie, again, if it came on television, or my friends wanted to watch it, which is the same thing I could say about any other Marvel movie (except for Iron Man, which rocked ballz). Still, when compared to the X-Men movies, it is an improvement and if you are a fan, it is definitely worth seeing, at least once.
Also, make sure you stick around for the teaser at the end of the movie. There are a couple different versions. One is of Deadpool and the other shows Wolverine in a strange place. To find out how he got there, I recommend watching an origins movie… DAMNIT, MARVEL!
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