X-Men
Origins:
Wolverine is suppose to offer an insight into the character of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) whose amnesia is a
source of curiosity through out the previous X-Men films, however instead of offering a compelling story of the man behind the claws we are offered up a film that is brimming with action, one liners and super human powers but lacking any trace of substance that would make it memorable.
From the opening scene, which flows like some sort of Greek tragedy as son kills father, it is obvious that the film will be a more actioned packed, not to mention bloody, experience than the X-Men movies before it. Twentieth Centaury Fox has clearly spared no expense on the latest technology to fill this film with so many impressive special effects that it almost distracts from the poorly written script.
With no lack of fight scenes that escape the world of reality, where even the mere mortal characters seem to be able to defy gravity and everything in sight goes up in an impressive explosion.
While this film is visually pleasing with the effects working in sync with Gavin Hood’s directing to make it enjoyable to watch however this film is greatly let down by the writing. This script dances all over the place and does not have any of the edgy feel of the earlier X-Men movies. Instead this script reads like a collection of one liners and wise cracks hardly offering any insight into the characters. This coupled with a lack of relationship building amongst the characters lets the film down heavily. Somehow as an audience we are meant to connect and feel for
Wolverine’s pursuit of revenge against his brother Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber) when there was no emotional attachment between the pair except that they are brothers, this is the same when Wolverine’s ‘love’ interest is killed. Having been thrown into the midst of this relationship with no history it is difficult to feel the sympathy when she is killed.
The idea of building these character relationships to create real depth in this film seems to be left behind to make room for the overflow of new and old mutants the creators wanted to include. A young William Stryker (Danny Huston), young Scott Summers (Tim Pocock) and even an odd looking CGI younger Professor Xavier join a new crowd of mutants including Silverfox (Lynn Collins), The Blob (Kevin Durand), Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) and Bolt (Dominic Monaghan) are thrown together obviously in the hopes of satisfying those fans of the comic, however with so many characters, most of whom either are killed off so quickly or share so little screen time that even with some superb performances we are barely able to remember them.
Ultimately the film had a visual wow factor but lacked a story that was able to leave the audience satisfied with Wolverine’s past.