Saturday, May 2, 2009

Summer Movie Kickoff : X-Men Origins:Wolverine


Today (May 1) is the first day of the summer movie season and I have lined up around 22 movies I would like to see at the theaters this summer. That is a bit ambitious, especially with my one month in India, but we will try. I got to see Wolverine today (Thursday night, 12:01 show) and if I had to sum it up in one word , it would be .. Bleh! Wolverine is the most loved movie character in the world, at least according to some statistics. He is my second most favorite character after Mr Wayne of course, and it disappoints me to see what has become of the film. I am familiar with Wolverine canon , and I have read some of the origin comics on which the movie is based, and while the movie stays close in parts it just doesn't convey his tragedy. How can you get it wrong when you have so many cool mutants like Deadpool, Cyclops, Blob, Emma Frost ,Sabretooth and finally Gambit. I guess the main problem is that the script is fantastic. Fantastic not as in amazing but as in weirdly impossible. Stuff like this happens in a badly written comic and you are willing to go along to some extent for the fun of it, but that too is impossible here because it just doesn't string together well. He picks up a fight with Gambit just so he can take him to an "island" where the climax is supposed to take place. After the fight they realize they are on the same side and we realize the misunderstanding was just a ruse to give the audience a fight scene. I am quoting the short lived Spidergirl comics when I say " Heroes fighting each other is so 80s". Fine fight over they go to the island. How? Gambit won a plane in a card game , which he conveniently knows how to fly and drops Logan off at the "Island". C'mon, how more lame can you get. I could turn a blind eye to all this , if you could just give me some F-U-N. Apart from a few fight scenes here and there , nothing, nada. Where is the silent nod to the fanboys , where is the esoteric reference? Everyone waited till the end of the credits expecting something cool, all we got was a lame scene of wolverine drinking at a japanese bar. I have had issues with the entire X-men trilogy (expect a blog on that soon), but this is one takes the cake. Hope the rest of the summer doesnt disappoint.

"I am so getting myself that jacket!!"

3 comments:

SEV said...

For some reason I'm only seeing this post today.
Anyway, completely agree about Wolverine man, very disappointing for anyone who really likes the character. Jackman does what he does best, but not much else. An alternate much cooler ending (screened at different theatres) involved Deadpool reaching out for his head among the rubble and then breaking the 4th wall :)
Speaking of Spider-girl, there's the Amazing Spider-Girl currently running on Marvel - from what little I've read its pretty decent.

Main ones on my list are Terminator, Basterds, Transformers, Up. Sherlock Holmes much later this year (trailer is out btw). What else do you have?

Angelus said...

I heard abt that ending but dint know he breaches the 4th wall.. must have been better than the one I got..
4 the rest of the summer , pretty much what yu said plus GI Joe,Drag me to hell,and Funny people .
Yeah saw the trailer 4 holmes, looks fun. I wish they would start moving on the other sherlock holmes movie with Sascha Baron Cohen as Holmes and Will Ferrel as Watson.

SEV said...

Drag Me to Hell was pretty awesome. Way better than 'Salvation'.