After a studio workprint of X-Men Origins: Wolverine was leaked onto the internet a month before the film’s official release date, the official response from 20thCentury Fox was that the pirated version was not only missing crucial special effects and the musical score, it was 10 minutes shorter than the finished product.
Since the theatrical runtime of 107 minutes perfectly matches the length of the workprint, it is safe to assume that those who downloaded Wolverine rather than fork out $10 bucks to see it on the big screen didn’t miss much: Hugh Jackman’s latest superheroic outing is an epic case of spectacle over substance.
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X-Men Origins: Wolverine Directed by Gavin Hood |
It opens satisfyingly enough, with the mutants Wolverine and Sabertooth as children – James and Victor, respectively – confronting murder and revenge with a ferocity usually reserved for “grown-up” scenes.
The opening credits quickly establish a backstory, Watchmen-style, showing the two charge through the American Civil War, both World Wars, and Vietnam, their regenerative powers rendering them immune to the weaponry arrayed against them. This includes the rifles of a firing squad on their own side after Victor murders a superior officer who stopped him from raping a Vietnamese woman (“It tickled,” says Wolverine after their so-called execution).
This insubordination is the first sign of trouble, an indicator of Victor’s callousness and nascent psychopathy and an early hint of the internecine bloodshed which the future (X-Men) holds; everything goes downhill from there.
From the moment we are introduced to the requisite mutant SWAT team, a top-secret government/military project which wants Logan and Victor on board, it is obvious this is a film steeped in convention and mediocrity (not only that, but one of the members is played by will.i.am, and when a Black Eyed Pea emerges as one of the better actors, you know your film is a stinker).
The plot, such as it is, involves the Weapon X program led by General Stryker (played by Brian Cox in X2 and here by Danny Huston) which endows Wolverine with a skeleton of adamantium, an indestructible metal collected from a meteorite. Its successor, the Weapon XI program, is intended to create the ultimate killing machine which will enable the eradication of all mutants, and of course give Wolverine someone to face off against at the climax.
Meanwhile, an escalating series of increasingly ludicrous double crosses provides enough of a latticework of plot points to motivate a large number of mutant cameo appearances, from Wraith and Gambit (relatively well done by) to Cyclops, Deadpool, and Emma Frost (incarnations which will likely have comic aficionados frothing at the mouth with anger).
Considering this is a comic book universe, the performances are par for the course. Jackman continues to truly inhabit Wolverine, and at this point he is inseparable from the character.
Liev Schreiber as Victor/Sabertooth is something of a change from the character’s portrayal by seven-foot pro-wrestler Tyler Mane in the original X-Men film, and while it has been established that Schreiber can act, there is not much of it on display here, hidden behind fangs and the “fingernails of a bag lady” (in Logan’s words).
Danny Huston is a pale imitation of Brian Cox, but there are a few positives, including Dominic Monaghan (Merry from Lord of the Rings) as a technokinetic mutant and Lynn Collins as Wolverine’s love interest, Kayla Silverfox.
The characters themselves, however, are forced into an insultingly reductive opposition of good/rational versus bad/insane, as if there is no room in the mutant universe for shades of grey. And the nice little touches, the good bits such as the mythic origin of Wolverine’s animalistic codename which actually have a bit of gravity and emotion to them, are eclipsed by the triteness and tepidity of the whole, which descends into stupidity on every front, from fat jokes to soulless CGI effects.
X-men used to be about coming of age, about puberty and sexuality and self-respect, the kind of issues dealt with – sometimes overcome, sometimes not – by anyone labelled “different,” but despite a few shallow nods to this potent legacy, Wolverine eschews the philosophy in favour of a by-the-numbers action formula aimed squarely at America’s lowest common denominator.
Even those who didn’t download the leaked workprint have seen quite enough of Wolverine after taking in a couple of 90-second trailers.