Review: Wolverine

I dont remember the first time I saw Wolverine. I know I was young though. Always amonst my favorite characters ever, Wolverine has a place in my heart and honestly shaped alot of my views of good and honor. For roughly 20 years Ive followed Wolverine's saga. Like plenty other people the announcement of the Wolverine movie came with some extreme mixed emotions.

I was elated. Finally, one of my favorites was going to have a big budget movie. At the same time, I dreaded it. I dreaded it because of what the major movies of Transformers, X-Men, Spiderman, the Hulk, and nearly every cross media property. Wolverine is one of the last pillars of my childhood and for a Wolverine to be unwatchable? That would be really hard to take...

That wasnt the case. This movie was actually pretty watchable, though maybe for the wrong reasons. I left the theater smiling, waxing nostalgic. And everyone in the theater seemed to like it too. Maybe this actually was a good movie... or at least a fun movie.

To understand my view on the movie I think you have to understand my mindset going into the movie. I had seen so many movies with good potential get turned into garbled imitations for the big screen (Transformers). At the same time I had seen other movies that diverged so unnecessarily from the source material that it failed to acheive the theme/soul of the source. I told myself I was going to try to experience it as if I didnt have nearly 170 issues of Wolverine in continuity. So rather than be like "this character wouldnt be alive" or "his power doesnt work like that" I wanted to see how someone would view this without my knowledge.

And for the average movie go-er, thats a solid flick. For me... thats a watchable yet forgettable flick. It had action, tried to show some development in plot and characters, cool themes, some other stuff too. Did they get alot wrong? Yeah sure. But most of it was kind of minor stuff: someone's look, someone's name, a stance, etc. What held this back from being a great movie was the changes to the spirit of Wolverine.

Spoilers ahead!

When Deadpool didnt have his trademark mask/costume that was a bit of a miss. But what Deadpool is really about is total disregard for the norms we accept. And what little we saw of Deadpool seemed to back that up. He didnt salute, he did a half assed salute handflip. He had a constant banter that pissed off everyone. It wasnt perfect, but its an ok base. Ive heard that Weapon XI isnt meant to be Deadpool so Im ommititng that.

When Wolverine walks away from the crashed helicopter in slo motion as it blew up... Im not sure that was really in the spirit of Wolverine. Im not saying that Wolverine would kill Zero or wouldnt - theres a time when the character would have done either. The walking away in slo-mo? Thats my problem. Does Wolverine do preposterously cool stuff and hit people with sweet one liners? Well, yeah. But for me, that stuff was always on the side. Not that it was secondary at all, but the centerpieces of Wolverine (when its good) are the relationships and the action. But the action was reliant on the relationships, not necessarily the other way around.

When Wolverine fought Sabretooth in issue #90, its a tremendous battle and its sweet. Its sweet aesteically and it means something. You have Sabretooth vs. Wolverine who are linked in so many ways, you have Wolverine's stuggle with his nature/humanity/rage, you have the threat of Sabretooth's escape (Sabretooth threatens to attack all the women important to Logan one by one), and whatever else you want to acknowledge. And it turns sweet action into an epic battle.

That wasnt the case in the film and to its credit its just one film, how epic can you get in one film (Dark F'N Knight)? For whatever reason, the movie just isnt that epic. The villain isnt super evil, Wolverine's cause isnt super great, and its not one of those things where you are meant to empathize with the villain or illustrate the flaws in the hero. Indeed, the goal of the villains here really arent super clear nor is Wolverine shown in a different light The Villain here is Colonel William Stryker from X2 (really hes from God Loves Man Kills but I digress) and in the movie his motives really arent too clear. Theres the Weapon X program, but Im not sure if it was the same Weapon X of old, the more recent Weapon Plus, some combination of the two, or something else entirely. Not knowing the intention of the program didnt allow me to dread its fruition

Further, the storytelling isnt great either. Alot of other things either dont sync with the other movies or arent clear. Everyone seems to fully understand both that their abilities come through mutancy and what mutants are. But there isnt the residual "humanity being threatened by the mutant threat." Maybe its just me but I had trouble with that. Im not sure the story works. The world cant casually talk about mutants in the X stories. Characters pop in and out with no real importance; they look just like empty fan service. At that point, if youre just going to play fan service, why depart from the comics at all? Maybe thats a rant for another time I smell another Reclamation post...

Then again shit blew up, I didnt find myslef questioning it. [Edit] I saw it again, some casting brought this down. That tool as Gambit or that guy playing this toolish Gambit? Awful. Everything he was in, dragged or just looked out of place. His action sequences were so dated and unspectacular. And Will.I.am playing a gay cowboy was distractingly bad. His voice was awful too, though I cant quite pin down where Ive heard a crappy voice like that. It was like "What if Blade had a gay midget clone?"

What hold it back from being an even better movie? Little things like Amnesia Bullets, akward action sequences, and some weird shots. I wont talk about the Amnesia Bullets but I will say...

I recommend that movie, honestly. Its fun, but its fun like how an old Seagal movie is fun. Some really cheesey stuff, some people get iced, everyone goes home happy. And thats kind of depressing. It could have been something really special. It was like a docudrama/biopic like one of those movies on like Hallmark or something with Treat Williams

So many small changes seemed to lose the sprit of Wolverine. Doesnt mean its not a fun watch. In the end it was like watching a solid/good Wolverine in a bad action movie with a few key scenes. Some scenes got it right, some got it wrong. Net effect? Ok movie, fun time, but entirely forgetable. Like a sucker I look foward to Wolverine 2 and Deadpool.