It may not be the "worst" super hero film ever made, but it's really darn close to it.
Hey, brainy directors making comic book movies: Learn the lesson of Gavin Hood and don't approach the genre like you're doing fanboys a favor. You're actually just doing yourself a disservice. Hood, an obviously smart guy with movies like Rendition and Tsotsi, ditches his strengths, takes every opportunity to try to be awesome and instead comes off as pandering and desperate. Obviously excited by the idea of having a special effects budget to tell a bigger story yet having no idea how to put it effectively on screen, Hood gives us stuff that looks OK if ridiculous (twirling mutant laser beam destroys a cooling tower), really bad (bullets hit the ground, obviously digitized dirt burst up), and downright horrible (Wolverine's adamantium claws). Seriously, what was up with the claws? Lawnmower Man quality.
I'm not sure who this movie was made for. It's certainly not made for people who like good movies. Sure, there are a couple of pretty decent action pieces at the beginning of the film. But the script is so ham-fisted about telling us how to feel (Why is the moon sad? Because she had to watch this movie). We're told that there's tension between Sabretooth and Wolverine, but we don't really find out why, and worse yet, we don't really care.
Wolverine is mostly pretty mopey here, and not the bundle of rage we know and love. I will say that Liev Schrieber is nicely menacing here, but this performance belongs in a better film.
This movie isn't really made for comic fans either. Playing it a little loose with the characters was OK in the first two X-Men movies because that liberty allowed for tight storytelling.
The story here gets so far away from the source material that it's not even in the same universe anymore. It seems like the writers just started dropping mutants in just because we'd recognize them (the same way the Epic Movie buttholes write jokes - mere recognition is enough to be funny, right?).
From a comic fan's perspective, I don't see any reason to include some of the characters that show up. And the biggest insult to comic fans has to be the inclusion of Deadpool. Deadpool's popularity comes mainly from his abject insanity, and silencing him in this film really shows how little the filmmakers think of comic book fans.
I defy even the fanboys out there to defend what is far and away the weakest and downright most god awful piece of cinematic fecal matter of all the X-Men films thus far.
That was all before I saw X-Men: The Last Stand and that movie is one sour, ugly, soul-sucking experience. The greatest thing X-Men Origins: Wolverine is guilty of is being tacky and source unfaithful. Though my initial reaction was similarly vehemently negative, I think the critics took certain relish dogpiling on Wolverine. Sheer franchise fatigue had set in.
Good thing X-Men: First Class brought it back.
When I first saw X-men Origins: Wolverine, my initial thought was, "well, it was better than The Last Stand." On reflection though, and having watched it again recently, I have to agree that this is far and away the most wretched of all the X-men films. Last Stand included. While over-crowded with way too many characters with nothing to do, at least X3 had a reason to have all those characters. Wolverine had a bunch of characters essentially standing around doing nothing. Too much and nothing at all.
If you're going to do a Wolverine origin story, wouldn't it have made more sense to strip it down and simply adapt Weapon X? Make it a small film and let it build up to something bigger with the next one or two instead of trying to squeeze all these nonsensical subplots into a manageable storyline.
You’ve got all these characters running around that could have made the story so much better if there was even the remote possibility that there was a decent writer around. But no. They’re just there so that comic book fans can sit up and say “hey, I remember/recognize/heard of that one character there.”
Another guy wrote "I'm probably going to take a lot of flack for this, but I loved this movie. I don't have a problem with the effects or anything, the only thing is that the story is a bit uneven. Yes, its not faithful but I'm not a diehard X-Men nut and that’s probably why. 9/10; outstanding."
I'm mildly curious; WHAT was outstanding about it?
Also, do you mean 'outstanding' as far as this franchise or as a film in general? To each his own, but this is one of those films that I found so piss-poor that it actually angered me.
When a studio spends THIS much money and a film crew is given THIS much liberty to do what it wants, to produce THIS result is obscene. Don't take this as a rip, by the way. I honestly tend to envy anyone who likes films I hate because it means they got some enjoyment out of something that I'm not able to... having said that, I'm *amazed* that anyone could praise this film.
Wolvie Origins may have been a "worse" film than X3, but for sheer hubris, X3 takes the cake. It seems like Ratner based his irreverence out of pure arrogance ("I'm awesome, so they'll like anything I do.") And Hood was just plain ignorant. But neither of them cared to look past their own nose to see that their final products were a slap in the face to actual fans.
Continuity and character differences from the comics to film were OK in the first 2 X-Men films (and, in my opinion, First Class), because they strove to respect the source even if they had to tweak it a little. X3 and Origins were such god awful drivel that they make the Star Wars prequels look like masterpieces of writing.
Revisiting this picture I still can't find much right with it. Hugh Jackman gives it his all, that's something. You can really tell he loves the character. Liev Schrieber also tries to add some gravitas to the film. I feel so bad for them because their good performances was put into a generic and mediocre action film.
I think that's why people hate this movie so much. This isn't a Wolverine movie as much as it's every generic action film trope sprinkled w/ a dash of X-Men lore. The hero w/ the troubled past looking for peace and quiet, the return of the sadistic rival who used to be friends w/ said hero, the zealous general w/ no moral compass...it's like every one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's early films except this one stars Hugh Jackman.
I mean it's bad enough that Wolverine gets yet another movie to focus on him, but to make matters worse, the screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods couldn't even come up w/ a decent story. Then again, I guess I can't expect much from the guy (Woods) who wrote the script for "Hitman" and "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra."
Now I'm no fan of Wolverine, but even I'll admit that he deserved a little bit more than a paint-by-numbers action movie. I was almost interested in the sequel/reboot when they announced Darren Aronovsky would be helming, but now that he's dropped from the project I'm back to having no interest in any Wolverine oriented X-Men projects.
Some of the problems with the Wolvie movie:
1.- The part where he takes down the helicopter and then throws his cigar to make it explode. The slow motion walk away with the awful awful awful CGI flames in the background.
2.- When he fights Gambit and he runs up a ladder as Wolverine starts chopping it. Seriously? Was he chopping up a kebab or something? Cause it sure looked like he was.
3.- The dialogue in all the non combat scenes. The guy who wrote The Notebook is less corny. Stephanie Mayer has a broader language base.
4.- Deadpool.....even if you didn't know the character you'd be disappointed at what they did in this one. The cherry on top is the swirling head with laser eyes slicing up the water tower on its way down. That's just beyond ridiculous and moves straight into completely laughable territory.
5.- The bullet to the brain. They could have come up with anything that was less awful. Heck, Wolverine tripping and falling down on his head so that he forgets would have been less lame.
6.- Inclusion of X-Men as kids being held hostage just for the fun of putting names there.
7.- If I made tin foil claws they'd look less stupid.
8.- The fact that Hugh Jackman and Liev Schrieber actually did put a lot of effort into this garbage.
9. So, Wolverine’s girlfriend (who is supposedly Native American or some such) is blood related to Emma Frost (who is supposedly of Dutch-Irish descent)…? Can someone please explain that one to me? I mean, this is the same nonsense as with the Star Wars franchise. They live in this immense area of the galaxy far away from each other yet everybody knows everybody or is somehow related in some strange way to everybody else. Sure. Why not?
I walked out of the theater as soon as the movie ended so I missed the last post credits scene of him in Japan, but I am sure it was stupid or at least as bad as the rest of the movie.
I was going to walk out as soon as the helicopter exploded but my friends told me it couldn't get worse...oh, it did.
The Last Stand is bad, but I'd rather watch that than have to sit through this junk ever again.
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skp28
13 years ago
It is certainly not the worst movie made ever....but yes its worst and most boring out of all X-Men movies.
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cliff_niblr031
13 years ago
badnaam wrote "It is certainly not the worst movie made ever....but yes its worst and most boring out of all X-Men movies."
Oh, please... you're being way WAY too kind, and this film doesn't deserve that level of kindness.
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croat-hr
13 years ago
Come on it isn't bad movie at all. sure it's not the best, but it's fun to watch. And best x-men movie except the first one.
If it isn't following exactly to the story of the comic books - who cares? even better. Who wants to see the same story over and over again any way?
Lighten up - if you want the comics - read the comics. thats it.
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cliff_niblr031
13 years ago
croat-hr wrote "Come on it isn't bad movie at all."
Compared to other films... Yes it is.
"but it's fun to watch."
It is definitely better than watching paint dry. So, yes, in that respect it is fun to watch.
"And best x-men movie except the first one."
Really? I don't think you know what being the "best" means then.
"If it isn't following exactly to the story of the comic books - who cares?"
I do. And probably the people who followed the comic book storyline(s) and made the comic books popular enough in the first place to make Hollywood sit up and take notice to just take the name and then piss on everything else about it: Such as the character(s)/ story/ history/ timeline/ whatever.
The only thing a comment like that proves is that you don't know what the fig you're talking about. As someone who read X-Men back when Chris Claremont worked on X-Men and wrote such classics as the Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of Future Past, the Brood saga, the Mutant Massacre and many others during his 15 year run on X-Men , yeah, it is heartbreaking to see Hollywood wipe their asses with his great works.
"Who wants to see the same story over and over again any way?"
It doesn't HAVE to be the same EXACT story. I never, not once, ever said that a film should duplicate the written source material exactly. There's no possible way they could do the entire Dark Phoenix saga exactly as it was done in the comics without adding in all the other subplots with extra-terrestrial empress Lilandra, the Shi'ar alien empire, and all that jazz in a two-hour film. Which is exactly WHY you don't do it as a film at all. As a cable tv series or cartoon maybe, but not a film. Just leave it out. There are plenty of other X-Men or Wolverine stories they could have done without going in that direction and butchering it so horribly.
"Lighten up - if you want the comics - read the comics. thats it."
The problem with your statement here is that if someone takes a character/ group/ stories, which also happen to be among your favorites and then proceeds to mutilate everything about them so that the characters are not even the same anymore. That shows a complete lack of respect for the source material and the fans that made them so popular in the first place.
If you're just taking the name and changing everything else about the material then why not just call it something else? Why call it X-Men or Wolverine? It's kind of a bait and switch, or false advertisement type of situation. They give it the name that people are most familiar with, but then they change everything about it or offer up something entirely different then the source material.
For example Constantine with Keanu Reeves. Here is a film where they clearly just took the name and changed EVERYTHING else about the character. Constantine is supposed to be a British guy with blond hair. The author of Constantine based him on the singer and sometimes actor Sting. But I digress.
The problem that I have with most of these live-action super hero films is that they are so far removed from the source material that it can't even be considered the same thing anymore. You can call it X-Men, Wolverine, Constantine, Elektra, Catwoman, etc., but they're NOT really anything like the source characters from which they came from.
These crap films basically exist in a parallel universe where god awful writing prevails and for people like you who can't tell the difference but just wanna veg out in front of a movie screen. Again, that's fine. There are plenty of crappy films for you and people like you to watch in that case. But don't do it with stories and/or characters that some people (including myself) do happen to care about.
And if you're the type of person that doesn't really care about those things, that's fine. You are NOT one of the fans who take it as an insult. You're just a pedestrian.
You're the type who comes to watch a film and it doesn't matter to you what its about. Or who doesn't even care just so long as it has cool CGI special FX, loud music, big explosions and not much else. Basically, what you're saying is you're just there to put your brain on pause and blank out for 2 hours.
So, Of course the characters/ story/ whatever doesn't mean much to you and people like you because you don't know much, if anything, about the subject matter.
But what I find ironic about your comments is that you say you don't care, and to "lighten up." Yet you took time out of your "busy" schedule to register yourself onto the IMDB website, log in and make comments about a subject that you say you don't care about. Maybe you need to take your own advice and walk away instead of bothering to tell other people what they should or should not do.
And if you're the type who uses the excuse "it's just a movie", yeah, that's absolutely no excuse for lazy film making. WHY do we have to accept certain mediocre film makers (*cough *cough Brett Ratner)who crap all over beloved characters/ stories/ whatever? And what's worse is that some of these really crappy films are being viewed as "good" when they're really not.
Joss Whedon showed that you can still make a decent and really entertaining super hero film like The Avengers even though its completely different from the comic books as long as you show even a modicum of respect for the source material.
Superman the Movie with the late Christopher Reeve was and still is the benchmark for really great super hero films even though it changes some aspects of the Superman story. The film stands so well on its own, and all the changes makes sense that even the most ardent Superman fan can appreciate the quality of the film. It's a great film. Period. It being a super hero film is beside the point.
You cannot possible say the same about X-Men 3 or Wolverine.
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croat-hr
12 years ago
clit_niblr031
I wont argue, cause I totaly undertand your points, and respect your oppinion. I still have my own oppinion though and I stand by it.
And I took time to log in imdb because I do, obviously care a little about this, I just said that I don't care if a story isn't the same as in the comics. I didn't say I don't care about this movie at all.
And I personaly hate the Avengers movie, it's totaly boring, adn I fell asleep in cinema watching it, and I like the Iron man movie. And about Superman; loved it when I was a kid, but now when I look at it - it's a silly movie, you must admit. Still, better than most modern action movies though, I give you that.
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jon_combo
11 years ago
(Wolverine's adamantium claws). Seriously, what was up with the claws? Lawnmower Man quality.
I thought they looked fine, how is adamantium meant to look?
I'm not sure who this movie was made for. It's certainly not made for people who like good movies. Sure, there are a couple of pretty decent action pieces at the beginning of the film.
Good is subjective. People have different tastes. I think from they could of made this a trilogy. Youth -> Stryker's appearance. I would of liked to of seen more World War stuff. Stryker's appearance -> Logan leaving Team X. Then, Weapon X storyline. I would still like to see Sabretooth getting 4 claws installed.
the biggest insult to comic fans has to be the inclusion of Deadpool. Deadpool's popularity comes mainly from his abject insanity, and silencing him in this film really shows how little the filmmakers think of comic book fans.
I think they could still salvage him. Just have him regenerate, have the healing factor reject the other powers. Even the adamantium bonding wasn't even finished. That could be rejected too. Start the spin off from there.
I defy even the fanboys out there to defend what is far and away the weakest and downright most god awful piece of cinematic fecal matter of all the X-Men films thus far.
That was all before I saw X-Men: The Last Stand and that movie is one sour, ugly, soul-sucking experience. The greatest thing X-Men Origins: Wolverine is guilty of is being tacky and source unfaithful. Though my initial reaction was similarly vehemently negative, I think the critics took certain relish dogpiling on Wolverine. Sheer franchise fatigue had set in.
I thought the costume designs were better in X3, than X1 and X2. X1 fell flat for me, since I was fairly familiar with the characters already.
Some of the problems with the Wolvie movie:
5.- The bullet to the brain. They could have come up with anything that was less awful. Heck, Wolverine tripping and falling down on his head so that he forgets would have been less lame.
9. So, Wolverine’s girlfriend (who is supposedly Native American or some such) is blood related to Emma Frost (who is supposedly of Dutch-Irish descent)…? Can someone please explain that one to me?
5. Deadpool could of shot him through the eyes, damaging his brain and eyes.
9. They could of been step/foster/half sisters? Also, she was only called Emma in the movie, obviously she was meant to be Emma Frost. But, I like to think she is a daughter/niece/cousin of Emma Frost from First Class. She only showed us her diamond form, no mind powers. She wasn't even familiar with it when Scott is being guided out. Could be just a family mutant trait.
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