X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Year: 2009
Director: Gavin Hood
Starring: Danny Huston, Hugh Jackman & Liev Schreiber
Runtime: 107 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 09/12/21
Director: Gavin Hood
Starring: Danny Huston, Hugh Jackman & Liev Schreiber
Runtime: 107 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 09/12/21
I knew this day would come and I have dreaded it. I almost considered just not doing this entirely, but I thought “You know what, I haven’t watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine since a couple of years after it released, surely it’s not as bad as I remember it being, right?” Wrong. This film boils my blood at times at just how haphazardly put together it is and just how much it goes out of its way to spit in the faces of X-Men fans (regardless of whether you’re a long-time fan pre-dating the films, or just a big fan of the blockbuster trilogy that released shortly prior to it). So here we go, light your torches and grab your pitchforks because I’m going on a god damn witch hunt!
The year is 1845 and James Howlett witnesses the murder of the man he thought was his father by his true father. Along with his blood sibling Victor Creed, the two run away from home after displaying their mutant powers and participate in multiple wars over the ensuing century. Throughout this period James (Hugh Jackman) begins to notice Victor’s (Liev Schreiber) lack of morality and will often need to step in to stop him from committing atrocities. One such altercation during the Vietnam war leads them to be executed by firing squad, which of course they both survive. This catches the attention of Major William Stryker (Danny Huston) who is looking to assemble a task force of mutants whose powers will provide a great tactical advantage in a warzone, Team X. When a mission to find a precious metal leads to nothing but a massacre, James, now going by the name Logan, leaves the task force and settles down in Canada with his girlfriend Kayla (Lynn Collins).
A number of years later Stryker tracks down Logan and warns him that someone is tracking down and killing the members of Team X, the next day Victor finds Kayla and kills her thus prompting Logan to seek out Stryker and ask for help in killing Victor.
Logan is placed into the ‘Weapon X’ program under the codename Wolverine, here his skeleton is coated with Adamantium, the precious metal that Stryker was looking for many years prior, making Logan almost indestructible. Stryker attempts to betray Logan during this process and wipe his memory so that he will become subservient to Stryker, Logan escapes and vows to kill both Victor and Stryker.
The year is 1845 and James Howlett witnesses the murder of the man he thought was his father by his true father. Along with his blood sibling Victor Creed, the two run away from home after displaying their mutant powers and participate in multiple wars over the ensuing century. Throughout this period James (Hugh Jackman) begins to notice Victor’s (Liev Schreiber) lack of morality and will often need to step in to stop him from committing atrocities. One such altercation during the Vietnam war leads them to be executed by firing squad, which of course they both survive. This catches the attention of Major William Stryker (Danny Huston) who is looking to assemble a task force of mutants whose powers will provide a great tactical advantage in a warzone, Team X. When a mission to find a precious metal leads to nothing but a massacre, James, now going by the name Logan, leaves the task force and settles down in Canada with his girlfriend Kayla (Lynn Collins).
A number of years later Stryker tracks down Logan and warns him that someone is tracking down and killing the members of Team X, the next day Victor finds Kayla and kills her thus prompting Logan to seek out Stryker and ask for help in killing Victor.
Logan is placed into the ‘Weapon X’ program under the codename Wolverine, here his skeleton is coated with Adamantium, the precious metal that Stryker was looking for many years prior, making Logan almost indestructible. Stryker attempts to betray Logan during this process and wipe his memory so that he will become subservient to Stryker, Logan escapes and vows to kill both Victor and Stryker.
Origins: Wolverine was intended to be the start of two new X-Men film series that would tie in directly to the original trilogy. The first being a trilogy centred around Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine before, during, and after the events of the main trilogy. The second series was supposed to be a set of ‘Origins’ prequel films for each of the main X-Men characters, and seeing as Logan was the fan favourite and had the most mysterious past it made sense to start with him. Whilst the Wolverine trilogy certainly came to fruition (albeit in a heavily altered state from what was originally planned), Origins: Wolverine had such a large budget, didn’t make a significant enough return on said budget (despite still being very profitable), and was critically panned so badly that the Origins film series never continued.
The story itself doesn’t sound bad on paper, we get to see Logan’s discovery of his powers, his relationship with Sabertooth (something I’m going to go into more shortly), his time in the Weapon X program and subsequent dealings with Stryker, and we get to see a more emotional side to Logan in terms of his relationship with Kayla. But in practice Origins: Wolverine is a hot mess of poorly executed ideas, bad CGI, and a big F.U. to fans.
Let’s kick things off with Sabertooth. I’m not a big Liev Schreiber fan anyway so this already starts off on the wrong foot. But this character is so barely Sabertooth that they never bother to call him that in the film, he’s always just referred to as Victor. To me Schreiber doesn’t bring the necessary threat that Sabertooth presents. He’s too jokey and smiley, I get that it’s supposed to be sinister but Sabertooth is more animal than man so his prime desire should be to kill above cracking witty one liners. It’s like they just tried to make a villainous Wolverine which is not what Sabertooth is. This then also contradicts the original X-Men film where Sabertooth and Logan do not know each other. As a prequel to that film, why have they gone for the whole brother angle in Origins when the film it is a prequel to never adopted that part of the X-Men lore? Sure, it makes sense that Logan wouldn’t remember Sabretooth with the whole memory loss thing, but Sabretooth would absolutely know who Logan is.
The story itself doesn’t sound bad on paper, we get to see Logan’s discovery of his powers, his relationship with Sabertooth (something I’m going to go into more shortly), his time in the Weapon X program and subsequent dealings with Stryker, and we get to see a more emotional side to Logan in terms of his relationship with Kayla. But in practice Origins: Wolverine is a hot mess of poorly executed ideas, bad CGI, and a big F.U. to fans.
Let’s kick things off with Sabertooth. I’m not a big Liev Schreiber fan anyway so this already starts off on the wrong foot. But this character is so barely Sabertooth that they never bother to call him that in the film, he’s always just referred to as Victor. To me Schreiber doesn’t bring the necessary threat that Sabertooth presents. He’s too jokey and smiley, I get that it’s supposed to be sinister but Sabertooth is more animal than man so his prime desire should be to kill above cracking witty one liners. It’s like they just tried to make a villainous Wolverine which is not what Sabertooth is. This then also contradicts the original X-Men film where Sabertooth and Logan do not know each other. As a prequel to that film, why have they gone for the whole brother angle in Origins when the film it is a prequel to never adopted that part of the X-Men lore? Sure, it makes sense that Logan wouldn’t remember Sabretooth with the whole memory loss thing, but Sabretooth would absolutely know who Logan is.
Next up, still talking about characters and casting. The Team X roster is pretty awful. The only half decent performances are delivered by Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson, and Domonic Monaghan as Chris Bradley. Unfortunately, the character of Wade is totally butchered in this film (more on that later) and Chris is such a throwaway character that does nothing for the plot. He is useful one time in a very particular circumstance and then shortly thereafter Sabretooth kills him. I wouldn’t even really go so far as saying their performances are good, they’re just the least bad, they look and sound bored as hell.
The worst of the bunch is probably Will.i.am as John Wraith. This is the only significant role that the rapper and entrepreneur has ever had in film and it really shows, he is a terrible actor. He delivers lines in such a tone-deaf manner that it sounds like he is reading from a script to a different film. On top of this his physical presence is wooden as anything, he looks physically uncomfortable most of the time. It’s also clear as day that almost all of his lines needed to be dubbed in during post-production as what he is saying doesn’t match up to what his lips are doing most of the time. Whilst that’s not really his fault, it’s only the cherry on top of a whole list of things wrong with his performance that make him really stand out as potentially the worst actor on set.
Let’s talk Wade Wilson whilst we’re here. Ryan Reynolds has spoken out many times about how he basically begged to play Deadpool in an X-Men film and finally got an opportunity in Origins: Wolverine; he has also always followed this up by saying it’s one of the biggest regrets of his life. Whilst the name of the character may be Wade Wilson, and whilst that character may technically be Deadpool, the character present in this film is not Deadpool in the slightest. The merc with a mouth hardly says anything, and in the final act of the film he has his mouth sewn shut so he physically can’t talk. He’s a throwaway villain that is not worthy of the namesake. Thankfully it did lead to Reynolds pestering the living daylights out of Fox to make an actual Deadpool film closer to the comic books over half a decade later, but I’m not 100% sure it was worth suffering through Origins: Wolverine to get that.
The worst of the bunch is probably Will.i.am as John Wraith. This is the only significant role that the rapper and entrepreneur has ever had in film and it really shows, he is a terrible actor. He delivers lines in such a tone-deaf manner that it sounds like he is reading from a script to a different film. On top of this his physical presence is wooden as anything, he looks physically uncomfortable most of the time. It’s also clear as day that almost all of his lines needed to be dubbed in during post-production as what he is saying doesn’t match up to what his lips are doing most of the time. Whilst that’s not really his fault, it’s only the cherry on top of a whole list of things wrong with his performance that make him really stand out as potentially the worst actor on set.
Let’s talk Wade Wilson whilst we’re here. Ryan Reynolds has spoken out many times about how he basically begged to play Deadpool in an X-Men film and finally got an opportunity in Origins: Wolverine; he has also always followed this up by saying it’s one of the biggest regrets of his life. Whilst the name of the character may be Wade Wilson, and whilst that character may technically be Deadpool, the character present in this film is not Deadpool in the slightest. The merc with a mouth hardly says anything, and in the final act of the film he has his mouth sewn shut so he physically can’t talk. He’s a throwaway villain that is not worthy of the namesake. Thankfully it did lead to Reynolds pestering the living daylights out of Fox to make an actual Deadpool film closer to the comic books over half a decade later, but I’m not 100% sure it was worth suffering through Origins: Wolverine to get that.
Technically the film is also a bit of a shitshow. The whole thing has real Michael Bay syndrome when it comes to editing. There’s so many cuts all the damn time and it makes the film very difficult to follow at times because the cuts don’t flow very well. This was certainly a popular filmmaking technique at the time, frequent cuts during action scenes to make them easier to film but still look good, unfortunately some films like Origins: Wolverine didn’t understand how to do it effectively and have essentially just cobbled together a series of random images hoping to convey a sense of adrenaline.
The one sequence in the film that is actually very good and even a series highlight is the opening titles sequence. This montage sees Logan & Victor growing up and going from war to war through the ages. It tells the audience so much with absolutely no dialogue, it’s edited very well, and it does give you the sense that you’re going to be in for a great film. Unfortunately, everything after the opening credits is terrible.
It’s also impossible not to talk a bit more about the atrocious CGI the film uses at every possible opportunity. There are multiple times where characters aren’t attached to the ground properly. Patrick Stewart makes a cameo and his de-ageing is ten times worse than what they tried in X-Men: The Last Stand and even that was bad. Then comes Wolverine’s claws, oh man, what a sight it is to behold.
These monstrosities look like they belong in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. They’re so cartoonish that I struggle to understand how anyone at Fox ever gave the OK on them. What happened to the prosthetic claws he used in the original trilogy (and every film after)? It’s clear that Fox tried to cut corners as much as possible by using CGI wherever they could, however, didn’t allocate enough of a budget to those CG effects and instead spent them on…well I’m not exactly sure. At the time of release Origins: Wolverine was one of the most expensive films ever made and I genuinely struggle to see where the budget went. I’m sure the various producers got some very nice salaries, but considering how few A-list celebs there are in the film and the production quality is generally very low it does raise questions as to just what that extremely large budget was spent on.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a film that released in an era where superhero films were changing. It came hot on the heels of films like Iron Man and The Dark Knight which were evolving the genre in meaningful ways. Origins: Wolverine struggles to even maintain the evolutionary steps the original X-Men films made, let alone attempt to stand alongside those two giants of superhero cinema.
There is almost nothing good about Origins: Wolverine and even Fox acknowledged that by removing the film from the X-Men canon and rebooting the prequel dream with X-Men: First Class just two years later. So if you’re new to the X-Men film franchise, just don’t even bother with Origins: Wolverine, I’m sure you’ll thank me later for not allowing you to waste 100 minutes of your life on this dumpster fire of a film.
The one sequence in the film that is actually very good and even a series highlight is the opening titles sequence. This montage sees Logan & Victor growing up and going from war to war through the ages. It tells the audience so much with absolutely no dialogue, it’s edited very well, and it does give you the sense that you’re going to be in for a great film. Unfortunately, everything after the opening credits is terrible.
It’s also impossible not to talk a bit more about the atrocious CGI the film uses at every possible opportunity. There are multiple times where characters aren’t attached to the ground properly. Patrick Stewart makes a cameo and his de-ageing is ten times worse than what they tried in X-Men: The Last Stand and even that was bad. Then comes Wolverine’s claws, oh man, what a sight it is to behold.
These monstrosities look like they belong in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. They’re so cartoonish that I struggle to understand how anyone at Fox ever gave the OK on them. What happened to the prosthetic claws he used in the original trilogy (and every film after)? It’s clear that Fox tried to cut corners as much as possible by using CGI wherever they could, however, didn’t allocate enough of a budget to those CG effects and instead spent them on…well I’m not exactly sure. At the time of release Origins: Wolverine was one of the most expensive films ever made and I genuinely struggle to see where the budget went. I’m sure the various producers got some very nice salaries, but considering how few A-list celebs there are in the film and the production quality is generally very low it does raise questions as to just what that extremely large budget was spent on.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a film that released in an era where superhero films were changing. It came hot on the heels of films like Iron Man and The Dark Knight which were evolving the genre in meaningful ways. Origins: Wolverine struggles to even maintain the evolutionary steps the original X-Men films made, let alone attempt to stand alongside those two giants of superhero cinema.
There is almost nothing good about Origins: Wolverine and even Fox acknowledged that by removing the film from the X-Men canon and rebooting the prequel dream with X-Men: First Class just two years later. So if you’re new to the X-Men film franchise, just don’t even bother with Origins: Wolverine, I’m sure you’ll thank me later for not allowing you to waste 100 minutes of your life on this dumpster fire of a film.