X-Men Origins: Wolverine

[Just so you know, this review is from when Wolverine came out, so it may be a bit dated. Anyway, here's a taste of a movie review!]

Hey everybody, been a little while, especially since I planned to write a CD review, but got sidetracked. Tonight, me and the Bros. decided to go see a movie. That movie was X-Men Origins: Wolverine. So this is actually going to be my first timely review, ever. Anyway, that being said, let's start off the review.

Movie Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Okay, now then, I didn't know what to think of this movie before watching it. I had no idea who directed it, what was going to happen, or anything else other than that Deadpool was in it. I knew X-Men 3 was terrible, so it would take something massively bad to outdo that. Luckily, this movie didn't fulfill that qualification.

Now then, the movie started in 1845, with some sick kid, his brother, and some stuff that really wasn't explained. The kid's father is killed, kid gets bone-claws, kills the guy that killed his father, turns out father wasn't really his father, all the viewers are confused. Luckily, things end after the two kids run away, and we get a fun little montage of war. The two brothers go through every war from the Civil War to Vietnam, and one of them becomes progressively more evil for no reason at all. Logan, or Jimmy, as he's called by his brother, Victor, keeps his innocence, despite living through a shitload of wars. Aaanyway, this stops in Vietnam, when Inexplicably-Evil-Victor kills a superior officer, so both him and Logan are charged for it. They end up in front of a firing squad, which doesn't do anything. They are then picked up by a fancy government looking guy, with the cliche reason, "To serve your country." They become part of a special forces team, who all turn out to be fancy. There's Asian Shooting Guy, Teleporting Guy, Fat Man, Technology Hobbit, Wade Wilson, and then we have Stryker, the government guy who rounded them all up. They raid some facility, kill everyone, so Stryker can ask the leader about a rock. Then they go to the village where the rock was found, they find no success in learning more about where to find more of the special rock. When Stryker orders all the villagers be killed, Logan quits, and just walks off into the forest.

Six years later, we find him in Canada, with a wife, and as a lumberjack. Here we have some sentimental stuff, until we cut to a carnival, where Technology Hobbit, a guy who can control technology with his mind and who played Mary in Lord of the Rings. Victor kills him. Then we cut back to Canada, with Stryker showing up to tell Logan that Victor is killing everyone, and asking to rejoin the old team. Logan refuses, but regrets it later when he finds his wife dead. He finds Victor, and gets his ass kicked. In the hospital, Stryker is there, and Logan volunteers for an experiment so he can kill Victor. He gets adamantium bonded to his skeleton, and starts killing everything when he hears that they're going to erase his memory. He escapes, and some old couple finds him. He tests out his new metal claws, and they look really fake. Some more sentimental stuff, then the old couple are killed by Asian Shooting Guy, Wolverine goes towards him on a motorcycle, long story short, there's lots of explosions, and he escapes.

He then meets with Teleporting Guy in a boxing gym, who tells him there's some island, so he should talk to Fat Guy, who has become more fat over the years. They have a fun little fight scene, he establishes his code name as Da Blob, and tells Wolverine Stryker's been gathering up mutants at his secret island, and only one person has escaped, Remy LeBeau, also known as Gambit. Also, Victor has been working with Stryker the whole time. Logan and Teleporting Guy go to a bar where Gambit is, Logan and Gambit fight as Victor comes and kills Teleporting Guy. Logan and Victor start fighting, but that gets broken up when Gambit starts fighting Logan again for no reason. Anyway, eventually Gambit agrees to take Logan to the island, so he can kill everyone. At one point in the middle of this, we see Victor attack some kid with red glasses at a school. When the glasses come off, giant red lasers come out of his eyes, and rip open the school. Victor sedates him, then he and Stryker talk. He goes, there's killing, Stryker starts an infodump.

He's been taking the powers from all the mutants, so he can kill them all in the impending war he's imagining. He's been putting them in who he calls Weapon XI, or Deadpool, who kinda looks like Wade Wilson you see in one shot of his face while he's on the operating table. Logan's wife was just an agent who has tactile hypnosis, she's actually alive, and everything Logan has done so far was pointless. Logan leaves, but comes back when he hears his former wife screaming, he comes back, because Victor was strangling her for some reason. They fight, Victor gets knocked out, so Logan proceeds to free the trapped mutants, consisting of Cyclops, Wife's sister, and some other people that weren't really introduced. As they try to leave, they are confronted by Weapon XI, who looks like Wade, only terribly scarred and without a mouth. The rest of the mutants find another way out, and Deadpool gets giant swords that come out of his wrists. Yeah, it's pretty stupid. Anyway, they fight, Wolvering climbs some giant tower thing, Deadpool teleports, Victor comes to help Logan, they fight, there's eyebeams, Deadpool gets his head cut off. More explosions and stuff, Logan finds his now mortally wounded wife, tries to carry her away, but is shot with Adamantium bullets by Stryker. He gets shot a few more times, and twice in the head. Before he can shoot wife, she grabs his legs and commands him to keep walking until his feel bleed, and then keep walking. Wolverine wakes up without memory, Gambit makes a final appearance, leaves, Wolverine runs away. Movie ends. After the credits, there's two little things at the end, first Stryker gets arrested for killing a superior, then another thing where the beheaded Deadpool wakes up, and makes a "shhh" sound. Wikipedia tells me there's an alternate one, but I haven't seen it.

Now then, first of all, the special effects. Parts of them were really good, but there were too many parts where they really sucked. When you first see Wolverine's metal claws, they look really really fake. Like, badly photoshopped fake. Da Blob looks fake-fat, not really convincing. There's one part during the Gambit fight scene where Wolvering tears down the stairs on a fire escape, and it looks really bad. The only time I really noticed the special effects is when they sucked. The explosions were good at least.

I didn't really mind the plot, and they finally showed some mutants I missed from the X-Men films. Well, I really just wanted Gambit and Deadpool. Gambit was pretty kickass, what with his staff, his flips, and his exploding cards. Deadpool is a different story. He was remote controlled by Stryker, had no dialogue after his operation thing, had crappy katanas coming from his hands, and had an amalgam of other mutants' powers. When people try to convert Deadpool to something else, they tend to make him some inhuman killing machine who rarely talks, contrary to his comic-incarnation. Anyway, the after-credit ending may change this, but so far I didn't really like him. The casting was pretty good, especially Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. I mean, I just want him to wrap his manly arms ar... Okay, that lead down a road I'd rather not explore. Ryan Reynolds (Van Wilder) might have been a good choice for Wade Wilson, but I won't know until there's a sequel or something. Danny Hudson was a good Stryker, though he was a bastard.

I thought it was actually pretty good. Not the best, but it showed a good look at the most popular X-Man we don't see the beginnings of. Thing is, he lost his memory at the end, so this movie didn't really effect his character. Kinda makes the movie pointless. Oh well. It also never explained why Victor became increasingly evil as time went on. t just kinda happened. There's probably going to be a sequel, and hopefully they'll show more mutants. I'm just hoping for more Deadpoolness that doesn't suck. In conclusion, if you liked X-Men 1 or 2, give this movie a try. If you like X-Men 3, go kill yourself, because there's no hope for you. If you don't really like comic movies, I wouldn't suggest watching this. You won't get all the references. So yeah, tell me what you think, good review? Bad?