Wolverine
Studio: 20th Century Fox Distribution
Rated: PG-13
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Taylor Kitsch, will. i. am
Director: Gavin Hood
WorkNameSort: Wolverine
Our Rating: 1.00
There was once a period of time ‘ let’s call it ‘the ’90sâ?� ‘ in which movie studios hired writers and directors who didn’t like comic books to helm comic book feature-film adaptations in order to pander to what they assumed was the lowest common denominator: fanboys. They ladled out the slop over and over again; Judge Dredd, Steel starring Shaquille O’Neal, The Phantom, the Schumacher-directed Batman pictures.
In 2000, Bryan Singer’s X-Men redefined the game. Although not perfect, Singer’s adaptation combined spectacle with smarts, cutting-edge special effects with a thought-provoking theme that likened the mutant oppression to the Holocaust. Comic-book movies had grown up, and although studios still crank out the random misfires ‘ League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Catwoman ‘ the trend was to treat superheroes and their fans with the respect that the actual comic books had always given them, culminating with The Dark Knight‘s win for an acting Oscar.
This year has proven to be one of transition and experimentation, a temperature-taking moment in comic-book movies. Alan Moore’s seminal graphic novel, Watchmen, signaled the comic world’s puberty, its man-time. (I personally remember the humiliation of picking up the latest Detective Comics adventure only to discover that my friends had started reading Watchmen and decided amongst themselves that everything else, including my precious Batman, was for babies.) With the Watchmen motion picture, Warner Bros. boldly attempted the most fanboy-pleasing, true-to-the-book adaptation ever made, and the cinema world discovered that it is possible to be too slavish.
This week’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine represents the other end of the spectrum: it’s a film made with utter contempt for its audience by the most cynical of Hollywood players that shrugs off any notion of mythology, character development or joy.
It’s well known by now that the studio behind Wolverine, 20th Century Fox, experienced righteous blowback of the highest order: first, with Fox online columnist Roger Friedman’s clueless early review of the film (a positive one) that was based on a financially devastating work print leak by someone working on the film; then Fox was exposed as outright liars for suggesting that there were 10 more minutes of the film not seen in the leak, a ludicrous claim quickly debunked when the first advance screenings were held. There was also talk of serious arguments between the director, Gavin Hood (who admitted he doesn’t read comic books), and the studio.
Setting aside the controversy, the film itself is a debacle. Working from comic writer Barry Windsor-Smith’s ‘Weapon Xâ?� story from 1991, screenwriter David Benioff (along with two other writers hired just before the WGA writers strike to do last-minute revisions) imagines the title character as the brother of the similarly endowed yet darker-spirited Sabretooth. The two stick together through centuries, fighting side by side in the Revolutionary War and, later, Vietnam, which is where Sabretooth’s evil nature really emerges. They’re later recruited by a sadistic Army colonel, William Stryker, who (in the film) is heading the Weapon X project ‘ ‘Roman numeral 10,â?� he helpfully explains to the only top military brass in history who haven’t heard of Roman numerals ‘ in which he kidnaps and experiments on mutants to extract their powers and create a supermutant: Weapon XI.
Stryker assembles Wolverine, Sabretooth and a cadre of other mutants to assist him on missions, the one in the film being the extraction of adamantium, the fictional ore inserted into Wolverine that makes him nearly invincible. After Wolverine stands up to Sabretooth, Wolverine leaves the team and settles down with his lover in Canada to become a lumberjack. Years later, members of his former team are turning up dead and Stryker asks for his help. To give him a final push, Sabretooth kills his girlfriend, thus instigating not only a classic skyward ‘NO!â?� shout, but also enabling a tired retread of The Outlaw Josey Wales.
Although the main focus stays on Wolverine, Hood escorts a pageant-like lineup of other famous and obscure mutant heroes to the stage, gives them a few moments to show what they can do, and kindly ushers them backstage. The anticipated Ryan Reynolds-as-Deadpool event is a non-starter; the trailer-heavy presence of Cyclops is limited to, well, the moments seen in the trailer; and in the head-scratcher of the year, the diabolical, beautiful, imposing (and British) future leader of X-Men, Emma Frost, shows up as a diminutive, quiet American girl who morphs into diamonds exactly once.
Nothing in X-Men Origins: Wolverine feels confident, let alone canonical. The film seems to know full well it’s a poor spinoff, and it allows campy characters, absurd dialogue and Will.I.Am to invade its compromised space. It’s a shame, really. These are some of the best characters ever devised in comic book history, and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) and Liev Schreiber (Sabretooth) inhabit their personas perfectly. If only they were in a better movie.
This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2009.