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Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Wolverine on Wolverine - my X-Men review

I saw "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" on Sunday. I know, your thinking, "Brian, what happened to Thursday night at midnight? Or at least Friday night?" To that I answer, "I had to be at work early on Friday and then that night I had dinner with a girl, which unfortunately, was way better than the movie". But I did see it opening weekend and was able to add my money to the $85 million+ total it took in domestically. Jesus Christ!

My review starts before the movie even does. Previews; big fan of them! The movie theater where I went now plays the commercials BEFORE the previews, like when you're just sitting there wishing you had bought some popcorn because they seriously put crack in it to make you want to buy it. So no commercials during the previews = awesome. Halfway through the previews though, I had a moment where I thought, "Man, these are some nerdy previews", but then quickly remembered what movie I was there to see. Are previews like movie foreplay? I wonder...

Ok so the movie already. As an almost nerd, I'm becoming a little disillusioned with the X-men franchise. I feel like in the first movie, they introduced a crap-ton of characters and for the most part, they were all pretty fleshed out from a character standpoint. You knew what power each of them had, usually their name, and a bit of back story within, meh the first 5 minutes of them on screen. Remeber the beginning of X-men, in the concentration camp, with Magnito, and the Nazis? Fucking brilliant! That's good storytelling. Storytelling apparently doesn't mean jack to the X-men writers anymore. They aren't story-telling so much as story-feeding. You need to come prepared! Don't know who that character is on the screen, tough, we aren't telling! If you did know who he was though you would probably just have creamed your pants because you totally didn't expect him/her/it to make an appearance, you can thank us later. So aside from Wolverine, Sabretooth, and maybe Gambit (a stretch), you shouldn't expect to know anyone else in the movie. I know, I know, its the Wolverine movie, but I'm a bit disappointed. At the very least, watch the first two X-men movies before seeing Origins so you can feel at least a little bit involved when the cameos come a calling.

Hugh Jackman is "naked" for maybe 30 seconds. Nakedness is implied, not realized. Topless with a bit of thigh would be more appropriate. Ladies this is not a reason to see the movie, but if you boyfriend wants to go, I guess its a plus. If you want naked, see "The Watchmen" (see previous post on that).

The story itself is ok. It has a beginning, middle, and an end, so at least its complete. The beginning was unexpected and awesome, but unfortunately they used up their awesomeness quota for the first 45 minutes in those first 5. After those first 5, hunker down with that popcorn you broke down and got, you'll be glad you have it. 40 minutes and a couple of forgettable characters later, we get to the plot that we knew had to happen to get to the end of the movie. I don't like movies like that. Like "Meet the Parents", you know it has to all go to shit so things can happen. Wolverine definitely had that feeling till about the hour mark.

The ending was exciting, but really confusing. Why are there 50 mutants just hanging around doing nothing? Couldn't you all be kicking ass right now? Shouldn't at least one of you be pissed enough to do something stupid and show off your powers. Nope, sorry, we only have the budget for the approved mutant powers for mutants with lines, so you guys, just act scared and follow (points to random character with a name), that guy. Cue the fight scene on ridiculous location! Andddddd, movie over! People died, we don't care, get out of the theater!

Ok, I think that's enough without ruining the movie for everyone. Really, I could have told you the ending and it probably wouldn't have changed much. You weren't going to see it for the story anyways, were you?

BJ Movie Rating - C+

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