Friday, May 1, 2009

Wolverine

by Michael

Just when you thought comic book movies were going enter of an age of depth and reason, along comes Wolverine: X-Men Origins, to dispel such illusions. Hugh Jackman is always a game sport, whether throwing himself into the flamboyance of Peter Allen as The Boy From Oz or plunging himself through the depths of despair in Aronofsky’s The Fountain. But not even good charm or exuberance can save him from this latest X-Men entry, a vast wasteland of running time, with not a compelling moment in sight.

After an inspired credits sequence depicting between Wolverine and his brother Victor (Liev Schrieber) fighting through every major war in American history, the story devolves into a rather dull revenge thriller, where someone close to the Clawed One gets iced, and the beast within is released with newfangled adamantium claws. Licking his fangs with a sadistic relish, Schrieber clearly enjoys playing the Cain to Jackman’s Abel. The character of Victor Creed is clearly Sabretooth from the comics, but being as that character was last seen hairy and plunging out of the Statue of Liberty in the first X picture, I suppose some changes had to be made. Who needs continuity?

In the film, Danny Huston plays the role of Major Stryker (Brian Cox played him X2), the man who once recruited Wolvie and Victor to join his own mutant “A-Team”. This is the kind of film that forces outside thoughts to creep into your brain. Hence, the sight of Huston, and a Bush-era subtext within the film concerning the imprisonment of potentially “threatening” mutants, I began wishing I was watching Children of Men. Then, out of utter boredom, I began imagining Schrieber’s pretentious writer from Greg Mottola’s The Daytrippers stabbing people with claws. This made me laugh. Then I thought of how good Ryan Reynolds was in Mottola’s Adventureland, and how now I was watching him act tough and stab people with swords, much like in Blade Trinity, a film I despised.

This, in turn, made me think of the secret guilt I have harbored for admiring his performance in the remake of The Amityville Horror, an admiration I have been ashamed to express publicly until now. He is rather good, though, at stabbing people with swords and dispensing one-liners. Maybe he should have his own action franchise. So, yes, this film sucks. But one thing is certain: Jackman is not to blame. He gives his all in this film. But the material is just not there. Now, say, the entire film took place in Nam, with the bros floating down the Mekong like PBR Streetgang. Or how about just the brothers dueling throughout history like in, well, The Duellists. That’s the kind of film I could get behind. Instead, we get stuck with (insert name of revenge thriller) crossed with a lame mutant version of East of Eden.