Review: Wolverine’s Unbridled Rage Never Looked So Good
By Hugh Hart # April 28, 2009
Hugh Jackman keeps his rogue charm on a tight leash in superhero prequel X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
The picturesque, PG- 13 revenge epic pits Jackman’s scowling Logan, aka Wolverine, against vicious freaks, a mad scientist and a brutal big brother that could give kids nightmares. It also explains, once and for all, the brokenhearted rage that drives Marvel Comics’ adamantium-clawed alpha mutant.
Dispensing with X-Men: The Last Stand’s cartoony aspects, South African director Gavin Hood, who won a 2006 foreign-language Oscar for Tsotsi, hews closer to the brooding tone established by Bryan Singer’s first two X-Men movies.
Where Batman vents his fury amid the alleys and skyscrapers of Gotham City, Wolverine favors the great outdoors. Wolverine was shot primarily in New Zealand (standing in for Logan’s home base in the Canadian Rockies), and the country’s spectacular vistas figure into the film’s best sequence, in which a muscled-up Jackman bounds stark-naked off waterfalls and across wheat fields after getting fried in a tub while being surgically transfused with indestructible metal alloy.
The movie, which opens Friday, traces Wolverine’s youthful adventures with protective older brother Victor Creed/Sabretooth (edgy Liev Schreiber). In a decades-spanning opening montage, the 175-year-old brothers, thick as blood, claw their way together through the Civil War, World War I, D-Day and Vietnam.
Feita la Emma Frost...
Recruited by mad scientist Stryker (Danny Huston), Wolverine and Sabretooth venture to Nigeria with X Team mutants including yammering swordsman Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), sharpshooter David North/Agent Zero (Daniel Henney), teleporter John Wraith (Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am), Fred J. Dukes/The Blob (Kevin Durand) and psychic electrician Bradley/Bolt (Lost’s Dominic Monaghan).
Fed up with the violence, Wolverine deserts the mission and finds himself, six years later, living a blissful logger’s life with lovely Kayla Silverfox, played by Shakespearean hottie Lynn Collins, who brings earthy depth to what in other hands might have been a thankless love-interest role.
When the past catches up with Wolverine, he brawls his way across North America to a third-act showdown that makes the most of eerily monumental architecture.
Along the way, we catch glimpses of Scott Summers/Cyclops (Tim Pocock), Emma Frost (Tahyna Tozzi) and a climactic cameo by a familiar X-Men trilogy character who sets the stage for further adventures. Origins also marks the long-awaited screen debut of Wolverine’s suave, card-shuffling sidekick Remy LeBeau/Gambit, portrayed by silky-smooth Taylor Kitsch (TV’s Friday Night Lights).
Except for a few bits of macho banter, dialogue is deadly earnest stuff in the Wolverine script by David Benioff (Troy) and Skip Woods (Hitman). The movie’s action scenes are generally fast and furious, though Wolverine’s unsheathing of the claws smacks of special-effects fakery, an unexpected misfire in an otherwise visually impressive movie.
Funniest fight: Wolverine versus the Blob, who offers fat-suit comic relief as a 500-pound variation on Mickey Rourke’s Wrestler character.
Wolverine’s supporting weirdos all get to show off their abilities, but Stryker — the man in charge of the deadly crew — lacks menace. Given that he’s the mad scientist orchestrating the mayhem, Stryker, as played by Huston, seems oddly bland compared to Brian Cox’s villainous take on the role in X-2. Huston’s even-keeled performance makes a point that unremarkable bureaucrats can wreak horrific evil, but Origins would have benefited from a more striking Stryker.
Throughout, the film’s secret weapon is Oscar-nominated cinematographer Donald McAlpine (Moulin Rouge!), who frames Wolverine’s darkly satisfying quest against natural settings that are positively superheroic.
Wired: Handsome hero is matched by spectacular locales.
Tired: Bland mad scientist and fake-looking claws dampen the excitement.