X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Prepare for, probably a white-knuckle thrill ride?

"I couldn't find a tagline for this cruddy movie"

Welcome to Tuesday at the Tagline! Every now and then, a movie comes along that changes the way we think of movies. It tells us something deep about ourselves, and the human condition, while at the same time thrilling and entertaining us. This is not one of those movies. I was thinking about my First Class review, and then I got to thinking about not so great X-Men movies, and that led me down the dark back alley path to... well X-Men Origins: Wolverine. A story of truly shitty proportions, X-Men Origins follows the entirely remade up and intensely stupid origin story of Wolverine (played as always by Hugh Jackman) who apparently was a little kid 200 years ago, along with his brother Sabertooth. After baby Logan murders his real drunk father, and not his pretend drunk father, who was already dead at that point, he realizes he has bone claws (in what is a truly silly scene for the history books) and runs through the woods. Then Logan and his big bro best bud Victor (Liev Schreiber) fight in a whole bunch of wars, because neither of them can die thank to their super regenerating. Over the years Victor gets to lovin' that thar a'killin' too much. Logan and Victor eventually become members of a special mutant ops squad for the government, lead by no one else than a young William Stryker (played here by Danny Huston). Among their teammates are Fred Dukes a.k.a. THE BLOB, a guy who's special power appears to be shooting people, Deadpool (played by Ryan Reynolds, more on him in a bit) and Will I Am from the Black Eyed Peas.

Best bros? Or MORTAL ENEMIES WOOOOOO!!!

So Logan decides eff this, I'm out of here, and goes to live in Canada, where people go to find peace and escape civilization. He becomes a superhero lumberjack who lives with his girlfriend, who is a Native American? Obviously this shit can't go on, so she dies, Victor tracks down Logan, and Stryker uses Logan's hate of Victor to get him to undergo some weird experimental thing (with adamantium you know) in exchange for helping Logan find his asshole brother. Stryker actually plans to erase his memory, which he can do apparently, but Logan doesn't take much of a shine to that, and so breaks free with his new metal death claws that they were so nice to give him, and then runs off, but not before he is pursued by supergunman, whom he kills.

Maybe erase his memory BEFORE you give him the
indestructible skeleton and knife-hands.

Needing some help and looking for answers, Logan turns to his old buddies The Blob and Will I Am, to try and find Stryker's brand new lab, so he can kill the shit out of him. They point him to Remy "Gambit" LeBeau who should have had more camera time because he sucked less than others. They go to the island lab, blah blah, big surprising betrayal, climactic showdown woopidie do who gives a fuck. The long and short is, a bunch of stuff happens, it loosely ties in to the other X-Men movies, and it is all pretty stupendously dumb. At no point does this movie approach something that could be termed a remotely compelling narrative.

This movie is a prime example of fantastic production values and absolutely awful everything else. Apparently on display here are some of the most expensive special effects of the age. For instance, The Blob's fat suit? That took Kevin Durand roughly half of his day, every day of shooting, to get into. Too bad it was all for nothing huh? The movie had a colossal, almost terrifying 150 million dollar budget, and it certainly looks that way. No one can lay fault to the special effects. Hugh Jackman also did all his own stunts, which given the number of stunts, is actually pretty impressive. It's just a shame the movie is such an irredeemable piece of shit.

I think his claws should always look like this.

Worth mention like I said above is Ryan Reynolds' tragically brief turn as Wade Wilson a.k.a. Deadpool, who is honestly maybe the best part of the movie (which is saying something pretty sad because he's in the movie for all of like 10 minutes). The cast couldn't be better, given that Deadpool is supposed to be a wry wisecracker who also incidentally kills people with swords. I can't think of anyone who does wise-ass quiet as assey as Mr. Reynolds, and I would possibly watch that movie.

Somehow, this movie was actually really profitable. I guess people still hadn't learned their lesson after X3. The movie grossed a total of 373 million dollars, probably on virtue of its flashy effects and casting, and people's desperation for a movie that wasn't shitty like X3. They were no doubt disappointed. I know I was. Rumors do persist of a Deadpool movie, but before that ever happens (if it even will, its been in limbo for a while now) we will be treated to Wolverine 2: Tokyo Drift.

That's all for today! I'll see you on Thursday, and I promise it won't be an X-Men movie!