X-men Origins: Wolverine
May. 4th, 2009 08:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackX-Men Origins, despite having a slightly unwieldy title, is pretty good. I don't think it's as memorable as the other films, but if you like that sort of thing, it's definitely well worth watching.
I feared they'd have a two-hour fest of wolverine being wolverine, which doesn't hold up without anyone to play him off against, but no. They show the process of Wolverine becoming Wolverine, and have a cast of good characters (at least one of whom was really awesome), which is emotionally non-pointless. It's also not just Wolverine, it's important to the X-men films too.
It's funny, and the action is fairly good, although not as awesome as the other films.
In fact, it's one of the few prequels I'm curious to know how someone would react watching them in internal chronological order. I'm not recommending it, but I thought it interesting. It would be interesting to watch the other films, knowing Wolverine and the colonel are. You'd have less excitement discovering Wolverine's history in this film, but then, I never thought it really mattered, Wolverine was defined much more by his ambiguous history that by what it actually was. You'd have more excitement wondering if/how that history was going to affect the present.
NitpicksI only had two major nitpicks. The first was when the colonel was typing in commands to XI's brain. It was hilarious, so I'm glad they had it. But I couldn't think of any level of automation he could have where he could fight autonomously, but needed to be commanded to "decapitate". (Maybe the colonel feared he'd hesitate, or not realise that was the best-wolverine destroying tactic, though surely he should have been told that beforehand!)
When Picard appears at the end, couldn't he rescue Wolverine and Gambit as well? And also, it seems anti-climactic for him to just arrive in a helicopter and take the children away. Couldn't there be a lot of guards left he can mind-control, giving his a moment of awesome? Also, it would give some tension if you think the children are captured again, and then he appears, but they all have to flee before he could do anything for Logan.
Minor nitpicks
If you build an unstoppable super-weapon, do not under any circumstances come even close to letting him find out he's been tricked. (Also see anti-nitpicks.)
When the children and Wolverine meet XI, why can't the children help, even a little? Surely Scott and Diamond-girl would be useful?
Why doesn't XI use non-physical powers on Wolverine? He makes a creditable showing hand-to-hand, but Wolverine would be jelly before the plough to anything non-physical. We know Colonel, Jr's powers were included, and they're illusion and mind-control. Is it that they weren't brought online yet?
Come to think of it, Styker grafted mutant genes into an adult human, and it seemed to work. Why did he never do it again? Magneto briefly used a machine which was going to make everyone into a mutant. Why couldn't Stryker grow an army of mind-controlled super-mutants?
How come an adamantium bullet can penetrate Wolverine's skull? I thought the other films said adamantium couldn't cut adamantium? At any rate, whenever Wolverine fights XI or Deathstrike, none of them ever seem to be able to cut the other's skeleton. Would an ordinary bullet through the eye-socket work equally well?
Anti-nitpicks
Stryker's plan for Wolverine, though it failed, wasn't necessarily such a bad idea in the first place. If Wolverine's told him to fuck off, manufacturing a cause for vengeance is one of the few things that might get him to volunteer for the insane adamantium experiment. On the other hand, if that was just a dry run for XI, couldn't he use a clone of Wolverine, or something? Someone less dangerous?
I feared they'd have a two-hour fest of wolverine being wolverine, which doesn't hold up without anyone to play him off against, but no. They show the process of Wolverine becoming Wolverine, and have a cast of good characters (at least one of whom was really awesome), which is emotionally non-pointless. It's also not just Wolverine, it's important to the X-men films too.
It's funny, and the action is fairly good, although not as awesome as the other films.
In fact, it's one of the few prequels I'm curious to know how someone would react watching them in internal chronological order. I'm not recommending it, but I thought it interesting. It would be interesting to watch the other films, knowing Wolverine and the colonel are. You'd have less excitement discovering Wolverine's history in this film, but then, I never thought it really mattered, Wolverine was defined much more by his ambiguous history that by what it actually was. You'd have more excitement wondering if/how that history was going to affect the present.
NitpicksI only had two major nitpicks. The first was when the colonel was typing in commands to XI's brain. It was hilarious, so I'm glad they had it. But I couldn't think of any level of automation he could have where he could fight autonomously, but needed to be commanded to "decapitate". (Maybe the colonel feared he'd hesitate, or not realise that was the best-wolverine destroying tactic, though surely he should have been told that beforehand!)
When Picard appears at the end, couldn't he rescue Wolverine and Gambit as well? And also, it seems anti-climactic for him to just arrive in a helicopter and take the children away. Couldn't there be a lot of guards left he can mind-control, giving his a moment of awesome? Also, it would give some tension if you think the children are captured again, and then he appears, but they all have to flee before he could do anything for Logan.
Minor nitpicks
If you build an unstoppable super-weapon, do not under any circumstances come even close to letting him find out he's been tricked. (Also see anti-nitpicks.)
When the children and Wolverine meet XI, why can't the children help, even a little? Surely Scott and Diamond-girl would be useful?
Why doesn't XI use non-physical powers on Wolverine? He makes a creditable showing hand-to-hand, but Wolverine would be jelly before the plough to anything non-physical. We know Colonel, Jr's powers were included, and they're illusion and mind-control. Is it that they weren't brought online yet?
Come to think of it, Styker grafted mutant genes into an adult human, and it seemed to work. Why did he never do it again? Magneto briefly used a machine which was going to make everyone into a mutant. Why couldn't Stryker grow an army of mind-controlled super-mutants?
How come an adamantium bullet can penetrate Wolverine's skull? I thought the other films said adamantium couldn't cut adamantium? At any rate, whenever Wolverine fights XI or Deathstrike, none of them ever seem to be able to cut the other's skeleton. Would an ordinary bullet through the eye-socket work equally well?
Anti-nitpicks
Stryker's plan for Wolverine, though it failed, wasn't necessarily such a bad idea in the first place. If Wolverine's told him to fuck off, manufacturing a cause for vengeance is one of the few things that might get him to volunteer for the insane adamantium experiment. On the other hand, if that was just a dry run for XI, couldn't he use a clone of Wolverine, or something? Someone less dangerous?