Review Time: Wolverine

So, I saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine last night.

I should have seen Star Trek.

What a piece of shit. This was bad. I mean, this was Revenge of the Sith bad. This made X-Men: The Last Stand almost palatable. And for those who didn't see the third installment of the X-Men movies, a diarrhea sandwich wouldn't make that X-Abortion palatable.

I realize it's unfair to hold every movie adaptation of a comic to the standards of The Dark Knight, so I decided to go into the movie expecting something akin to Iron Man. Instead, I felt like the camera operator from Zack and Miri Make a Porno. You know what I'm alluding to, so don't pretend that you don't.

Okay, so, it's easier to tell you what I liked about the movie than to list it's many faults. So, here it is, in easy-to-read list form:

1. When Silver Fox lay dying at the end of the movie, her shirt was open a little bit and you could see some side boob.
2. Will.i.am as Kestrel Wraith was pretty sweet. His fight scene with Sabretooth was pretty cool.
3. Wade Wilson was sweet. Obnoxious and mouthy, never shutting up, and deadly with his blades. Notice, I said Wade Wilson.
4. Silver Fox in her white night gown. No panty lines. Awesome.

And...that's it.

Now, for the bad. I won't go into all of the bad, because then I'd be writing a Tolkien-esque tome, and I'd really like to keep this somewhat manageable.

Gambit: My favorite mutant in the X-Universe was Colossus. Unfortunately, in X-Men 3, he lost the Russian accent (you know, the one he didn't have in X-2, either), didn't get huge when he turned metal, and his abilities were still transferable to Rogue. Pretty much, they gutted him. I bring this up because my second favorite mutant is Gambit. I like Gambit because he's a badass, he's shady, he's cocky, and he blows shit up. Unfortunately, this Gambit apparently can't remember if his accent is supposed to be Cajun or Douchebag. The whole time, even while he's sitting in a seedy bar in New Orleans hustling poker players, he's clean-looking. Oh, sure, he had a little stubble and wore a hat briefly. Fortunately, someone remembered that part of his mutant powers was an uncanny acrobatic coordination. Apparently, though, Gambit no longer has to touch objects in order to charge them with kinetic energy. And his staff? It's not supposed to have a jewel on the end of it like he's some kind of pimp out selling whores. It's supposed to be for knocking jaws loose. This is the dude that Rogue's supposed to fall for? Only if she's a drunken sorority chick blowing guys during a kegger. I'm not sure I know what that's supposed to mean, either. They totally fucked up Gambit's eyes, too. Yeah, there was one tiny flash, but part of Gambit's shadowy persona is the dark eyes and the glowing irises. Instead, we get a flash of pink and suddenly things that he gets near are explosive, not what he's held in his hand long enough to charge. So, if you're playing along at home, that's two of my favorite characters that have been completely and totally fucking ruined by the movies. Who says no one bats 1.000?

The Escape from the Island: Pretty much, the whole ending sucked. Did we really need to bring in Emma Frost just for her diamond skin? There's lots of impregnable mutants in the X-Universe. But, we had to go with Emma Frost, who, by the way, just got those powers a few years ago as a secondary mutation. She had always been a telepath before that. But, hey, whatever it takes to put a pretty blonde on the screen in a wife-beater, right?

At this point, I should apologize if any of my fellow theater-goers happen to stumble across this blog. When the voice appeared in Cyclops' head telling them which way to go to get out of the base, I couldn't refrain from groaning "Jesus Christ" out loud. Sorry. Apparently, Professor X decides to recruit Cyclops as he's escaping Three Mile Island rather than at the orphanage, but instead of communicating with the telepath (Emma Frost), he opts for Cyclops. No plot holes here, fellaz! Maybe there was an orphanage on Three Mile Island where Cyclops lived, I'm not sure. But when Professor X walked down from the chopper to greet Cyclops and Emma Frost and the rest of Generation X as they escaped the military complex, I about threw up. But then, it fit in with everything else about the movie that was so very, very wrong.

And Silver Fox's "ability" was that the Weapon X program had given her some of Wolverine's healing factor. Otherwise, she was just a human. Now, she has this "touch people and make them do what she wants" ability. I could understand if she was wearing that white nightie thing throughout the movie, but there's nothing mutant ability about what I'm alluding to.

It was nice to see Jonothon Starsmore held in one of the cages that also housed Emma Frost (the supposed sister of Silver Fox...because so many Native Americans have pretty blonde sisters). However, he never appeared again in any of the escape scenes. I noticed the twins that make up Monet St. Clair were freed, but apparently Jono couldn't make it out. That's fine, though, because I like Chamber and they'd have just fucked up his character, anyway.

Deadpool: Apparently, the Merc with a Mouth needed to have it sewn shut for the fight scene, only to have it magically reappear at the end in the little scene after the credits. I realize that he had a healing power implanted in him, but having him turn into Sylar from Heroes was fucking ridiculous. He teleports not because he has Kestrel's Wraith's ability implanted in him, but because he has a personal teleporter machine. And the whole thing with Cyclops' eyebeams was fucking stupid. I guess we all learned that Adamantium can act like a light saber in deflecting energy blasts back at the origin (despite the fact that Cyclops sheared off one of Wolvy's hands during the Age of Apocolypse story arc...the same beams given to Deadpool). What a fucking joke they made of Deadpool. And not the good kind, like the ones he cracks when, you know, he has a mouth to run incessantly.

Wolverine: I thought Wolverine was supposed to be badass, prone to rage, and deadly. I didn't realize he was whiny and brooding. We don't need depth, people. We need someone with razor-sharp claws coming out of his hands that he uses to gut people. That's all.

But, apparently, adamantium is not only indestructible, but it also doesn't get covered with blood when it's been shoved through someone's body. Oh, and it apparently cauterizes the wounds that it makes so that you don't bleed out of them. The thing I found mind-boggling, though, was that he walked out the lab after telling Silver Fox he was done with her, had made it all the way down several flights of stairs and was well away from the building when Sabretooth grabbed Silver Fox in the lab and threatened to kill her. Miraculously (maybe he borrowed Deadpool's teleporter) he reappears in the lab seconds later, without his leather jacket and shirt (apparently, the teleporter forgot those items), and fights Sabretooth. Awesome, Wolverine's a teleporter now! Nightcrawler, we hardly knew ye.

It's also quite amazing how, with the addition of some adamantium to his skeleton, Wolverine can now beat the shit out of Sabretooth every time, whereas prior to that he lost every single fight!

Also...in the opening montage...did anyone ever wonder "Now, why would a Canadian citizen be fighting in the U.S. Civil War?" And, for some reason Viet-Nam. The Viet-Nam thing made no sense, anyway, as Wolverine should have already been through the Weapon X program by then (he entered it shortly after WWII). But, you know, they didn't exactly follow along with any other part of the X-Men's universe, so why should they start now, eh?

Weapon X: I thought Maverick was German, not Grant Imahara from Mythbusters. Also, shouldn't he be able to absorb the force of the helicopter crash and emerge relatively unscathed? And wasn't he friends with Wolverine? Every time he was sent to kill Wolverine, he botched the mission on purpose. Not so here. And what about all the Alpha Flight members who came out of Weapon X? Where the hell were they? And why was Blob in this? For the fat jokes? Blob served absolutely no purpose to the story; he wasn't ever a member of Weapon X. I guess he was there so he could box Wolverine. Oh, how fantastic.

Okay, that's enough. It's horrible, okay? Don't waste your money on this piece of shit. Aside from the gross misrepresentation of the characters on the screen, the story isn't even compelling. There's some whiny bits in between fight scenes, and despite the fact that these are superhumans with amazing powers, their powers are largely absent from the multitude of fight scenes that pepper the movie. The only one who uses his powers in the fight is Kestrel Wraith, which makes that the best fight in the movie. Unfortunately, it's also one of the shortest. Even the climactic ending left me audibly groaning, despite the fact that I knew it was a comic book story (heavy on the comic part) and I was working my suspension of disbelief hardcore. It was like the director looked at a pile of comics, said "That's nice", wiped his ass on them and set it all to film.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go shoot some adamantium bullets into my brain to try and purge the memories of this travesty from my mind.