ESC Movie Review: X-Men Origins WOLVERINE!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
So ESC was invited to a sneak preview of the film, and let me tell you this. There is no bad acting in this film! All of the actors did their role perfectly, not one bad performance in the film and each actor delivers the characters perfectly from page to screen.
Deadpool aka Wade Wilson was more a cameo than anything else but Ryan Reynolds was and is perfect for Deadpool. I honestly can't wait for the Deadpool movie which is rumored to start fliming late 2010. The same can also be said for Gambit who has a slightly smaller role but could easily carry his own film (No word on that at this time though)
Taylor Kitsch does a great job his cajun accent could of been little stronger but it was still good, As for Sabertooth is played brilliantly by Liev Schreiber. I love the character in the comic book, and if you all remember how they made Sabertooth in the first X-Men movie. Well it was NOTHING like that, his presence gives a fantastically dark and villainous feel to each scene he is in.
Performances by will.i.am (John Wraith), Kevin Durand (Fred Dukes) and Danny Huston (Stryker) are also good and I would love to see these characters again (though for some that wont be possible). Finally, Hugh Jackman steals the show as Wolverine and is better here than in any of the X-Men films. Jackman nails the human side of Wolverine just as easily as the animal side and you can tell how genuinly passionate and into the character he really is.
The plot (though I wont go into specific details here) is good and although it handles things differently then the comics (such as Wolverine not losing his memory after being bonded with the adamantium) the changes are obviously necessary otherwise this film would have had to have been made into two (Which I honestly wouldn't mind). These changes although minor help the plot move far quicker and as a film make far more sense.
Now (SPOILERS AHEAD) I read earlier this week on this website that there would be different endings in different cinemas. I dont know whether this is in fact true or not but in the cinema that I saw this film in after about 30 seconds of credits there was a scene with Stryker walking down a road and being stopped by several soldiers in regards to him killing a general earlier in the film. After the entire credits there is then the scene that I had previously heard about of Wolverine sitting in a bar and speaking in Japanese saying that he is drinking to remember (SPOILERS END)
The CGI in the film is often very good apart from a few scenes where the claws look a little super imposed but this is really very rare and the only bad bit of CGI out of a well made film. Perhaps my favourite special effect was Emma Frost in diamond form, this was really impressive and in some ways better that the effect in the comic books. Finally, there is the case of Deadpool (MINOR PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD)
The character of Wade Williams is handled brilliantly by Reynolds and you could easily put a mask on him when he talks as it 100% Deadpool from the comics. This is especially the case in the scene of Wilson fighting and deflecting bullets with his swords...this is how I would love to see him in a movie of his own. However, by the end of the film Deadpool is indeed Weapon XI but the fight scenes between XI and Wolverine/Sabertooth is again perfect for how I would like to see the character fight in his own film (minus the optic blasts and with a costume of course ). I would have liked to have seen more of an explanation of why Wade became XI (was he forced, did he volunteer?) and this is perhaps the most disappointing part of the film.
The fact that they have tried to make XI look like the Deadpool costume (the eyes and pathetic looking lines drawn on him) this does in fact not work! Even if you forget Deadpool, it would still have been nice to have more information about the films final villain. After Wolverine beheads XI, this is sadly where the character seems to end and there is no clue over survival or what happens to him next seemingly making his own spin off look more and more unlikely...(SPOILERS END) So...apart from a few minor disapointments (okay, so mainly Deadpool), I have to say that this was a pretty good film.
There were never any points when things became boring and the film was generally well made with good performances all round and many, many exciting fights and set pieces. The film is especially exciting with cameos from other X-Men characters such as Cyclops and Emma Frost (two young actors who I would be happy to see play these characters again). I hope to see Wolverine explored even more in a sequel as this film has shown how much potential the character has. Overall I would give this film a 8 outta 10, I would have gave it an 8 but I love Deadpool too much to let him not be in the spotlight the way I wanted him to be.
Deadpool aka Wade Wilson was more a cameo than anything else but Ryan Reynolds was and is perfect for Deadpool. I honestly can't wait for the Deadpool movie which is rumored to start fliming late 2010. The same can also be said for Gambit who has a slightly smaller role but could easily carry his own film (No word on that at this time though)
Taylor Kitsch does a great job his cajun accent could of been little stronger but it was still good, As for Sabertooth is played brilliantly by Liev Schreiber. I love the character in the comic book, and if you all remember how they made Sabertooth in the first X-Men movie. Well it was NOTHING like that, his presence gives a fantastically dark and villainous feel to each scene he is in.
Performances by will.i.am (John Wraith), Kevin Durand (Fred Dukes) and Danny Huston (Stryker) are also good and I would love to see these characters again (though for some that wont be possible). Finally, Hugh Jackman steals the show as Wolverine and is better here than in any of the X-Men films. Jackman nails the human side of Wolverine just as easily as the animal side and you can tell how genuinly passionate and into the character he really is.
The plot (though I wont go into specific details here) is good and although it handles things differently then the comics (such as Wolverine not losing his memory after being bonded with the adamantium) the changes are obviously necessary otherwise this film would have had to have been made into two (Which I honestly wouldn't mind). These changes although minor help the plot move far quicker and as a film make far more sense.
Now (SPOILERS AHEAD) I read earlier this week on this website that there would be different endings in different cinemas. I dont know whether this is in fact true or not but in the cinema that I saw this film in after about 30 seconds of credits there was a scene with Stryker walking down a road and being stopped by several soldiers in regards to him killing a general earlier in the film. After the entire credits there is then the scene that I had previously heard about of Wolverine sitting in a bar and speaking in Japanese saying that he is drinking to remember (SPOILERS END)
The CGI in the film is often very good apart from a few scenes where the claws look a little super imposed but this is really very rare and the only bad bit of CGI out of a well made film. Perhaps my favourite special effect was Emma Frost in diamond form, this was really impressive and in some ways better that the effect in the comic books. Finally, there is the case of Deadpool (MINOR PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD)
The character of Wade Williams is handled brilliantly by Reynolds and you could easily put a mask on him when he talks as it 100% Deadpool from the comics. This is especially the case in the scene of Wilson fighting and deflecting bullets with his swords...this is how I would love to see him in a movie of his own. However, by the end of the film Deadpool is indeed Weapon XI but the fight scenes between XI and Wolverine/Sabertooth is again perfect for how I would like to see the character fight in his own film (minus the optic blasts and with a costume of course ). I would have liked to have seen more of an explanation of why Wade became XI (was he forced, did he volunteer?) and this is perhaps the most disappointing part of the film.
The fact that they have tried to make XI look like the Deadpool costume (the eyes and pathetic looking lines drawn on him) this does in fact not work! Even if you forget Deadpool, it would still have been nice to have more information about the films final villain. After Wolverine beheads XI, this is sadly where the character seems to end and there is no clue over survival or what happens to him next seemingly making his own spin off look more and more unlikely...(SPOILERS END) So...apart from a few minor disapointments (okay, so mainly Deadpool), I have to say that this was a pretty good film.
There were never any points when things became boring and the film was generally well made with good performances all round and many, many exciting fights and set pieces. The film is especially exciting with cameos from other X-Men characters such as Cyclops and Emma Frost (two young actors who I would be happy to see play these characters again). I hope to see Wolverine explored even more in a sequel as this film has shown how much potential the character has. Overall I would give this film a 8 outta 10, I would have gave it an 8 but I love Deadpool too much to let him not be in the spotlight the way I wanted him to be.