STEVEN: I wouldn’t be honest in this review if it weren’t laced with an endless tirade of curse words. But I’ll try to refrain.
If any of the following guidelines describes you, do not see this movie.
1. You thoroughly enjoy the character Gambit from the comic books or the animated TV show
2. You know who Deadpool is.
3. You expect realism in your film special effects.
4. You believe that a pissed off man walking towards the camera with only a raging inferno as a backdrop is something that was trite in the 80’s.
5. You didn’t like Spiderman 3
6. You have ever read a comic book.
7. You like movies without plot holes.
The first 40 minutes are pretty fun. The title sequence showing wolverine and sabertooth fighting in all sorts of wars is sexy and stylish. The formation of the weapon X group and their jaunt into Nigeria is hilarious and bad ass. Wolverine and Sabertooth’s falling out, Wolverine’s transformation and Sabertooth’s mutant huntings are great buildup pieces.
But here’s the negative on all that. The title sequence is short and you can hardly tell what is happening through all the filters they put on it. The members of weapon X have ‘made for film’ abilities that don’t do their original prototypes any justice and Sabertooth kills mutants either off screen or in, like, 5 seconds.
After Wolverine’s adamantium infusion, he goes on to hunt down Sabertooth and along the way pits himself in a series of one-on-one battles with some pretty awesome foes. I was hoping this would happen, since Wolverine’s legend really revolves around him facing the most brutal opponents -- with his bare hands. But just like Sabertooth’s killings, these battles last moments and both superheroes talk incessantly throughout their short duration. In comic books, battles between two superheroes span over multiple issues because superheroes by their very nature are fantastic. Their battles should be as well.
By the time Wolverine finds Gambit, my smile had waned. And when Gambit prevents Wolverine from Killing Sabertooth, the movie had gone into unforgivable territory. There is no reasoning for Gambit’s action and it is completely against everything the film had built him up to be. The rest of the film goes on to completely suck and then make a fool of my second favorite superhero to Gambit: Deadpool.
Gambit: A creole, hardened, angular faced, 1,000 yard staring, hand-to-hand combat expert with a soft side, a great superhero outfit and a thick New Orleans accent.
Movie Gambit: A soft featured, pretty faced novice actor with a button nose and dead eyes. No skills at combat, but expert at running away. His joke of an outfit consists of a long black coat, a blue t-shirt and jeans. His accent at times may have hints of New Orleans transplant, but it doesn’t maintain. Often this accent will fade in and out within a single sentence.
Deadpool: The most hilarious and witty comic book character ever penned. A mercenary with no scruples and a mouth that runs non-stop with zingers so good you have to read them twice. He can teleport, he can heal, he can wield swords like nobody’s business and he shoots people without batting an eyelash. All while spouting witty rhetoric that his enemies and friends hate.
Movie Deadpool: They sewed his fucking mouth shut!
Then the worst part of the whole thing is that they Spiderman 3’d this movie. At the end Wolverine and Sabertooth put aside all their seemingly endless problems to fight “back-to-back!” just once more.
To display why no one should ever get their hopes up for another Marvel Studios production, I’m going to show just how awful their films have been for the last few years.
Spiderman 2 (2004): Doc Oc realizes the error of his ways. Kills himself and saves NY.
X-Men 3 (2006): Wolverine becomes emotional and talkative, chases girl all film long until he has to kill her and then sobs gently into her limp corpse.
Ghost Rider (2007): Nicholas Cage.
Spiderman 3 (2007): Green Goblin realizes the error of his ways then teams up with Spiderman, Sandman realizes the error of his ways, Mary Jane realizes the error of her ways, Peter Parker realizes the error of his ways. Spiderman kills Venom by clanking metal poles together.
Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007): Silver Surfer realizes the error of his ways after having a talk with the fantastic four. Saves Earth.
The Incredible Hulk (2008): (Actually a really good movie, thanks to Edward Norton, but…) Army realizes the error of its ways, teams up with the Hulk.
It’s like the Marvel people sit around a table with the filmmakers and say ‘Look, the script is good, but could there be a lot more talking, less superheroism and as many people as possible realizing the error of their ways?’
And the special effects in X-Men Origins: Wolverine are laughable. Along with everything else.
