Going back to the past, the famous X-Men, Wolverine, journeys from childhood to the loner amnesiac the audience met in the first X-Men movie. Along the journey, Wolverine falls in love and becomes entangled in the Weapon X Program, a military outfit composed of mutants and mutant-hating scientists.
This review might be a little less hard on the movie than most since I saw it after seeing the really horrible reviews, but the movie was entertaining. It was a fun popcorn flick and sparked enough interest for me to want to see more. It is still a huge disappointment. It had all the pieces: Hugh proves to know a lot of the character, a young upcoming indie director, Ryan Reynolds in a long awaited role, Gambit in a long awaited appearance, and some really inspired casting decisions, yet the pieces just didn't come together. At least not perfectly.
One giant flaw is the horrible green screen. I am not sure how such a high-profile summer blockbuster ended up with such shoddy green screen. Other than that, the effects were passable at their worst. The claws were iffy; both metal and bone. It didn't seem like they ever used actual claw props and they were always CGI. Non-essential CGI is one of my biggest pet peeves.
The progression of the plot went pretty well, but the tone got worse as the movie went on, especially during the boxing scene. I always appreciate a well-place humorous moment in a popcorn action flick, but this one killed the tension. There were a few cringe-worthy lines, as any action flick might have, but they handled the dialogue better than it deserved. There is just no way that someone could write the lines and think they were good.
The movie was well cast. For a rapper, Will.i.am was surprisingly passable. Durand would have made a good Blob in any other movie, except he felt out of place in this one, mostly due to the boxing scene, and looked questionable. The fat suit just was not that great. Daniel Henney as Agent Zero, Danny Huston as Stryker, and Lynn Collins as Silver Fox were solid. Not amazing, but far from horrible. Liev Schreiber was incredible as Sabertooth, and Ryan Reynolds was really great in his small role. Both stole the show and I really wish the 2 of them had more screentime. Kitsch was a mediocre Gambit. A lot of people were mad at his lack of Cajun accent, but I never expected to strong an accent for anyone who played him unless they naturally had one. It left me wishing the movie was actually X-Men Origins: Weapon X rathen than Wolverine because the strike team was easily one of the better parts.
Now, I am a gigantic fan of Deadpool. Always liked him until Cable and Deadpool title where he became my favorite. You'll here a lot of people say they "ruined him," but it is pretty much hyperbole. He is easily one of the less faithful adaptations, but he filled a role and did well. I mean a number of the changes had some sort of parallel (2 blades, healing factor, teleportation), but the laser eyes really made me mad. Because 1) Cyclops' eyes don't burn and 2) Deadpool never had anything like that. No mask because he was fresh off the operating table. And as for the "merc without a mouth" references, what would you do to a mouthy soldier that you were about to do horrible things to on a surgical table? They would have been better off using stitches rather than a skin graff so that Deadpool could cut it open and start quipping again. The same goes for the cyborg/computer-upload. Obviously they were using Stryker's son's serum from the second film to control Deadpool so they should have just continued with that. It hasn't left a lot of faith in the quality of the Deadpool spin-off, except for the casting of Ryan Reynolds, but I am still optimistic.
There was a number of mutants forced into the movie. If they were just visual cameos like Boy with Red Glasses and Diamond Blonde than they would be easy to overlook, but the characters were much more involved than they really should have been.
6/10 Not the best of the franchise, but entertaining and still has potential for great sequels. I reccommend checking it out on cable and save your money.
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