X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009 prequel

Rating: 8/20 (Emma: 20/20; Abbey: 14/20)

Plot: Wolverine's story, leading up to that first X-Men movie. He gets metal put in him, falls in love, chops down trees, and has fights with another furry guy, but not necessarily in that order.

As some of my readers might recall, I sort-of watched this movie with my brother back when it came out. It was a leaked version without completed CGI. My brother tried to tell me that completed special effects wouldn't make a difference, but I really thought they would. Nope. He was right, and I was wrong. Other than Hugh Jackman, who really does his very best to give this a little something, this movie's got nothing going for it. Part of the problem is that it's a prequel, so any fight scene between Wolverine and anybody else has very little if any tension or suspense. And the fight scenes are ludicrous, the CGI effects laughable. I did like the montage during the opening credits that took Liev Schreiber's character and Wolverine through various stages of America's bloody history. I did wonder, as the duo stormed Normandy, why they didn't end up in Saving Private Ryan though. The Liev vs. Wolverine fights though? They're jumpy enough to give you vertigo, and unfortunately, there are about a dozen of them. And they're all sort of the same except the last one which takes place in an implausible location. I can't think of a movie that gets worse and worse and more and more nonsensical like this one does. I thought it had reached the bottom of the barrel with one of those overhead shots showing Wolverine screaming after his girlfriend dies, but I was wrong. Then, I thought we'd reached the bottom when Wolverine, after running around naked for a little too long, interacts with some farm people, farm people who end up dead in a really shocking scene that, to this conservative viewer, just seemed unnecessary. But no, that wasn't the bottom because there's a grotesque Fat Fred who might have been modeled after the obese glutton who dies in Se7en. I'm pretty sure he's got CGI man tits. And there's lots of Will.i.am, poker great Daniel Negreanu, and a climax that seems to go on for hours. The movie's absolutely no fun at all, and unless I missed something, doesn't really give us all that much background about the character or the story that isn't in those first two X-Men movies. This is superfluous entertainment, and no amount of bad special effects could save it. I'm almost insulted that this movie exists.

Bonus points for the work of Septimus Caton as a bartender. "Guys, whatever this is, take it outside." It's easily the best performance in this terrible movie. He's also got a great name.

Hey, I've noticed there's a second Wolverine movie coming out. What the hell could that possibly be about? Emma says we're seeing it in the theater, so I guess I'll know soon enough.