X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
April 29, 2024 10:21 AM - Subscribe
[TRAILER] After seeking to live a normal life, Logan (Hugh Jackman) sets out to avenge the death of his girlfriend by undergoing the mutant Weapon X program and becoming Wolverine.
Also starring Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Dominic Monaghan, Ryan Reynolds, Will.i.am.
Directed by Gavin Hood. Screenplay by David Benioff, Skip Woods. Based on the character Wolverine by Roy Thomas, Len Wein, John Romita Sr. Produced by Lauren Shuler Donner, Ralph Winter, Hugh Jackman, John Palermo for 20th Century Fox/Marvel Entertainment/Dune Entertainment/The Donners' Company/Seed Productions. Cinematography by Donald McAlpine. Edited by Nicolas De Toth, Megan Gill. Music by Harry Gregson-Williams.
38% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Currently streaming in the US on Disney Plus. JustWatch listing.
Also starring Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Dominic Monaghan, Ryan Reynolds, Will.i.am.
Directed by Gavin Hood. Screenplay by David Benioff, Skip Woods. Based on the character Wolverine by Roy Thomas, Len Wein, John Romita Sr. Produced by Lauren Shuler Donner, Ralph Winter, Hugh Jackman, John Palermo for 20th Century Fox/Marvel Entertainment/Dune Entertainment/The Donners' Company/Seed Productions. Cinematography by Donald McAlpine. Edited by Nicolas De Toth, Megan Gill. Music by Harry Gregson-Williams.
38% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Currently streaming in the US on Disney Plus. JustWatch listing.
Whatever happened to that charming Wade Wilson character?
posted by Servo5678 at 10:31 AM on April 29 [1 favorite]
posted by Servo5678 at 10:31 AM on April 29 [1 favorite]
Whatever happened to that charming Wade Wilson character?
This version? Deadpool killed him to clean up the timeline.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:47 AM on April 29 [1 favorite]
This version? Deadpool killed him to clean up the timeline.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:47 AM on April 29 [1 favorite]
Origin stories were the rage in the comics at the time, if I remember correctly, and for the studio execs, they saw an opportunity to squeeze even more money out of the IP by dropping back and looking at each individual character's "origin." Gambit never quite made it out of production hell and I'm sort of the belief that Wolvie's complete failure had a good part in that.
In the same way that X3 just was a total mess of ideas, this film kind of represented the worse aspect of someone(s) having information about a character, an IP, even, at their fingertips and then deciding "well, what if we did this? And we did that?" Working under the belief that their version of the story, their version of the characters involved, is superior from the source material. In the comics, this happens, a lot really, and if it's successful, it goes big and slowly overwhelms the universe and boom, it's almost as if the other stuff never happened. BUT, doing this in a big film with a major character, was a gamble, and when done so poorly, it was a train wreck.
It just gets all summed up in the decision on how to handle Deadpool, aka the Merc with the Mouth, and well, there you go. Apparently the movie began shooting without a finished screenplay, so it had that going for it, too.
posted by Atreides at 1:45 PM on April 29 [2 favorites]
In the same way that X3 just was a total mess of ideas, this film kind of represented the worse aspect of someone(s) having information about a character, an IP, even, at their fingertips and then deciding "well, what if we did this? And we did that?" Working under the belief that their version of the story, their version of the characters involved, is superior from the source material. In the comics, this happens, a lot really, and if it's successful, it goes big and slowly overwhelms the universe and boom, it's almost as if the other stuff never happened. BUT, doing this in a big film with a major character, was a gamble, and when done so poorly, it was a train wreck.
It just gets all summed up in the decision on how to handle Deadpool, aka the Merc with the Mouth, and well, there you go. Apparently the movie began shooting without a finished screenplay, so it had that going for it, too.
posted by Atreides at 1:45 PM on April 29 [2 favorites]
Same problem as with X-Men: The Last Stand IMO: trading quality for quantity, putting too many characters on the screen without really working out what to do with just about any of them. Danny Huston is a poor substitute for Brian Cox (I'm not sure who I would have cast as Stryker, although I think that Josh Helman generally did a good job in the X-reboot movies), and the less said about Weapon XI/Badpool the better. They even made short shrift of the Hudsons.* There has to be a better movie about two half-brothers who seem more-or-less immortal, one of whom is a pretty nasty piece of work and the other one not so much. This movie kind of occasionally gestures at that idea, but never commits to it.
* In the comics, the Hudsons are essential to the foundation of the Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight; in my personal headcanon, in the movie Logan,
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:47 PM on April 29 [1 favorite]
* In the comics, the Hudsons are essential to the foundation of the Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight; in my personal headcanon, in the movie Logan,
when the kids are headed over the Canadian border to freedom, their contact (only heard briefly over the radio) is part of Alpha Flight.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:47 PM on April 29 [1 favorite]
Apropos of nothing, Liev Schrieber is one of the best documentary narrators I've ever had the pleasure to listen to. He does a lot of work for PBS.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 5:08 PM on April 29 [4 favorites]
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 5:08 PM on April 29 [4 favorites]
Wolverine came out right about the same time as District 9, which had like 1/10th the budget, a great example of doing more with less (or in the case of Wolverine, less with more).
posted by abraxasaxarba at 5:36 PM on April 29 [1 favorite]
posted by abraxasaxarba at 5:36 PM on April 29 [1 favorite]
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I saw this on opening weekend at an 11 pm show with a theater full of neckbeard nerds who grumbled the entire time about how bad the effects were. (I grumbled, too.)
During the final battle between Logan and Weapon XI, after a particularly awful, video game-looking shot, I yelled out, in my best Mortal Kombat voice: "FINISH HIM!"
It brought down the house.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:23 AM on April 29 [6 favorites]