Origins: Still has a lot of explaining to do..

The calendar may still read Spring, but last week the summer movie season officially got under way. Unfortunately, X Men origins: Wolverine does little more than to start the summer off with a thud.

Fox’s resurgence of the X-Men franchise is the first installment in a series intended to explain the origins of each of the main characters from the comic story. Hugh Jackman reprises his role as the tortured mutant hero Logan aka Wolverine. The film boasts a few action sequences which are entertaining if only for the briefest of moments, but otherwise begs the question, why is this story necessary in the first place?

Logan and his half-brother Victor’s (Liev Schrieber) story begins in 1840. After Logan kills his adoptive father, who had previously murdered the brothers’ biological father the boys run away together. After serving together in the Civil War, both World Wars, and Vietnam (if you’re new to this source material, yes the two boys live forever and at some point retained the age of which they would look most handsome on-screen), The two are recruited by a special forces op. led by William Stryker. The unit is made up entirely of mutants and Logan, eventually tired of the atrocities committed by the wayward band, retreats to a life of peace and solitude in the Canadian Rockies. His life becomes bent upon vengeance after the murder of his girlfriend, and he joins the secret “X” program intended to manipulate his powerful abilities.

Forget about failing to land properly, this film’s plot never seems to even take off right. We are reduced to years of back-story via picture frames during the opening credits, and are thrust right into the middle of Wolverine’s plight for resistance. Perhaps the biggest disappointment though, stems from the fact that our hero is completely uninspired and uninteresting. He never once says anything that challenges us or makes us question his struggle. He offers nothing of the such to those who come in contact with him throughout the film either. This might actually be excusable if it wasn’t for the fact his powers virtually eliminate any stakes that could exist within the story. He uses his razor-sharp blades to fly through the air, dismantle a helicopter and walk-away virtually untouched, which seems to be his character’s only real purpose: stimulus.

Unlike Batman or Iron Man from last summer, Wolverine seems to be laying up on the screen strictly for our own amusement. “Look at how he does what he does and how cool it looks in the process”, the director seems to want us to be saying. Some of us undoubtedly will be voicing such phrases when leaving the theater, but on the whole there is so much more to care about during the story that doesn’t even exist. Nothing learned, nothing gained, which is unfortunate when your film boasts to be a movie about origins. Last time I checked, origins implied story.



2/5