Picture this, I walk into my local movie theater with some of my closest friends all ready to see this new flashy Wolverine movie. I, being the most versed in the comic book lore behind Wolverine, was particularly excited for this movie. No it was not to see Wolverine, (they did a good enough job of tell his back story as is in Xmen 1 and 2 IMO) I was freaking stoked to see my favorite Mutant DEADPOOL!!!! I know, I know, this movie was not called Xmen: Deadpool, but the events that happened in the movie are inexcusable.
See my biggest problem with Xmen 3 was scott summers, Charles Xavier and Jean Grey dying. Besides the whole Phoenix things at the end (which my head is still hurting from) they had the balls to kill Jean Grey and Cyclops, and sort of kill Xavier (though the ending we see him put his mind in another person). They were running out of steam in the movie so they just decided "Hey, people are falling asleep, so why don't we have cyclops, who we have made into a whiny pansy, get killed by the psychotic Jean Grey? And then lets kill Jean Gray" This totally kills any other arcs they could possibly use in future Xmen movies! House of M was runined! Colossus was ruined! You basically had to say goodbye Xmen franchise. There isn't one story arc that doesn't involve one of those three people. But at least they killed Jean Gray in an honorable way. Even though wolverine could have just pulled a vaccine out of his pocket.
Enter Xmen Origins: Wolverine. We get a glimpse of Wade Wilson AKA Deadpool. He has a brilliant Action scene at the beginning with his Katanas, and he had some witty banter with Sabertooth (more on him later). That is the Deadpool I know and love. Balk if you will at the casting choice, but I think ryan reynolds would be my number 2 choice in casting (my first would be Brad Pitt, just because he played Tyler in Fight Club. Thats how I imagine the real Deadpool). He was buff looking and he spun his blades and sliced bullets in half. Then he is gone for the rest of the movie when we see him at the end. William Stryker (more on him later) has decided that he is going to make something called Weapon XI that will kill mutants that has all of mutant powers and is under Stryker's control. But who is he going to use this on? Answer: WADE WILSON!!!! They give him an adamantium skeleton, and [frick]ING KATANAS GROW OUT OF HIS ARMS LIKE WOLVERINE'S CLAWS! Plus they did what happens to be the worst possibly thing they could have done to him: THEY SEALED HIS MOUTH SHUT? What is that supposed to be funny? Well you know what is funny? DEADPOOL! In the comic books, Wade is a part of the weapon x program second wave, but the only power they give him is immunity like wolverine. THERE IS however a character that is given all the powers from all the mutant, and do you know what his name is? WEAPON X! Weapon X (aka Garrison Kane) even makes an appearance in one of the early Deadpool solo books. So there was absolutely no reason they had to do that to Deadpool. They turn him into this Lord Voldemort lizard looking piece of crap. And at the end, THEY KILL HIM! THEY CHOP HIS ADAMANTIUM INFUSED SKULL OFF AND THROW HIM INTO A NUCLEAR REACTOR! Which totally takes away the possibility for a spinoff movie, unless they make it happen in the timeline before this movie, but then, they would have to invent another storyline and everything would be even more screwed up. I've heard rumors that there was a super secret after movie ending and it showed Deadpool reattach his head, but the ending I saw showed him in japan. Which means if and when the inevitable sequel comes, we are going to be looking at some Silver Samurai action.
I could talk about the horrible job they did with Deadpool, but again, this was not the Deadpool movie. This movie was all about wolverine and sabertooth.
Like I said before, there wasn't much to learn in this movie they didn't say in X1 and X2. One whole subplot of those movies was for Wolverine to get his memories back! And he did that in the second movie! But the story starts out and we learn that little James Logan grew up in Canada and Figured out he had claws and murdered his real father. Then we get a weird montage where we see him fight in the civil war (Even though he is canadian), WWI, WWII (why couldn't we see him bone claw Hitler in the face?) and 'Nam. While this happens, we meet his brother Victor, AKA Sabertooth. I think they played the antithesis of their relationship the right way. Sabertooth is constantly trying to get Wolverine to turn to the Dark Side. On the subject of sabertooth, Liev Schriber plays the character so 1 dimensional that his lines become instantly predictable. Then Wolverine gets multipe Oppertunities to strike down William Stryker, and his training will be complete but he refuses to and goes to the light side (Cliche Count 1). But then we see William Stryker approach sabertooth and then they form a mutant team! Hooray! We get the best stuff this movie has to offer. We see some kick ass mutant sequences of the Stryker 6 breaking into a African drug cartel's home. Wraith (played by the awesome Will.i.am. Great choice) is constantly warping over people and snapping necks and such. These mutants are cool. It is a shame they didn't have a bigger part other than to be super heroes being picked off to mask a government conspiracy (2). Then, in short, Wolverine wants to leave his life of crime behind and start again in the quit mountains of Canadia (I swear to god they called it that once), and he falls in love in love with a woman, and sabertooth kills her (3). This prompts wolverine to chase after sabertooth. Wolverine gets his ass kicked by Sabertooth in their first encounter (why am I even counting anymore?) and he then approaches the apparent bad guy for the tools to defeat sabertooth, and they inject metal into him, which upgrades his weaponry and makes him even more unstoppable then he already was. The rest of the movie meanders from one action sequence to another, with Mutants thrown in every once and awhile, and somewhat of a plot twist. One part that made me laugh and groan at the same time was a scene with Gambit and Wolverine, and without spoiling too much, Wolverine grabs Gambit (who looks like Sawyer from Lost) and tells him "We have to go back to the Island!". Gambit was probably the weakest actor in the movie. He couldn't maintain a cajun accent, and his delivery was wack!
One more thing that particularly bothered me was this movie was a freaking kill fest. Important people were dying left and right and I'm all for wanton violence, but the amount of cool people killed was just unnecessary. That is the biggest flaw in the Xmen movies. They think it is necessary for important people to die left and right. It starts to get old, and if have no emotional attachment to a character, their death means nothing to us.
After the movie i got up and left, feeling like it just left a bad taste in my mouth. There were some Michael Bay Explosions and lots and lots of cliche dialog. My friends all thought it was so awesome and went to see it a second time today. Which leads to my conclusion: 1. I need new friends and 2. A casual movie goer will love this movie. People who care about Xmen and the various characters in the Xmen universe or just comic books in general, will be very disappointed.
There have been talks ever since X3 about the Magneto movie and the Gambit movie and even a Deadpool movie (fat chance) with the same producing team, which makes me sick to think of the future and what they will do to the Xmen next.
-Adam Waddell (AdamTheGreat91)