Voici donc en exclu, sorties tout droit de ComingSoon, la première image de The A-Team version Joe Carnahan (Narc), quelque peu déprimée mais au complet, avec, en partant de droite,  Futé/Bradley Cooper (The Hangover), Looping/Sharlto Copley (District 9), Hannibal/Liam Neeson, et Barracuda/Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson.

Liam Neeson semble donc avoir un nouveau plan de carrière, à base de rôles badass. Franchement, c’est tant mieux, autant je hais de tout mon être cette outre à foutre de Luc Besson, autant Taken, c’était pas mal, en grande partie parce que, si bien manger est sans conteste le début du bonheur, voir Liam Neeson, en full-mode Steven Seagal, frapper des types au visage, leur casser les jambes et les tuer sans broncher l’est aussi.

Tant qu’on y est, voici deux autres photos du film, l’une présentant le personnage de Jessica Biel, qui joue un colonel de l’armée, pourquoi pas; et l’autre dévoilant que la toute nouvelle Agence Tout Risques utilisera le même vieux van GMC, ce qui est plutôt kiffant.

Puisqu’on est sur le sujet de Liam Neeson, voici, encore en exclu, un photo de tournage du Choc Des Titans de Louis Leterrier, signées EW, dans lequel Liam Neeson incarne Zeus, et Sam Worthington Perseus, et sont aussi présents Ralph Fiennes, Danny Huston, Gemma Arterton, mais aussi Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale), Polly Walker (Rome), Jason Flemyng et Pete Postlewaite.

Et voici des images du film mises en ligne par Empire.

EW balance aussi cette image de Iron Man 2, dans laquelle on peut voir Tony Stark, en armure, posé dans un café, en train d’attendre un double latte.

Enfin, SplashNews a quelques images du Green Hornet de Gondry, présentant nos deux héros masqués, le Frêlon Vert (Seth Rogen) et Kato (Jay Chou) en plein milieu d’une scène d’action.

Sinon, USA Today balance la pré-affiche de Date Night, la nouvelle comédie de Shawn Levy (Une Nuit Au Musée) avec Steve Carell et Tina Fey.

Follows Wolverine as he grows up with his powers, joins Team X and is ultimately betrayed by those closest to him.

Directed by – Gavin Hood

Written by – David Benioff, Skip Woods

Starring – Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Will i Am, Lynn Collins, Kevin Durand, Dominic Monaghan, Taylor Kitsch, Daniel Henney, Ryan Reynolds, Tim Pocock, Julia Blake, Max Cullen, Tahyna Tozzi, Patrick Stewart

Proof positive that illegal downloading won’t neccesarily destroy a flick, Wolverine did surprisingly well at the box office. At least I thought it did well since I had assumed I would hate the movie. There’s moments that shine in this one but there’s some low points as well. I liked Liev Schreiber in the flick but don’t get what they did to Ryan Reynolds in the movie. Wasn’t he supposed to be the big deal? I guess some critics are easier to please than others, you’ll see what I mean when you check out my guest reviewer’s opinion of the movie.

HAHAHAHA! Awesome. Kids like to keep it simple and to the point. I, on the other hand, had a little more to say. Of course, that could be a bad thing.

Under the marquee – Will

One has to wonder if, had things worked out differently, Harrison Ford would have made a Han Solo prequel in the mid-1980s. I mean, he did reprise Bob Falfa. While the X-Men movies did make Hugh Jackman a star, they didn’t really make him the biggest star in the world. But X-Men Origins: Wolverine does offer something else–it’s gives Jackman a chance to be charming and athletic–it’s got to be the only franchise where the target audiences are teenage boys and women of the age of reason.

The film doesn’t feature Jackman’s best performance by far, but it does reveal exactly why he’s such a singularity. He’s a movie star, one who can make this silly action movie (which is, to be fair, pretty darn violent for a PG-13) seem like a real movie. It doesn’t hurt he’s got Liev Schreiber as his nemesis. The movie could have been–should have been–framed in a long fight scene between the two of them, flashbacks playing through. Schreiber somehow manages to turn in a textured performance and gnaw through the scenery.

There are some bright spots in the supporting cast–Will.i.am is surprisingly good and Danny Huston can make his atrocious dialogue sound all right–and no one’s terrible. There’s not enough personality in the script for the actors to do any better.

The direction’s good, if a little bland. It’s PG-13 gritty.

The special effects are bad. They bring it down.

CREDITS

Directed by Gavin Hood; written by David Benioff and Skip Woods; director of photography, Donald M. McAlpine; edited by Nicolas De Toth and Megan Gill; music by Harry Gregson-Williams; production designer, Barry Robison; produced by Lauren Shuler Donner, Ralph Winter, Hugh Jackman and John Palermo; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Hugh Jackman (Logan), Liev Schreiber (Victor), Danny Huston (Stryker), Will.i.am (John Wraith), Lynn Collins (Kayla), Kevin Durand (Fred Dukes), Dominic Monaghan (Bradley), Taylor Kitsch (Remy LeBeau), Daniel Henney (Agent Zero) and Ryan Reynolds (Wade Wilson).

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Release: Aug 7, 2009

Taglines

-Evil Never Looked So Good

-When All Else Fails, They Don’t

Plot outline
An elite military unit comprised of special operatives known as G.I. Joe, operating out of The Pit, takes on an evil organization led by a notorious arms dealer.

Trivia

Sam Worthington was considered for the role of Duke, but turned it down due scheduling conflicts with Avatar.

David Murray was cast as Destro, but dropped it when he had problems with his visa. He was replaced by Christopher Eccleston; however, the character was named James McCullen XXIV, thus enabling Murray to film a flashback scene as the first Destro, James McCullen I.

Skip Woods wrote an early draft of the film, which featured Alex Mann (aka Britain’s Action Man) and the antagonist as the Naja/Ryan, a corrupt CIA agent. Scarlett is married to Action Man but still has feelings for Duke, and is killed by the Baroness. Snake-Eyes speaks, but his vocal cords are slashed during the story, rendering him mute.

Makeup Dept

Leo Corey Castellano … makeup department head: second unit
Leo Corey Castellano … prosthetic design and application
Patricia Dehaney-Le May … hair stylist: second unit
Linda Dvorakova … hair stylist: second unit
Roxane Griffin … key hair stylist
Barbara Kichi … hair stylist
Toby Lamm … additional makeup artist
Bart Mixon … special makeup effects ast to Kazuhiro Tsuji
Michael Mosher … special makeup effects artist
Jessica Nelson … contact lens technician
Gabriela Polakova … makeup artist
Richard Redlefsen … special makeup effects artist
Bobo Sobatka… makeup artist
  Kimberley Spiteri … department head hair stylist: second unit
  Peter Tothpal … hair department head
  Kazuhiro Tsuji … special makeup effects artist
  Cindy J. Williams … makeup department head
  Hiroshi Yada … special makeup effects crew: KTsfx
  Kentaro Yano … makeup artist

Special Effects Department

Ozzy Alvarez … special makeup effects technician:   Quantum Creation FX
Ryan Banfield … mold maker
Gary D. Bierend … second unit special effects crew
David Boucher … special effects technician
John P. Cazin … special effects crew
Jerry Constantine … specialty costumer
Sophia Coronado … specialty costumes: Film Illusions
  Matt Corrigan … special effects technician
  Jeff Crocker … mold maker
  Sam Dean … special effects technician
  Robert Kato DeStefan … specialty costume crew
  Brandon Engstrom … special effects technician
  Damian Fisher … mold maker
  Damian Fisher … special effects technician
  Megan Flagg … specialty costumer
  Terry Glass … special effects foreman: UK
  Joe Gomez … mold shop supervisor
  Roy Goode … pyrotechnician
  Allan B. Holt … special effects technician
  Jeff Jingle … special effects props
  Pete Kelley … special effects technician
  Brenna Kelly … special effects assistant
  Yong Lee … specialty costume crew
  Shane Mahan … accelerator suit effects: Stan Winston Studio
  Jacqueline Makkee … special effects technician: Quantum Creation FX
  Al Marangoni … special effects technician
  Keith Marbory … special effects makeup
  David Merritt … accelerator suit model department key coordinator: stan winston studio
  David Mesloh … special effects technician
  Hans Metz … special effects technician
  Sara R. Morris … special effects purchaser
  Jesse Noel … special effects technician
  Justin Raleigh … specialty prop / specialty costume coordinator: Quantum Creation FX
  William ‘Barcode’ Rosa … lab technician
  Scott Schutzki … model maker: props
  Ray Shaffer … specialty costume crew
  Charles Sowles … costume props
  Christopher A. Suarez … special effects technician
  Daniel Sudick … special effects coordinator
  Sally Wilson … texture artist
  Chris Zega … lab technician: Stan Winston Studios

Wow this is overdue. Sorry, folks. Started taking an LSAT course and all, so I’ve been distracted. HOWEVER, it is the time for summer blockbusters, and I’ve been foaming at the mouth over this one, so let’s get to it.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (2009)

Crucials

Director: Gavin Hood

Written by: Five Drunken Monkeys… Just kidding (I am such a bitch). David Benioff, Skip Woods.

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Will i Am, Lynn Collins, Kevin Durand, Dominic Monaghan, Taylor Kitsch, Daniel Henney, Ryan Reynolds

Recommended? Not really– go if you really enjoy these comic book movies, but this one can wait for DVD.

OK, so I know a lot of people enjoyed this movie (only because I have a REALLY bad habit of hanging around the IMDB forums after I watch certain movies) but let me break this down for you: this movie is simply one gigantic cliche-fest with poor CGI and an ass-ton of continuity issues. I woulnd’t mind the prequel issues so much if the film didn’t constantly remind us that it was directly tied to the first three X-Men films, but it DID. And I do mean CONSTANTLY. So then you would expect for the writers/director/etc. to watch or re-watch the first three films so that they can make sure they don’t totally screw things up in the whole X-Men timeline that has been established… except they apparently didn’t care. That’s right, one of the biggest issues about this film is the matter of setting up a decent timeline, and Hugh Jackman himself admits that while they originally planned to set this movie in the ’70s, they made it INTENTIONALLY AMBIGUOUS, mostly because they didn’t want to deal with the corny ’70s fashion. And I quote:

“So, what we were thinking about was the ‘not-too-distant past,’ and yet we still wanted to give it a timeless quality. If you look at our choices stylistically, there’s nothing in that movie that rings of now. It does actually … it could exist in the ’70s. But I didn’t want that distraction of flares and big hair and weird costumes and all that sort of thing. But maybe it makes sense with [Logan's] long sideburns.”

I’d like to explain the time line issues that crop up with this film, and I also want to remind you that I am, in no way, a comic book fan. By the way, when I talk about when Wolverine takes place, I mean the majority of the movie; basically everything after the “6 years later” part.

1. If this film took place in the late ’70s, as in post Vietnam (which is what is implied by the “We’re in Vietname, Stryker is here to recruit us, an undeterminant amount of time passes before we’re in Africa and Wolvie leaves, and then the film says it’s ‘6 years later’ plotline”), then Scott (AKA Cyclops) would be WAY too old by the time we hit X-Men. They show Scott in this film as a 16/17 year-old boy. It’s cute that they tried to give a nod to the Cyclops fans, but they never treat him right (sorry, baby!). Anyway, in X-Men, which was released in 2000 but takes place “in the not-so-distant future” (those might not be the exact words, but you get the idea), James Marsden was about 27 years old and he played the part of Cyclops. There was no way he was supposed to be older than Storm, for example. He would have been 30ish, at most. And since the idea of the “not-so-distant future” really doesn’t seem to imply “next year”, I like to give the movie a 10 year bump, at the least, because otherwise it really makes no sense to place the movie in a near-future setting. 10 years is being generous, anyway. So, if X-Men is in 2010, and Scott was 16 or 17 in the late ’70s… then there’s no way this works. Not only that, but Stryker’s kid is in this film (frozen, but present as a CHILD), and he would had to have aged PAST Scott for X-Men 2, where he’s shown as  a middle-aged man.  Therefore, the late ’70s doesn’t work.

2. HOWEVER, they do an entire sequence at Three Mile Island, an actual island that had a nuclear plant that incurred an “accident” in 1979. There’s no reason to reference this island and a subsequent “accident” if they didn’t meant to imply that the experiments on Three Mile Island were the REAL REASON behind the accident. They already implied that Wolverine and Sabretooth (AKA Victor) led to our military successes in the past. To believe that the film is implying a second nuclear “incident” on Three Mile Island AFTER the first incident is simply ludicrous and idiotic.

3. If this film took place after the 1970s, it STILL does not make sense (ain’t that a bitch?!). Apparently, some people think this film takes place about 10-15 years before X-Men. So, let’s say that X-Men happened in 2010 (again). That would mean this film was in 2000 or 1995. Which means that Stryker doesn’t age a year between Vietnam and the end of this film, but from 1995/2000 until X-Men 2, he turns into Brian Cox and gains a Southern accent. Even if I completely disregard the “turning into Brian Cox” thing, the man WOULD HAVE AGED. And yet, he did not. At all. Whatsoever. Plus, they show a SUPER-CGI’d Patrick Stewart as Xavier towards the end (oops, spoiler!) and he really didn’t need that much CGI to make be believe this was simply 10-15 years earlier than X-Men.

Alright, I know what some of you are thinking: “You are nitpicking! This is a fun summer flick! Stop obsessing about continuity issues and just enjoy it for what it is!” Fair enough, my adorable little crackheads, but the problem is that I couldn’t. I wanted to like this film. I really did. But it was all so ridiculous. The anti-hero running off to find himself in the middle of nowhere and finally have a “normal life” with a woman he loves is so well-worn territory that I didn’t care at all about his love interest. I also thought the random Native American tale they threw in there was the most hilarious explanation of his name that they could have possibly conjured up (someone needs to tell the writers that wolverines =/= wolves). The action was barely enjoyable, the best characters were killed off too quickly, Wolverine wasn’t even the Wolverine I knew and loved, and the CGI was simply atrocious. There’s no excusing that bathroom scene where Wolvie’s claws looked like they came straight out of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. No excuse, at all.

I don’t really want to spoil the ending, but it’s probably the worst use of a deus ex machina I have ever seen. I was flat-out insulted by the lack of intelligence that the writers thought I had with that ending. I referring, of course, to the way that they explain Wolvie’s memory loss. If you haven’t seen the film yet, be prepared for the RAGE that will spill forth once you see this whopper of an explanation. Every time I think about that ending, I feel the need to open my arms wide, throw my head back, and yell “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO” at the heavens (or just yell), but I think Wolverine does that enough for me in this film.

At the end of the day, there are a few fun things about the movie. Hugh Jackman is awesome, as per usual, and definitely yummy in his nakedness during a few scenes. Plus, I love seeing him go all Wolvie-rage, so he’s fun to look at in the movie. Liev Schreiber was, well, special in the film. His Sabretooth run made me laugh because it just looked HILARIOUS, but I liked his usual Liev dry wit and sarcasm bit. It’s kind of a jarring difference between this version of Sabretooth and the one we see in X-Men. Not only that, but I’m pretty sure this Sabretooth has nails that kinda expanded out like Wolvie’s claws, whereas Sabretooth in X-Men didn’t have that effect. How strange… Sorry, I digress. Anyway, there will be some aspects that are fun in this, and a couple of good action sequences. But this was probably the most disappointing comic book movie I have seen, mostly because I expected so much more from it. I think it’s being proven that only Bryan Singer can make X-Men films in an awesome way, and no one else should even try. So, as I said, this movie is definite “Wait for DVD” material, though by this point it’s probably out of theatres, anyway (SORRY ABOUT THAT!)

Wolverine

CLASSIFICATION IF Idle Film

RATING One of Five Stars

Distributed by 2oth Century Fox (first released on 29 April 2009 in UK, HK, Australia and NZ)

107 minutes

The Film

This fourth installment of the X-Men movie franchise is a prequel of the character Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) directed by Gavin Hood and written by David Benioff and Skip Woods.

The Preview

The Story

The film opened in 1845 with two half-brothers–older Victor Creed (Michael James Olsen) and younger James Howett (Troye Sivan)–watched the groundskeeper Thomas Logan (Aaron Jeffrey) killed the man they knew as their father John Howlett (Peter O’Brien). The traumatic event caused the young boys to mutate. James grew bone claws with which he killed Thomas who turned out to be his father. Their evident change frightened their mother Elizabeth Parkinson (Elizabeth Howlett) who sought help from townsmen, forcing the boys to flee from townsmen bent on killing them.

Both survived over a century as men with violent urges and skills put to use as soldiers in the American Civil War and the two World Wars. It was during the Vietnam War that Victor turned towards evil as he attempted to rape a villager and killed a superior who tried to stop him. James defended his half-brother, and both were executed by a firing squad only to revive later inside a cell, locked up and in chains.

Major William Stryker (Danny Huston) recruited them for his Team X, a group of mutants acting as a special assault team. But James did not stay long when he saw the disregard of Stryker’s policies to the human life. He left. Victor stayed.

Six years later, James (now using the name Logan) enjoyed ordinary life, with girlfriend Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins) a logging worker. But Stryker, now Colonel, found him and invited him back. Logan declined. Stryker staged the “murder” of Kayla by Victor, which forced Logan to accept reinforcement of his skeleton with adamantium, an indestructible metal, with revenge to Victor in his mind.

The procedure was successful. Logan, now wearing a dog tag of “Wolverine,” escaped the facility after hearing over Stryker’s order to remove his memory. Team X regular Agent Zero (Daniel Henney) tracked and attacked Logan, killing the old couple who welcomed him in their home.

With two targets now in his mind–Victor and Stryker–Logan won the support of another mutant Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) to bring Logan to new Stryker facility on Three Mile Island. There he discovered the conspiracy which involved Kyla under threat for her sister’s capture.

Logan took his anger at Victor but stopped short of killing him. He helped Kyla break out the Team X captives, and fought Weapon XI, a super-mutant which received all the powers of the captured mutants comboned. With Victor’s help, he killed Weapon XI. But Stryker managed to put two adamantium bullets in his head, erasing his memory.

The Island scene ended with Gambit and Wolverine leaving to opposite directions, Kyla dead, and hypnotized Stryder set to walk without stopping. The film ends in a bar in Japan where Wolverine was drinking wine “to remember.”

The Review

Despite its strong entertainment value, there are a few elements in Wolverine that are fruitful to Catholic and other Christian viewers. Its major character is torn apart between his natural goodness and the evil impulse of his mutation. It is reminiscent of Saint Paul’s struggle with the proverbial thorn in his flesh that God left to keep him humble and aware of his limits. Logan/Wolverine also struggled to keep the animal impulse inside him under control, which he succeeded many times and used it to protect himself, defend those he love, but also in attacking those who attack them. He made mostly ethical judgments which he stood by even on the cost of losing his half-brother.

There is also an element of tension between the Logan’s relationship with Victor, which are largely due to their masochistic personalities.

Overall, this is a story of a soul seeking redemption. Despite Logan’s ethical sense, his life is a story of a lost human, living in a very threatening environment that he must fight his way to survive, and while seeking to reclaim the humanity he lost from the time he committed murder against another human being under the impulse of revenge.

There are many unchristian values to be guarded against in this film: (1) acceptance of cohabitation; (2) physical revenge as the option to settle a score; (3) too much focus on power.

Cohabitation. The scriptwrites apparently have nothing in mind about giving Logan a sense of what is the proper way of sealing a true loving relationship he shared with Kyla. It would not be difficult to inject the marriage element in the story line. A wedding photo passed through by the camera would have made that faster. And the relationship was introduced six years later; so much time for a marriage to have taken place. But nothing of that sort happened. In this manner, the film proposes that marriage is not an important thing for people who truly love each other. This value makes the film inappropriate to Catholics less mature in their faith and less educated on the teachings of Christianity.

Revenge for the score. The major social theme of this film is revenge for an offense suffered. The writers preferred the character taken over by the strong impulse of mutational savagery when they could give Wolverine a conflicting desire to forgive Victor but still have to choose brutal measures to protect himself from a half-brother who is consumed by evil impulses. The Wolverine they created was more animal than human despite its correct ethical decisions in certain occasions. They failed to give the character the humanity he deserved to make it consistent with his good ethical decisions.

Too much focus on power. Wolverine is a reluctant user of mutational power. And it is a good element in the story. Power maybe used only when a person is forced to defend his life or that of others. The strong theme on revenge made that element of reluctance became inevitably unbelievable. It is unbelievable that a reluctant power can be used to pursue revenge. This excessive focus on power also inevitably placed the story outside the realities of Christian life where God is paramount or at least its presence are felt by the character. None of the characters in the movie ever showed indications that they have made decisions based on what God may have called them to do. It’s all pure intellectual exercise even in the ethical choices of Wolverine.

The Verdict

Despite the excellent performance of Hugh Jackman and the entertaining action sequences in the film, it is not a good watch for Catholics and other Christians. It simply wastes the time used in watching this movie.

Reviewed by Zosimo Literatus

by The Great White Gypsy

Comic book movies confuse me.
Not conceptually, or as a legitimate genre, I’m just confused why they continue to get things wrong. Now, granted, comic books are modern mythology, not based in any serious reality. But there is still a mythology there that demands a certain level of accuracy when telling the story. The majority of Americans aren’t fan boys; they don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of fictional characters. They don’t care about accuracy, because they have no frame of reference. So it really doesn’t matter what you do.
However, large portions of the people standing in line for movies like X-men Origins: Wolverine are comic fans that do know the story. And, time and time again, these people are disappointed.
X-men Origins: Wolverine is a spin-off prequel to the X-men franchise that was run into the ground when Bryan Singer decided to hand the reins to Brett Ratner and go screw up Superman Returns. It was supposed to cover the ORIGINS of Wolverine, and his back-story that led him to the X-men. But somewhere along the way, writers Skip Woods (Hitman, Swordfish) and David Benioff (The Kite Runner, Stay) decided they would breeze through Wolverine’s beginning, and focus on his shady past.
The film begins when Logan (Wolverine) is a sickly child in the late 1800’s. It’s a quick three-minute intro full of forced tension and over-dramatic acting. They leave out several specifics, and half of the original story, and cut straight to Logan’s life as a mercenary with other mutants (interestingly enough, there are so many mutant “cameos” that you’d have to be a hardcore X-men fan just to know who everyone is). It doesn’t really stop after the intro though, and the entire film is meandering, at times confusing, and over-acted by the entire cast. We know Hugh Jackman is Wolverine, does he really need to roar in every scene for no damn reason? (Do wolverine’s roar?)
The effects are sweet (the final battle is pretty amazing visually), the action is intense, and the film is nothing if not entertaining. Director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, Rendition) might want to rethink quitting his day job, but it was a respectable detour for him.
If you were a fan of X2, but thought X-men: The Last Stand was retarded, this will fall somewhere in the middle, and it’s probably worth your 10 bucks to watch him rip people apart with metal claws. My point is that, if millions of people aren’t going to know the difference or give a damn about whether the mythology is correct, why not get it right for the millions (ok, maybe thousands) who do? At the very least, so I don’t get a 20 minute long itemized list of the film’s “factual errors” every time I mention a superhero movie to the bearded gent at borders.
If you already saw this film opening weekend, my apologies for the late review. However, if you were still on the fence about it, and you are reading this, I recommend you see Start Trek instead.
Final Grade: C

“¿Sabes qué le pasa al que busca pelea? Que la encuentra”

Quizá sea debido a mi apego al personaje del papel, quizá sea debido a que llevo siguiéndole desde niño y conozca todas sus historias desde hace veinte años, pero lo que tengo claro, es que jamás entenderé, porque una buena historia del papel, se ha de cambiar tanto para pasarla al celuloide. Está claro que el formato no es el mismo, ni el ritmo de narración y que han de condensar más de veinte años de historias en no llega a dos horas. Está claro que podemos pulir algunos fallos que son más que normales en una serie mensual (sin contar especiales) en la que ha habido numerosos fallos de continuidad. Pero no comprendo porque eliminar lo bueno y cambiarlo por algo peor ¿por qué?

X-Men origenes: Lobezno no es una mala película de acción, entretenida, con alguna buena pelea, aunque no al nivel que se le podría presuponer, algún gag divertido pero nada más. Si hablamos como adaptación ya, sólo puedo decir que nefasta.

James y Victor

Además, he de decir que me siento muy decepcionado con los efectos especiales que en algunos momentos los cgi (las imágenes producidas por ordenador) parecían dignas de una serie ochentera, algo que no se puede permitir una megaproducción de Hollywood como esta. Ya ni contamos la cantidad de sin sentidos del guión, donde sin dar detalles concretos de la película, da la sensación que Lobezno tiene supersentidos para lo que le conviene al guionista. O lo desaprovechado que están algunos personajes como Masacre, aún me estoy explicando cuál es el éxito que ha tenido como para que quieran hacer un spin-off con él como protagonista, que alguien me lo explique.

A pesar de todo, es una película entretenida que se deja ver y no resulta ni cansina, ni pesada, aunque desde luego no sales tirando cohetes. Una decepción personal de un personaje que podría dar muchísimo de si, ya que es el mejor en su trabajo (que malgasto de frase dicha en un momento de lo más cutre y sin aprovecharla para algo épico). Mi gozo en un pozo.

*****

Página oficial

Ficha IMDB

Título: X-Men Origenes: Lobezno

Título original: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Año: 2009

Duración: 107′

Director: Gavin Hood

Escrito:David Benioff y Skip Woods

Reparto:Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Will i Am, Lynn Collins, Kevin Durand, Dominic Monaghan, Taylor Kitsch, Daniel Henney, Ryan Reynolds, Scott Adkins, Tim Pocock, Julia Blake, Max Cullen y Troye Sivan

Throughout much of the 1970s, I was a Marvel comics fan. I read them all: The Avengers, F4, Spider-Man, X-Men, Conan, Iron Man, Cap America, and on and on. I couldn’t get enough. Back then, it was kind of a fringe activity. There were a few rabid fans around, but mostly it was a thing the strange kids did. It’s hard to believe that bringing these characters to life on-screen has become a gigantic, multi-billion-dollar industry. I don’t think any of us Marvel fans back in the 70s could have imagined it.

I say all of this in prelude to X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I’m not a purist when it comes to my treasured comic book heroes and the movies. I’m a realist. I understand that film is a certain kind of entertainment that has its own challenges. As far as superhero entertainment goes, this one is pretty good. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is terrific, and Liev Schreiber puts in a fantastic performance as Sabertooth (steals the show, in fact). Marvel fans know that at the heart of things, when you come right down to it, comics are about good versus evil, and there is plenty of that here, with the lines clearly drawn between the rotten guys and the good guys. (If life itself were only so simple; but that’s another story.) The film has some terrific CGI, great action and adventure, high drama, solid performances, and a decent script if you overlook a few idiot plot points. And there is a real attempt to tell the story of two brothers here. Not bad for what was once a nerd sport. Recommended.
Dir. Gavin Hood; screenwriters Skip Woods, David Benioff.

To Boldly Go…

This past Friday, I went with a bunch of friends to opening night of the new Star Trek film. Although I’ve written a couple of science fiction novels and have done a fair bit of sf reading over the years, it’s important to note that Star Trek is a culture (and industry) unto its own. I am mostly a casual viewer. I grew up watching the original TV show and have enough of a working knowledge to know the characters and history pretty well, but I’m not by any means an expert. I thought the movies from the original series that were eventually made, all of them, were not very good, due to various degrees of bad writing, bad acting, uninteresting and unoriginal ideas, a heavy reliance on nostalgia, and perhaps just too much pressure to produce an epic.

I don’t know how purists feel about the new film; probably not very good; it’s hard to please a purist. But this is one prequel that I thought worked pretty well. Like the Wolverine movie that debuted a week before it, this film knows what it needs to do to please a viewing audience and goes about the business of doing it well, with great action and adventure and drama and special effects. (I saw the digital version, which was visually stunning.) Dir. J.J. Abrams brings a lot of experience to this picture and has good instincts about when not to be too cute, too insider, or too serious. Every actor across the board does a terrific job. Much is asked (and expected) of young Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, and he does an admirable job of carrying the weight of the film. But you can’t do Star Trek and pretend the history doesn’t exist, and here is where it succeeds best. This movie not only embraces its history, it makes use of it, and smartly ties the young characters who are about to embody Star Trek inexorably with their futures, and it does so without trying too hard to be its predecessor. This was no easy balancing act. Ignore the time travel stuff (a lame plot device at best, and there would have been much better ways to work Leonard Nimoy into the film) and enjoy the rest of it. Recommended.

It’s now and officially summer season. But I am sad. See, last summer was something amazing. Something truly special. This summer is average at best. Sure, we’ll have Star Trek and that looks like it’ll be the best summer movie, but what else? Terminator? Tranformers? Let’s face it, this is just not 2008 anymore. We won’t have a “Dark Knight” this year. We might have an “Iron Man” or two, but that’s if we’re lucky.

And the first movie of the summer was, well, no “Iron Man.” Does that mean it was a bad movie? Not at all. Just because it wasn’t as good as Robert Downey Fucking Jr’s portrayal of Tony Stark doesn’t mean it was a poorly made film. So, here’s the first summer review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Before we begin let’s just clear one thing up. Any problem any Marvel film will ever have from here and into the future can be traced to one thing: Marvel didn’t make it. Fox ruined more Marvel franchises than Sony ruined people’s enjoyment of Spider-Man 3. Wait….no, never mind. That was in the millions, wasn’t it? Well, they ruined a lot of franchises. Directors, actors, and writers should not be blamed for what these studios fuck up. It wasn’t Jessica Alba’s fault the Fantastic Four movies were horrible—it was the idiots who decided to cast Jessica Alba.

So now we have Wolverine. And did Fox fuck it up? Well, yes and no. See, it was still a fun movie and all. Who doesn’t like to see a naked Hugh Jackman jumping into a waterfall—take that Harrison Ford!  The fights were pretty cool—except the fact that there wasn’t a grand Wolverine vs Sabertooth fight. Maybe they are saving it for another movie.  The characters were decent. The writing wasn’t half bad either (actually, there was one good screenwriter and one bad one).  What didn’t go right for the film, first, was horrible CGI effects. Wolverine’s claws at one point were glowing. Not hot and glowing. He was just standing there and they were vibrating and glowing. In fact, why they didn’t just use the prop claws in that scene is beyond me.

So, let’s break it down. First, of course, is Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman. This is his fourth time playing Wolverine, and, according to the man himself, far from his last. He’s already planning a sequel set in Japan and he will probably do another X-film at some point. I think after ten times playing Wolverine, he might get tired and we’ll be ready for a changeover.  But he knows the role now. You can tell that he absolutely loves playing Logan as well, which is a good thing when starring in a summer action flick. So, that’s Jackman. Let’s focus on some of the newcomers to the series. Here’s the thing: All of them, with the exception of a few, outperform Hugh Jackman. Maybe it’s simply that the others were new and fresh, but they just seemed to “get it” more.  Let’s move onto Liev Schreiber. Not only can you tell that he loved playing Sabretooth, but that he was excited as hell to play him. His energy in the role was amazing and helped to form a Sabretooth that was both animalistic and vengeful (where the comics quite often seem to pick one or the other). Coming up next is Ryan Reynolds who was the perfect casting choice for Wade Wilson/Deadpool—the Merc with the Mouth. Granted, Fox really screwed up the character towards the end of the movie, but a spinoff will be rewarding just to see Reynolds own the character as he did in the opening act. Other great players in this include Dominic Monaghan (of Lost), Kevin Duran (of Lost) playing an excellent Blob, and Taylor Kitsch who exceeded expectations as the staff wielding, exploding card trickster Gambit. Now, after those, we’ve got Will.I.Am who was ok. Not great, but pretty decent. Danny Huston who phoned it in. And Lynn Collins—who looked really pretty as Silverfox. Ok, so there were also cameos by other mutants. We get Emma Frost and Cyclops as youngsters and one cameo at the end of the film that I don’t want to ruin for anyone but is so rewarding and made my girlfriend kind of jump up and down a little because it is such a good cameo.

So, the cast did a pretty good job. Who did not? Well, we come to the next section: the director. Gavin Hood. Now, Hood wrote and directed the Oscar winning foreign film Tsotsi. He also directed the incredible failure Rendition. For Wolverine…he’s somewhere in the middle. After a few more films, Tsotsi might either seem like a flash of genius or Rendition might be a hiccup. Wolverine didn’t have the best directing, but it was still cool and fun and it’s hard to mess up cool and fun unless you’re Uwe Boll or Mark Steven Johnson. But the jury is still out, so to say, on Gavin Hood.
Lastly (because the score isn’t worth mentioning good or bad) are the screenwriters. Okay, there are two of these guys. David Benioff and Skip Woods. Here is a good game of who fucked up? Woods also wrote Swordfish (which was cool and also staring Hugh Jackman) and Hitman (wich was horrible). Benioff wrote Troy (fuck you man!), Stay (didn’t see), and the 25^th Hour (AWESOME). So, it’s down the line on screenwriting talent. However, I just finished reading an excellent book called City of Thieves and guess who wrote this fabulous novel. It was none other than David Benioff. So therefore, I have to lay all the blame of the bad writing of the movie onto Skip Woods. Sorry Woods. You should have also written a kick ass novel.

So, for a summer kick off it was a fun film and should be seen as a fun film. It’s no “Iron Man” and certainly not a “Dark Knight,” but I enjoy the X-films and it was just as good as the others. Remember. It’s about a 100 year old man who acts like he’s 20 something and has claws coming out of his hands—in that regards, it’s just like the comic character.

Plus I totally made out with a hot blonde chick afterwards. Again.

In a land where every dinner is a TV dinner and people watch remotely, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” will mollify the packs of Nielsens swooping down on America’s megaplexes.

But the first movie to christen the blockbuster season is a long 107 minutes of nothing special. With an estimated $150 million budget, the producers have concocted to make a quite unspectacular popcorn flick. When a film is endowed with such a massive expenditure as “Origins: Wolverine” one wonders where the money went when compared to the sardonic rush of “Iron Man” or the fully-realized macrocosm of “The Dark Knight,” because it’s an uninspired project void of the magic of those franchise foundries. Perhaps when you’ve dropped this magnitude of an exorbitant investment into a tepid film, producers are forced to tack on an ambiguous and presumptuous conclusion suggesting a wholly underserved sequel.

Essentially a prologue to the X-Men films, “Origins: Wolverine” begins with the backstory of the Logan/Wolverine character and his brother, Victor Creed/Sabretooth, as children in the 1840s Antebellum South. They bound through successive U.S. wars as indestructible soldiers during the mundane opening credits until they are recruited into a post-Vietnam War commando unit. Adopting distinct military tactics, the brothers become estranged, each hunting the other until the inevitable last reel.

Filmed unconvincingly by director Gavin Hood, it’s an untextured effort with no discernible cohesive tone or pace. Action sequences are neutered by the special effects. The over reliance in post-production fiddling means that real thrills and genuine tension are jettisoned for clunky, newfangled visuals.

The lame script by David Benioff and Skip Woods is equally lackadaisical but there are moments when it’s just plain infantile. As he stalks his lumberjack younger brother in the Canadian Rockies, Victor scrawls with his fingernails into the wooden bar of a dark, unpopulated tavern in the middle of nowhere that for no apparent reason is the size of a jumbo jet hanger. The quizzical bartender asks Victor, “You’re not from around here?” Moments later, when Logan enters the bar, Victor peers over his left shoulder and drawls, “Look what the cat dragged in.” As the brothers race towards each other in the cavernous watering hole and begin to engage in battle, the barkeep peeps up with “Guys, take it outside.”

Burdened by the soporific screenplay, the game cast plows through. Bravely sporting mutton chops throughout history, Liev Schreiber lends Victor hubris with a perverse glint. Danny Huston, looking like a short back and sides Anthony Bourdain after a summer of prix fixe dinners, adds a trenchant interpretation to the commando unit chief, William Stryker, but like his co-stars is encumbered with dopey dialogue. Ryan Reynolds enhances his reputation as a funny fellow with a smart-alec turn as commando Wade Wilson, yet when he returns later in the film as Deadpool, a mutated government project, he is muted with bandages and stitches. (The film hints at the mutant’s irony; just maybe not the one the makers intended.)

Brooding, with trapezius muscles inflating with every swipe of his rapier hands, Hugh Jackman certainly put the requisite hours in the gym. But the character is written so rudimentarily that there’s no connection to his tortured plight. In several instances, Logan expresses himself with a vengeful cry to the heavens as the camera bids a clichéd retreat into the clouds. But at the very least the perpetually tank topped and frequently shirtless Jackman could bring hairy back into vogue. While his charm and charisma are rarely utilized to their best in this film, he has the affable hunkiness to play a part like Thomas Magnum. You can envision a mustached Jackman beaming behind the wheel of a Ferrari. (May I suggest William H. Macy as Higgins.) Again, a big screen presence for small screen tastes.

Die Einsamkeit der Venus.

Popkulturell betrachtet, hat James Howlett zwei nahe Verwandte: den traurigen Edward Scissorhands und den hundsgemeinen Freddy Krueger. Beiden fällt beim Essen zwangsweise das Besteck aus den Händen, und an mögliche Gefahren beim Wasserlassen will man lieber gar nicht erst denken. Dafür jedoch ist der eine immerhin ein erstklassiger Hairstylist und der andere ein echter Kinderschreck. Wie die Blutlinien zwischen den dreien genau verlaufen, ist nicht bekannt. Anders bei einem weiteren Angehörigen des von chronischer Amnesie geplagten Mutanten (der irgendwann beschlossen hat, sich erst Logan und dann Wolverine zu nennen), und im Grunde hätte man es wissen sollen. Ähnlicher Look, ähnliche Fähigkeiten, nur weniger gewillt, seinen Killerinstinkt zu unterdrücken. Sabretooth, unerbittlicher Erzfeind des unzerstörbaren Mannes mit den Scherenhänden, ist tatsächlich dessen leiblicher Bruder. So jedenfalls enthüllt es jetzt ein Blick in Logans verlorengegangene Vergangenheit. – Wer bis hierher nicht so genau nachvollziehen kann, wovon die Rede ist, hat vermutlich drei der einflussreichsten Comic-Verfilmungen der frühen 2000er Jahre verpasst. Die „X-Men“, eine organisierte Truppe heterogener Mutanten aus dem Marvel-Universum, brachten es auf insgesamt drei äußerst erfolgreiche Teile und erhielten nach dem Ausstieg von Bryan Singer 2006 unter der ziemlich oberflächlichen Regie von Brett Ratner einen lauen Abgesang. Trotz einer Unzahl interessanter Charaktere entwickelte sich dabei eine Figur rasch zum Publikumsfavoriten. Wolverine, schon für die Comic-Gemeinde der beliebteste der X-Men, bedeutete zugleich den Durchbruch für seinen Darsteller Hugh Jackman, der schon im Eigeninteresse nicht wenig dazu beitrug, seiner Rolle das erste Spin-Off der Serie zu verschaffen. Und das nicht zu Unrecht: Ein Einspielergebnis von 85 Millionen Dollar an den US-Kinokassen trotz wenig entgegenkommender Kritiken, einem wichtigen NBA-Spiel als Hauptkonkurrent und einem breitgestreuten Bootleg einen Monat vor der Premiere lässt keine Fragen offen.

Wie so viele Figuren aus der Franchise-Hölle der großen Comic-Verlage hat auch Wolverine eine wenig homogene Entwicklungsgeschichte durchlaufen. Erstmals Ende 1974 in einer Ausgabe des „Incredible Hulk“ aufgetaucht, stieß der grimmige Superheld mit den Adamantium-Klingen und kanadischen Ursprüngen bereits ein halbes Jahr später zur zweiten Generation der „Giant Size X-Men“. Ursprünglich entwickelt von Len Wein und John Romita Sr., bekam die Figur in den Folgejahren ihren entscheidenden Schliff von X-Men-Autor Chris Claremont, Zeichner John Byrne (der, selber Kanadier, verhinderte, dass der Neueinsteiger schnell wieder verschwand) und dem unvermeidlichen Frank Miller verpasst, der Wolverines ersten vierteiligen Solo-Auftritt mitbetreute. Zwei langlebige Serien folgten, zu der eine ganze Reihe angesehener Zeichner und Autoren (unter anderem „Wanted“-Schöpfer Mark Millar) ihren Beitrag leisteten. Anfang der 90er begann Marvel dann damit, ihrem bis dato weitestgehend identitätslosem Helden eine Vergangenheit unterzujubeln. Während „Weapon X“ sich jedoch auf eine bereits bekannte Episode in Wolverines Entwicklung konzentrierte (seine Verwandlung in eine unbesiegbare Kampfmaschine), wagte sich „Wolverine: Origin“ auf gefährliches Terrain und stöberte in der Kindheit der Figur. Die Begeisterung der Hardcore-Fans hielt sich in Grenzen.

Gavin Hoods Version sucht sich aus beiden Entwürfen Teile heraus, erzählt aber im Wesentlichen eine eigene Geschichte. Das Drehbuch von David Benioff („The Kite Runner“) und Skip Woods („Swordfish“) nimmt die Idee der Bruderschaft von Logan und Victor Creed, dem späteren Sabretooth, zum Anlass, eine Rachefantasie mit familiären Untertönen in Gang zu setzen, die zwar nicht sonderlich originell ist, aber genügend Raum bietet, um entscheidende Lücken in Wolverines Biographie auszufüllen und seine spätere Entwicklung, wie sie aus den „X-Men“-Filmen bekannt ist, in einem etwas anderen Licht erscheinen zu lassen. Das hat für Fans der Serie durchaus ihren Reiz, funktioniert aber auch für ein Publikum ohne jegliche Vorkenntnisse.

Was genau die Mehrzahl derjenigen, die „X-Men Origins: Wolverine“ bestenfalls nicht sonderlich mögen und schlimmstenfalls in Grund und Boden verdammen, von diesem Prequel erwartet haben, erschließt sich nur in Einzelfällen. Rückwirkend fällt vor allem die arg übertriebene Verklärung der ursprünglichen Trilogie auf. Der vergleichsweise banale Subtext einer von Rassismus durchsetzten und mehr oder weniger pogrombereiten Gesellschaft macht weder den zentralen Reiz der drei Filme aus, noch besteht Grund, einen vergleichbaren Hintergrund für „Wolverine“ zu beanspruchen. Ebenso wenig lässt sich bei einem Film, der einen einzigen Charakter in den Mittelpunkt stellt, ein gut ausbalanciertes Ensemble erwarten, in dem jede Figur verlustfrei neben der anderen bestehen kann. Der Ansatz dieses Prequels ist ein völlig anderer, und wer ihm das zum Vorwurf machen will, dem ist eben nicht zu helfen.

Jimmy (Jackman) und sein älterer Bruder Victor (Liev Schreiber ersetzt Tyler Mane) gehören einer unsterblichen Rasse an. Fast ein Jahrhundert lang ziehen sie von einem Krieg in den anderen und kämpfen unzertrennlich Seite an Seite. Erst als der zwielichtige Oberst William Stryker (in „X2“ noch von Brian Cox verkörpert, hier Danny Huston) sie in ein spezielles Team aus Mutanten aufnimmt, driften die Brüder auseinander. Schnell wird offenbar, wie wenig Victor seinen Killerinstinkt unter Kontrolle halten will. Jimmy verlässt die Einheit und geht eigene Wege. Die nächsten sechs Jahre lebt er unbehelligt irgendwo in den Rocky Mountains, an seiner Seite Kayla (ein Traum: die bisher weitestgehend unbekannte Lynn Collins), die Liebe seines Lebens. Doch das Glück ist nur von kurzer Dauer. Nach und nach werden die einzelnen Mitglieder der Einheit auf bestialische Weise getötet, und Stryker spürt Jimmy auf, um ihn für die Jagd auf den Killer anzuheuern. Doch erst als ihm alles genommen wird und er begreift, dass sein Bruder verantwortlich ist, gibt er sein friedliches Leben auf und lässt sich in eine unbesiegbare Kampfmaschine verwandeln.

Natürlich ist das alles absurder Unsinn, aber wer von einer Comic-Verfilmung aus dem Hause Marvel übermäßigen Realismus erwartet, unterliegt ohnehin einem grundsätzlichen Missverständnis. Zweifellos ist „Wolverine“ ein nicht selten lauter, actionreicher und mit CGIs durchzogener Ritt, der so weit von Gavin Hoods „Tsotsi“ entfernt ist wie die Erde vom Mond, aber das hat dieses Genre nun einmal an sich. Wer sich hingegen von falschen Erwartungen und Vorurteilen freimacht, wird erstaunt sein, wie viele kraftvolle Sequenzen in diesem Film stecken, um wie vieles tragischer und einsamer Logans Schicksal im Vergleich zur „X-Men“-Trilogie ausfällt, und wie schlüssig sich seine Geschichte letztlich entfaltet. Für das, was er sein will, ist dieser Film jedenfalls ziemlich makellos.

Viel davon ist den interessanten Nebenfiguren zu verdanken, auch wenn den meisten ein nur recht kurzes Leinwandleben vorbehalten ist. Dominic Monaghan („Lost“) als Bolt, der in der Lage ist, Elektrizität zu kontrollieren, Kevin Durand als The Blob, der als aus dem Leim geratener Wrestler für eine der wenigen wirklich lustigen Sequenzen sorgt, und Taylor Kitsch als rätselhafter Gambit bieten neben einer ganzen Reihe weiterer Mutanten Potential für mehr. Einzig Will.I.Am als teleportierender John Wraith ist verzichtbar und belegt, dass es wenig Sinn macht, jeden erfolgreichen Rapper auf die Leinwand zu holen, solange er in der Lage ist, einigermaßen störungsfrei geradeaus zu sehen.

Am effektivsten fällt die Variation der Sabretooth-Figur aus, die von Liev Schreiber eine überzeugend beängstigende Verkörperung erhält. Für eine Weile sieht es im direkten Vergleich gar so aus, als hätte der Schauspieler die Schraube der dunklen Seite seiner Bruderfigur aus „Defiance“ einfach noch ein merkliches Stück enger gezogen. Interessanter Weise wiederholen sich in beiden Filmen zudem auch entscheidende dramaturgische Einsätze seiner jeweiligen Rolle. Das ist natürlich bloßer Zufall, sagt aber viel darüber aus, wie sich massentaugliches US-Kino die Entwicklung von Bruderbeziehungen, die eine feindliche Dimension annehmen, idealerweise vorstellt.

Rund um die Figur Deadpool ist bereits ein weiterer „X-Men Origins“ in Arbeit, und auch ein zweiter „Wolverine“ wurde vom produzierenden Studio eiligst angekündigt. Die Franchise-Maschinerie ist also mit dem überzeugenden Erfolg dieses Prequels neu angekurbelt worden und widerlegt damit die mancherorts herbeischwadronierte These, mit Zack Snyders (großartiger) „Watchmen“-Verfilmung sei das Superhelden-Genre für die Leinwand erst einmal auf Eis gelegt. Das Gegenteil ist offensichtlich der Fall.

Artikel © 2009 Thomas Lenz. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
Filmplakat / Fotos: Twentieth Century Fox of Germany GmbH

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The summer blockbuster season kicks off for The Movie Overdose with X-Men Origins: Wolverine and, it seems, this wasn’t the best place to start for the folks at MOD. Fortunately they are able to provide an outline of the films they are now looking forward too in the summer. In between all this, they talk about the prospects for Terminator: Salvation, Russell Brand’s acting career, the transcendent genius of Kenji Mizoguchi and Francois Truffaut and find out just how bleak television can be with the Red Riding trilogy.

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För mycket av det goda?

Jahapp då vart det bio igen, eg skulle vi varit på premiären men fick förhinder så det fick bli ytterligare en måndagsfilm. Denna gången fick det bli action filmen Wolverine, en av favoritfigurerna från Marvel världen, men det var med viss eftersmak man lämnade salongen denna gången tyvärr.

Varför? Wolverine i all ära, men den kändes varken “X-Men” eller “Wolverine” för den delen. I och med att jag har läst aningen lite för mycket Marvel tidningar när jag var liten så är man lite bekant med backstoryn till själva Wolvie, och det är mycket därför jag inte blev allt för övertygad iom att filmen bygger på 3 olika serietidningar + att den skall binda ihop X-Men serien både i film och från tidningsperspektivet. Men för den oinvigde funkar nog detta perfekt, för just länken mellan X-Men filmerna och denna funkar fint.

Den andra anledningen till varför den kanske inte var allt för “wow” för mig var sättet de använde effekterna. Visst snyggt foto och coola effekter så sett, det jag tänker på är mer när Logan (Wolverine) åker runt på en motorcykel och är ute och sladdar och har sig i skogen för att sedan bli jagad av några Humvee´s och en helikopter som han flyger upp på och klöser sönder. Det blir liksom lite för mycket ibland och mycket av det tror jag har med att göra att de har anpassat filmen för PG-13 rating och försöker kompensera lite. Tyvärr ville inte Hugh Jackman & Co att filmen skulle bli “R-Rated” för att nå ut till så många som möjligt och det är detta som är filmens svaghet tyvärr. För mig hade filmen gärna fått varit R-Rated och byggt på Logan i kina som samurai springandes runt i sin gula spandex, dvs om man nu ändå skall prata “origin”. Problemet med det är väl att då hade de inte kunnat länka den på samma sätt som de kan nu iom X-Men filmserien. Om ni tycker att det är mycket att hålla reda på när det gäller filmerna, testa att komma underfull med hur Marvel håller ihop det i serietidningarna.

Men för att återgå till vad filmen faktiskt erbjuder, så funkar den ändå som sagt för den som inte kanske är så die-hard fan av vad allt Marvel kan erbjuda. Filmen är liksom inte såååå dålig som jag kanske låter när jag beskriver den. Den når dock inte ut till sin fulla potential, den når inte ens upp till X-Men film-standard utan landar nånstans över första Hulken filmen,  den senaste spider-man filmen, betydligt bättre än DareDevil & alla Punisher filmerna helt klart och kanske, kanske bättre än nån av de tre X-Men filmerna. Någon Ironman är den dock inte. Men som sagt, allt är lite hurpass mycket man känner till the great “Marvel Universe”. Blir dock köp på denna senare, förhoppningsvis i nån skön utgåva om det går att finna.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine 5/10

Förväntar man sig att se coola effekter och en del action blir man väl kanske inte allt för missnöjd om man går och ser denna, den är dock alldeles för dryg och omständig i sitt sätt att berätta om hur en av serievärldens coolaste figurer blir till, men men som sagt det är ju också lite vad man förväntar sig av filmen som bestämmer här. Det skall dock bli intressant att se X-Men Origins: Magneto, även om det är 2år kvar tills dess.

MediaSverige: Aftonbladet 3/5, Expressen 2/5, DN 2/5, GP 2/5, SvD 3/6

I remember being giddy every time I watched the trailer for the first X-Men movie back in 2000. Finally, my comic book heroes were coming to the big screen! Jean Grey was wicked hot, and casting Captain Picard as Professor X was a stroke of genius. Fast forward to 2009. I knew that Origins had been on the horizon for some time. Was I excited about it? Hey, who saw Southland last week?

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is one of those movies I want to be good, but am afraid of getting my hopes up over. Forget good, I just want it to be decent. After all, there are tons of X-Men fans out there. Don’t they deserve good X-Men movies? Sure they do. Unfortunately, what they get is usually one good movie, which spawns a series of diminishing-returns sequels. This is where Origins landed.

After a stylistic intro that is arguably the best part of the entire movie, the story picks up in Vietnam. Half-brothers James (Jackman) and Victor (Schreiber) are offered jobs with an elite group of mutants run by General William Stryker. Their job is to travel into various third world countries, taking care of all of Stryker’s nefarious shit that’ll pay off later in the film. After watching his teammates kill innocent civilians, James says he’s had enough of the entire thing and leaves. Six years later he’s living in the mountains, chopping down trees and gettin’ joshed by the fellas every time they see him and his girlfriend stealing a smooch. He’s riding high, until he’s tracked down by Sabertooth, who kills his girlfriend. Stryker reappears and tells him that he’ll be able to track down Sabretooth and get sweet sweet revenge, as long as he submits to a secret military experiment, the specifics of which you might already have heard about.

You’ve got some good stuff here. Hugh Jackman is Hugh Jackman. He’s a good actor and does as good a job as he can with what was given to him. I don’t think that will really surprise anyone. Although they don’t have tons of screentime, Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Durand deliver some laughs as Deadpool and the Blob. But the movie’s real standout is Liev Schreiber. His performance, and his role in the film kind of makes you wonder why they wasted his character in the first film. I understand there’s not enough to spend fleshing out every single character they introduce, but come on, it’s Sabretooth.

I grew up watching X-Men cartoons, buying X-Men trading cards, and playing X-Men outside with my friends. While they would get to play cool characters like Wolverine, Cyclops, or Beast, they’d make me play as someone like Toad, and make them all ham sandwiches. My point is that, for me, it’s impossible to approach this movie without that fanboy perspective. So, as a fan, I hate it when movies like these go back and fill in the holes in some character’s backstory so that half of what you saw before no longer makes any sense. In that regard, Wolverine doesn’t disappoint. Or it does. Doesn’t. Does. Yeah, it does. My thoughts on everything are a little unorganized, so I’ll give you one long laundry list. (avast mateys, there be spoilers here)

1. The timeline. If Logan joined Stryker’s team toward the end of Vietnam, the latest this movie could take place at is around 1980, yet we see flatscreen computers and Scott Summers in high school. So, in the 23 short years between this film and X-Men 2, Cyclops hasn’t aged a decade? Forget that, what was the point of having him in the movie in the first place? It reminded me of bad fan fiction. Adding fun references doesn’t do much to help the script.

2. Changing the characters. Toward the end of the movie, we see Deadpool go from wisecracking mercenary to Mortal Kombat reject. Adamantium swords coming out of his arms? Seriously? Characters don’t need to be portrayed exactly as they are in the comics, sure. But are they going to make Wolverine fly and Cyclops be able to change his shape. Well honestly, they might, but you get my point.

3. Speaking of pointless cameos. Later in the film, Cyclops and the others are rescued from Stryker’s base by Professor X, in a cameo by Patrick Stewart. The scene isn’t much different from this…

Cyclops: Hey, a helicopter! And someone’s coming out!

Professor X: You must all get on my helicopter, so I can save you.

Cyclops: Hey, your helicopter has guns and missiles. Why didn’t you try doing anything before?

Professor X: … I’m a telepath.

4. Will.i.am. Hey, isn’t that Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas? Wait, this isn’t a Black Eyed Peas video, why is he talking and doing things?

5. Wasted potential. I always thought Gambit was one of the main characters, like Bishop. I know fans have wanted the filmmakers to put him in the movies for a long time. Why throw his character away after fifteen minutes of screentime? “What’s that, Logan? You have amnesia now? Well, cutting off a mule’s ears doesn’t make it a horse. That’s Creole. I’m from Louisiana. See you around the bayou, mon ami.”

6. About six or seven more scenes of Wolverine fighting Sabretooth, please. About six or seven more scenes of Wolverine fighting Sabretooth, please.

Because I’m an X-Men fan, I can justify giving this movie a B-. Standing on its own merits, Origins gets a C. The actors give us a few bright spots between some cool action scenes, and really, the first twenty minutes or so are pretty good, but after that, this one goes way downhill. Make it a Blockbuster night, assuming there’s still a Blockbuster once this one hits DVD.

Wolverine’s problems start (but don’t end) with its cast. There’s, of course, 2009 Oscar host and amateur pants pisser Hugh Jackman, who provides a merely serviceable lead while fighting through his boredom with a character who he’s played three times prior. Then there’s Liev Schreiber, whose acting has two speeds: I’ll call them “intense” and “superintense.” The intense Schreiber broods his way through a film, but hides a sly sense of humor that can make a character’s more sinister motives forgivable, even endearing. The superintense Schreiber, the one that shows up as Wolverine’s half brother Victor, latches on exclusively to the violent tendencies of the character, removing all subtleties and rendering it a one-dimensional villain, the kind that you know is pure evil, you know will fail, but who has no resonance, no emotional peg. As Victor (Sabretooth for all you comic book fans), Schreiber is the closest character to Jackman’s Wolverine, the one who should be the film’s villain and its soul, but in the finished product feels like little more than a plot device.

It almost doesn’t even bear noting that the terrible miscasting of Ryan Reynolds, and the casting of will.i.am as any character in any movie ever, were huge missteps.

Putting aside the acting issues, Wolverine might well have really died on the page. While I can’t speak to any faithfulness to the original comic books, an origin story like this one is difficult to tackle for the screen, and, since comic mythologies are so detailed and often contradictory, any screen adaptation is almost necessarily convoluted. This is true to some extent even in the greatest origin stories, like Batman Begins or Spider-Man. For any audience that isn’t already intimately familiar with the character from other media, you almost have to expect that you’re missing something, and just catch the details that you can. Writers David Benioff and Skip Woods (who together must only have combined for about 2 ½ semesters in screenplay college) are insensitive to the demands of the genre, and take the laziest way out, relying on hackneyed dialogue and exposition that was alternately clumsy and nonexistent.

While the script may have been a dud, director Gavin Hood (A Reasonable Man, Rendition) didn’t do a whole lot to breathe any life into it. Watching Wolverine, I was amazed at how little $150 million will get you these days. It’s no surprise that, when the finished version of the film leaked out online, 20^th Century Fox, in an effort to curb illegal downloading, insisted the special effects in the leaked version were incomplete. It seems, though, that Hood and the studio never went to the trouble to complete them, even in the theatrical cut. Hood now finds himself helming one of the lousiest summer “tentpole” films in recent memory, though despite his incompetence (undercooked effects, unnecessary closeups, failing to reel in Schreiber’s performance, the two dozen or so shots of characters peering off into the distance, deeply considering things; I could go on), he appears to have a hit on his hands. As of this writing, two days after the film’s release, the estimated weekend take is an almost preposterous $87 million, this considering the fact that a completed cut of the movie was available for free weeks before its release. Also, the reviews have been terrible. Also, so is the movie.

I’m beginning to be less and less surprised every time I see a lousy and unnecessary action sequel have wild box office success. But in the case of Wolverine, I’m still a little shocked. Not that I didn’t expect the film to make money, I just didn’t expect it to pack theaters on a weekday afternoon. Undeservedly, it’s Wolverine’s summer until somebody beats him. So who wants to be Weapon XI?

Film: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Director: Gavin Hood
Stars: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Lynn Collins, will.i.am, Danny Huston, Ryan Reynolds

Viewing situation: Opening day matinee, near full house; digital projection
My grade (out of 10): 2
Rotten Tomatoes average: 37%

Next up: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Summer Movie Suicide Mission ’09: Seeing them all, all summer long. Follow Summer Movie Suicide Mission on Twitter: @SMSM09.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE(Estados Unidos 2.009, 107 Minutos, Acción – Fantástico)
Dirección: Gavin Hood.
Guión: David Benioff, Skip Woods.
Reparto: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds, Taylor Kitsch, Will.i.am, Danny Huston, Dominic Monaghan, Daniel Henney, Lynn Collins.
Fotografía: Donal McAlpine.
Música: Harry Gregson-Williams.

Valoración: 5/10

Sinopsis: Una infancia traumática unió a Logan y Victor, dos hermanos marcados además por el gen mutante que les concede impresionantes poderes. Siempre juntos, ambos luchan en todo tipo de contiendas durante todo un siglo. Pero la guerra deja huella en Víctor, que se convierte en una auténtica máquina de matar a la que sólo Logan puede poner freno. Tras una sangrienta operación secreta liderada por el misterioso Stryker, Logan abandona esas actividades y se retira a una vida apacible junto a su amada Kayla. Pero Víctor reaparece y el destino de Logan parece ser ingresar en el proyecto Arma-X, un evento que marcará para siempre la vida del mutante.

Crítica: Desde que Marvel se instauró como compañía cinematográfica, su estrategia ha sido clara. Incluir a cineastas con nombre dentro de la industria y un estilo propio, que pudieran marcar la diferencia en las diversas adaptaciones de sus muchos personajes. En esta línea se fichó a Louis Leterrier para que dirigiera el resurgir comercial de Hulk, a Jon Favreau para componer al ingenioso y macarra de Iron Man y, en teoría, a Gavin Hood para que hiciera lo propio con un personaje tan importante para la editorial como Lobezno. En teoría, Hood debería imprimir al mutante un tono más serio y oscuro y una visión más profunda y analítica de los factores que le convierten en un héroe especialmente interesante. A saber, ese pasado tortuoso y esa lucha interior entre el hombre y la bestia. La filmografía de Hood, ganador del Oscar por Tsotsi, parece inclinarse por esos derroteros más que por el aprovechamiento comercial descarado de una marca. En Lobezno, desafortunadamente, toda esa cuidada estrategia se queda en eso, en la simple teoría, cuando el estudio se disfraza de realizador e interviene sin rubor en la composición de la película. El resultado es una cinta esquizofrénica, con una doble personalidad bien diferenciada. En su comienzo Hood deja su sello con unos magníficos créditos y una trama más centrada en los conflictos entre personajes, para pasar posteriormente a un melodrama en el que la narración se vuelve confusa, exagerada e incoherente, y en la que Marvel insiste en colar a cualquier precio a todo personaje que tiene en plantilla. Ya lo hizo con Spider-Man 3, metiendo a Veneno por la puerta de atrás, y con una X-Men 3 saturada de secundarios prácticamente testimoniales. Nadie duda que esta es una medida publicitaria única, pero a nivel cinematográfico se convierte en una lacra insalvable para la narración, sobre todo cuando esos cameos son evidentemente innecesarios y se desprestigia, en cierto modo, la imagen que se tiene de tal o cual personaje. Caso aparte merece Hugh Jackman. El australiano derrocha talento, carisma y atractivo, pero va necesitando nuevos retos más complejos desde hace ya tiempo. Indudablemente entretenida pero muy lastrada por las citadas manías de su estudio, Lobezno es una nueva oportunidad perdida de una compañía que lucha, como este personaje, entre abrazar un alma cinematográfica pura en la que prime la calidad y el rigor, y esa bestia llamada beneficios y que grita que todo vale.

How did it all start for Wolverine? Which came first: the lumberjack years, or the shady government experiment gone awry? Just when, exactly, did he “become the animal,” to borrow one associate’s phrase, and how much by choice? Perhaps most importantly, under what thrilling circumstances was he first seen from above howling his grief into the sky, or walking away undisturbed from a slow-motion explosion?

These questions will be answered by X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the elaborate yet curiously dull back-story of Marvel Comics’ favorite razor-clawed mutant badass, while others will go unanswered because they seem so far to have gone unasked. For example: Is it possible that Wolverine and we have grown a little tired of each other?

It’s not impossible. On the big screen, we’ve had him for nine years, as embodied by Hugh Jackman with a winningly polished combination of brutality and vulnerability. And in the fairly comic-book obedient estimation of director Gavin Hood, with screenwriters David Benoiff and Skip Woods, he’s been with us much longer–at least since the 1840s, when a highly upsetting incident with his father catalyzed the young lad’s physical peculiarities and destined him for a long life of alienation. With a supernatural ability to heal from even the gravest of physical injuries, if not from psychic ones, he went on to become a veteran of all the major American wars, thereafter getting recruited into a black-ops unit whose criminal ethics he came to abhor. Also, he had love once, but lost it very painfully.

Although it does take some fan-feud-prompting liberties, the Wolverine script seems mostly checklist-like, constrained by obligations to present certain characters (Danny Houston as the dubious military man, Lynn Collins as the lover, Ryan Reynolds, Taylor Kitsch, Will.I.Am and others as the fellow mutants), or even objects. The priorities are strange. Sure, it matters how the man calling himself Logan came to call himself “Wolverine”–although, with the hair and the claws and all, that should be pretty obvious–but does it also matter how he acquired his leather jacket and motorcycle? Not if the answer is just that he got them from kind elderly farmers who took him in once, in some half-assed cribbing from the story of Superman. Only slightly more compelling is the surgical procedure by which his bones–including the claws, natch–were bonded with indestructible metal. This is important, because it will allow him later on to rip through helicopter blades and nuclear reactor smokestack walls and what have you. There will also be an inventively spectacular beheading.

But what’s supposed to matter most, we gather, is the lifelong struggle between Logan and his half-brother Victor Creed, who will become his nemesis Sabretooth and is played here by Liev Schreiber. “We’re brothers, and brothers look out for each other,” Victor tells Logan more than once, and their preferred method of fraternal caregiving generally consists of facing off in an alleys, lunging at each other in slow motion, and, when that inevitably results in stalemate, arguing about the proper application of their feral natures.

Maybe in another decade we’ll get a movie of them sitting on the porch watching each other’s mutton chops slowly go gray. Maybe then all the good questions finally will be asked and answered.

Hitman

A hitman known only as Number 47 gets caught up in a political conspiracy after one of his targets appears to have survived.

Directed by – Xavier Gens

Written by – Skip Woods

Starring – Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko, Robert Knepper, Ulrich Thomsen, Henry Ian Cusick, Michael Offei, Christian Erickson, Eriq Ebouaney, Joe Sheridan, James Faulkner

This was a perfectly executed action movie. It explodes out of the gate and never stops for anything. Action scene after action scene kept me on the edge of my seat and there’s a great plot to go along with it. Even while the movie barely gives you time to breathe between the action it still manages to weave an interesting and intricate plot.

Timothy Olyphant was great as Number 47. He’s badass enough to believe he’s a hitman and yet still carries that glimmer that underneath it all he’s really not such a bad guy. The only thing that bothered me was that, yet again, we’re starting the story from the ending and flashing back to see how everyone has arrived at that point. Knowing the outcome of the main character is really taking away from the movie for me. I don’t want to know if he’s alive or dead right from the start, I want to be surprised, or as surprised as I can be when most movies are going to end with the good guy winning.

Regardless of that fact it’s still a great movie. It’s definitely one of the better video game adaption flicks and I could easily watch this one again. That’s saying alot when most movies make me want to burn my eyes out!

Under the marquee – Will