Written by David Benioff and Skip Woods
Directed by Gavin Hood
“Do I look like a man who exaggerates?”
Well, we didn’t fall to the depths of X-Men 3 (thank god)…but this was still a great disappointment.
The only reason Wolverine is successful — in any way — is due to the presence of Hugh Jackman. After four films, he knows his character back to front, and it’s his sheer personality, drive, charm, and (I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but…) animal magnetism that carries most of the movie forward.
But even with his incredible talents, Jackman is functioning on auto-pilot. He’s going through well-worn motions from the beginning of the film to its end…a fault that marbles the entire film.
This film has too many characters (something Marvel didn’t learn with Spider-Man 3) and not enough depth. The plot moves from A to B to C…mechanically, without any epicness, or subtlety. No one is given much beyond token (or should that read paper thin) character development; the story exists to simply hit all the beats of Logan’s past life…checking off every event, explaining every motivation, until we reach the point where he needs to be, just prior to the first X-Men film. No time to stop and think…it’s all go-go-go. If this movie felt any more automated, a computer could have claimed a writing credit!
Mind you, I’ll give the film credit for the ONE time it attempts to stop and smell the character-development roses…and then pulls the rug out from under the audience, by killing off the elderly couple that takes in Logan, after his escape from Stryker. The movie could have (desperately) used more scenes like this.
The rest of the cast doesn’t invest anything extra in the film. In fact, aside from Jackman, the cast clearly divides into a number of sad categories: (1) actors wasted in virtual cameos (eg. Ryan Reynolds, Dominic Monaghan); (2) actors forced to create characters entirely on their own, and make the best of it (eg. Liev Schreiber); (3) actors who are far too bland and/or caricatured (eg. Will i Am, Lynn Collins); (4) actors who are forced to recreate a role originated by a far superior actor (I’m looking at you Danny Houston…unfortunately, you’re no Brian Cox).
So…lots of explosions, lots of fights, lots of jokes…but even with its sparse running time (only 1 hour and 48 minutes), I was bored out of my skull at several points throughout the film. Mind you, Wolverine certainly doesn’t out-stay its welcome…which is one up on X-Men 3!
4
