I just made a Twitter for the following reasons:
1. I need to practice brevity
2. If I have no one to text I now have someone to text
3. Celebrities like Justin Long and Ethan Suplee have one
4. I could use one more thing that keeps me from getting 7-8 hours of sleep
Feel free to glance half-heartedly to the right, between my blog entries and the scroll bar. You'll find my twitter gadget there (if I did it right).
Back to work:
#3: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
I can't help but be drawn to any film that involves superheroes; that includes you, Mystery Men. For whatever reason I wasn't too psyched for this despite the fact that I loved the X-Men trilogy, I love Deadpool, and I love Ryan Reynolds. That should have tipped me off. When it came around in theaters I didn't do the usual hunt around for midnight showings and bob my leg in anticipation. I meandered to a theater two weeks after its release. Unfortunately, that was the appropriate response for what seems to have been an only mildly-interested effort by the creators.
I think I've already referenced the astute staff at The A/V Club for The Onion at least one or two times in the few blog entries I've composed so far, but one of the most intelligent comments I've heard about this movie is that the draw to Wolverine's character is that he's shrouded in mystery; delineating that mystery makes him a lot less interesting. Besides the fact that the inaccuracies in the story were glaring even to someone who has only a basic familiarity with the comics, a haphazard mess of half-answers to all of your Wolverine questions makes for what was clearly little more than a vehicle for unconvincing CGI and over-the-top cinematic action.
I'm sorry. That sounded harsh. I didn't hate this movie.
Hugh Jackman gave another fun performance as Wolverine. The integration of some of the series' lesser-known characters was intriguing. And the final crazy battle sequence--while somewhat unbelievable even for a movie about mutants--was very well-choreographed and filmed.
The problems (as usual with movies in this genre) lie in bad acting, unnecessary absurd action, and the complete refusal to stop at one. For anyone not named Ryan Reynolds or Hugh Jackman, the acting was either uninspired or excessive. And even Hugh was pushing it. The action was completely ridiculous. The scene you probably saw on television where Wolverine is basically flying towards a suspiciously dexterous helicopter is ten times longer and ten times worse than it was in the commercial. And just short of having Hugh Jackman in the film's final moment look intimidatingly at the screen and whisper "Can't wait for round two," they could not have made it any more clear that they expect to see you two summers from now when the sequel to this is out. You'll have to let me know how it is.
I don't regret seeing the film. It was hokey in the way that most other super hero movies are. But the formula is rapidly approaching hackneyed as producers and directors jockey for position in cinematic musical chairs: who will be the one to sufficiently kill the super hero movie fad. This one didn't, but it certainly didn't help.
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