Wolverine

I watched Wolverine at the 12:09 AM showing the day it opened.  The night before my first law school final of the semester. Yeah, I wanted to watch it that bad.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t as awesome as I expected.

My friend asked me what I thought…and it was really quite sad when all I could muster was, “It was okay.”  He sighed and said the same thing.  But neither of us could really pinpoint what was so wrong.  It had ALL the right ingredients to be fantastic:

1. HUGH JACKMAN
2. Special Effects
3. Awesome fight scenes
4. A great back story

But at the end of it, I was left distinctly unsatisfied.  I felt like the movie never really reached a climax.  There was so much room for so much more plot development that by simply touching on everything, I was left dissatisfied.  It was all flash and no content.  It was reducing an epic poem like The Odyssey into a limerick.

Plus, I was a fan of the comics, the old cartoons, the trading cards and the like…and I was unhappy with some of the changes they made to the storyline and the characters.   For example, as hot as Daniel Henney was as Agent Zero, the comic book character was supposed to be a guy named David North who is East German.  Not half-Korean, half-British hotness.  Not that I’m really complaining about that choice, but simply to emphasize the difference in their adaptation of the comics.

I was also pretty sure it was not Silver Fox that led to Wolverine’s demise, but Lady Deathstrike, as Yuriko Oyama, Wolverine’s fiancee.  I also thought it was her father who invented adamantium in the first place.  *shrug*

However, there’s still Hugh Jackman.  One can never go wrong there.  He was all rippling muscle and thrilling snarls.  Anger and testosterone. Animal magnetism and … um … facial hair.  Suffice it to say, I at least enjoyed having him on screen 90% of the time.

Liev Schrieber was also really really good in his role as Sabretooth.  He was that kind of character that really had no qualms about killing for the heck of it, where everything served no greater purpose than his own.

Ryan Reynolds, as always, also adds humor & his hot body to the movie as Deadpool.

However, aside from those three, I didn’t think the rest of the roles were very well-acted.

It’s still a popcorn-munching fun of a blockbuster movie for sure, though!  I’d still recommend watching it in theaters for the special effects, and waiting for the DVD which will hopefully have better character development in the deleted scenes.

Grade: B-