Why Wolverine sucks and Star Trek will be awesome!
So like a lot of people, Friday night I packed a bunch of friends together to go see X-Men Origins: Wolverine, when it turns out the thing I should have done was stayed home and continued my prep for the new Star Trek film. It’s not that I thought that Wolverine was completely horrible or that I think the film will bring the downfall of society or anything, like Ghost Rider or the Fantastic Four movies, I just think it’s sad that even when watching the original effects from 1966 first season of Star Trek, that you get more polished visuals than you do in a modern $140 Million comic book epic.
Seriously Fox, I purposely stayed away from the crappy work print with unfinished effects in order to be blown away by what you were going to give me on the big screen, and instead I was blown away by the utter mediocrity of the whole experience. First of all, I haven’t seen special effects that noticeably bad since I Am Legend and at least that film had amazing shots of post-apocalyptic New York. Wolverine surprises with just how jaw-droppingly bad some of this stuff is, especially toward the end. Were there no woods available at the end of the shoot for children to run through instead of having them do it in a green-screen shot? The moment is so obvious and jarring, when it seems that it could have been fixed by say, having your actors run through some wooded area.
That’s not to say that the movie is all bad. I can appreciate the kind of motif that seemed to put Wolverine in the middle of an 80’s action movie, with plenty of double dealings, orchestrated fights, and a plethora of well-timed explosions. Hugh Jackman is still really charismatic in the lead role, and I like most of the casting, especially Liev Schreiber, who makes a perfectly intimidating Sabretooth, but no matter how good they are there’s just so much ground these guys can make up.
First off, let me just go on record to say that while using the “de-aging” effect at the beginning of X3 worked to some degree, you don’t have to use it every time out with one of these movies, but while the sin of bad special effects in a high profile movie that costs this much is pretty unforgivable, there’s still a ton of other things that bother me about this picture. For instance, the movie’s script needed some major work before this thing went out. The first half of this movie feels like little more than a highlight reel; from the all too short opening to the cool, but clearly sanitized credits sequence, to the events that lead to Wolverine’s adamantium bonding. None of this stuff gets time to breath when you probably could have stretched any of these things into a whole movie by itself.
I realize that Fox wants to get to the modern Wolverine so they can pump out more X-Men action figures, but there’s so much stuff here that could have been explored that each time it feels like a missed opportunity. Just looking at Wolverine in the various wars, fighting along Sabretooth could have been incredibly awesome if it were just given some room. Does no one realize how awesome a movie about Logan fighting Nazis could have been?
Then we get to the section of the film where Wolverine, who is just called Logan all of the sudden in the movie for virtually no reason, joins a government sanctioned special forces group and becomes a sort of mercenary for hire. Again, while we do get a cool action sequence out of this, this just feels like more lip service paid to what could have been an awesome section in this film. The story of this tight unit that gets more and more disillusioned with what they’re doing, while Sabretooth or Victor Creed or whatever you want to call him gets more and more bloodlust in him could have added some real depth to these characters if handled more mindfully. Seemingly Wanted was able to build an entire movie around this type of concept, and that film is several times over more entertaining than this one ends up being. The whole thing is really just a clothesline to hang all the movies actions scenes on, but for every cool barn exploding/Wolverine taking out a helicopter sequence, there’s some silly bastardization of a Marvel storyline, such as Deadpool’s origin.
Also, the whole experience just feels so tame. I don’t want to rag on PG-13 movies, but there’s a type of visceral impact you expect from a movie about a character who kills people with huge metal claws. For some reason, Bryan Singer was able to get this across really well in the first two X-Men movies and even to some degree we got that in Ratner’s entry, but here this whole movie just feels like it’s made for the kiddies, other than one decapitation. Honestly, I don’t understand why Logan’s escape from Alkali Lake couldn’t have at least been as bloody as the flashbacks to “Weapon X” in X2. That’s really just a continuity issue as much as anything else.
This movie though, has scenes that occur in wartime, with Logan and Victor running across some of the bloodiest battlefields in the history of the world, and what we end up getting on screen is the equivalent of a local re-enactment that your dad dresses up for. Really though, I’m not asking for Saw or even Watchmen here, I’m just asking for the same visceral experience that the previous movies gave me not to even mention what The Dark Knight had to offer. I remember seeing Wolverine’s claws goes through a soldier’s foot in X2 and remembering how crazy it was to get away from that. This movie has a character rip someone’s throat out, but then we don’t even get a bloody hand in the aftermath. Your run of the mill episode of Heroes has way more blood in it than this kiddie-fied lamefest.
Alright, I meant to only say a few words about this, but clearly I had more problems with the movie than I initially thought. Thankfully though, the cavalry is on the horizon. Like it’s done in dozens of episodes and movies, the Enterprise is riding in to save the day and hopefully save the summer before Wolverine’s huge misstep threatens to derail the whole summer movie season. Because my rant went on longer than I anticipated, we’re getting a quick run-through of the awesome Star Trek stuff to watch before taking in the new movie. If you don’t like Star Trek at all, you may want to skip this discussion and I’ll see you next week, for the rest of us nerds that are still here, here we go.
1. The Star Trek “Trilogy” – Now while this isn’t an official Star Trek Trilogy (Though there’s a new box set that says this very title coming out) this is the phrase used to refer to Star Trek’s II, III, and IV. If you really want a quick rundown on what Star Trek is about, this is where I’d start. In fact, this is where I started. Star Trek II was one of those videos as a child that I would watch over and over and became my first introduction to the Trek universe. I wish that somehow I’d known about it in some other way first, because the impact of the end of the film would have been strong, but Wrath of Khan is still one of those movies I can watch over and over.
My Dad was then responsible for taking me to the theater to see the other two movies, as well as the rest of the films up until Insurrection, which is the only Trek outing I’ve missed since Wrath of Khan. Point is though, if you watch only these three movies in preparation for this new movie, I think that’s all you’ll really need. More than anything else, you get a sense of the relationship between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, which is the most important element in all of Star Trek and the evolution of that relationship in the movies are pretty prevalent here.
2.Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country – I think there’s some degree of greatness here, but not on the same level as Wrath of Khan. This last run of the original crew is a terrific “whodunnit” yarn, and not only that, it has a terrific Cold War theme that really works. Having an amazing adventure is one thing, but Trek has also always had great themes to back it up and that’s what’s going on here. Also, I’m a sucker for Kim Cattrall during this period.
3. Star Trek: First Contact– The only GREAT Star Trek film from The Next Generation crew, First Contact is thought provoking, funny, and action packed. Much like sequels to many superhero franchises, First Contact was unfettered by being the TNG crew’s first outing and therefore, it can just be a terrific adventure. Co-written by Next Generation vets Brannon Braga, now a writer on the currently awesome season of 24, and Ronald D. Moore, the creator of Battlestar Gallactica, the best Science Fiction series of this new millennium,First Contact is one of Star Trek’s finest franchise moments on the big screen.
4. Old School Episodes – Want more Kirk, Spock, and McCoy? Well go back and check out some awesome episodes from The Original Series, including “City on the Edge of Forever” (Perhaps Trek’s finest moment ever), “Space Seed” (The Birth of Khan), “Mirror, Mirror” (Evil Spock), “The Menagerie” (All the Christopher Pike you need before the new movie), and tons more. If you feel like it, I also like really goofy episodes like “The Trouble with Tribbles” and “A Piece of the Action”, both of which show the humor in the show. “A Piece of the Action” has the Enterprise encountering a planet that is completely run by 30’s gangsters for example.
5. Other Stuff – I’m a huge fan of The Next Generation which ran 7 seasons, my favorite episodes being Yesterday’s Enterprise, “Elementary, Dear Data”, “The Inner Light”, “”The Best of Both Worlds, Part I &II”, and one of the best series finales I’ve ever seen in my life, “All Good Things…”. Avoid Star Trek: Voyager at all costs, and Deep Space Nine does have some exceptional episodes on its own. Those wanting to explore Star Trek: Enterprise will find some good stuff with “In a Mirror, Darkly Parts I & II” which are both great fun and take place in the Mirror universe introduced in The Original Series episode “Mirror Mirror.
As for the other films, I can stomach Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but it’s not for everybody. If you’re really looking for one more Star Trek film, I’d recommend Star Trek: Insurrection, which plays like a long episode from the TV show, but still has plenty of action and a lot of humor. It’s an odd Trek film, but still a fun one.
Alright folks, I’ll see you guys post-Trek. Here’s hoping it’s as awesome as I think it’s going to be.
