X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE
May 3rd 2009 22:42
Category: Movies
Based on the Marvel comic character Wolverine created by Lee Wein & John Romita Snr
Director: Gavin Hood
Screenplay by: David Benioff & Skip Woods
Producers: Hugh Jackman, John Palermo, Lauren Schuler Donner & Ralph Winter
Starring: Hugh Jackman (Logan/Wolverine), Liev Schreiber (Victor Creed), Patrick Stewart (Charles Xavier), Will i Am (John Wraith), Lynn Collins (Kayla Silverfox), Taylor Kitsch (Gambit), Ryan Reynolds (Wade Wilson/Deadpool) & Danny Huston (Colonel Stryker).
Produced by: 20th Century Fox & Marvel
Released by: 20th Century Fox
Running Time: 110 minutes approx
Of all the many characters that have populated the Marvel Universe, and the X Men chronicles in particular, Wolverine has always been one of the most interesting and enigmatic. A man with a skeleton of adamantium, adamantium claws along with a healing factor that effectively makes him nigh indestructible, but the question that has puzzled fans of the comics was just exactly how did Wolverine end up the way he did. Certainly the origins of Wolverine have been detailed in the printed media in various forms and guises down through the years, now though we finally get to see the silver screen version of this particular tale. Our tale begins with the young James, a young boy suffering a bout of illness at home in the North West Territories of Canada sometime in the mid nineteenth century, a time when influenza and pneumonia could quite easily kill a young child. Kind of unusual considering that Logan becomes such a hardy and enduring individual in later life…
After a family tragedy involving the young Logan, his father and Victor Creed’s father, sees both him and Victor running off into the Canadian wilderness and from there to the south and the United States. The credits forms an interesting montage of the story of the young men as we say them fighting first in the Americana Civil War, then the First World War, the Normandy landings of WWII and then the Vietnam War which sees the two finally end up in front of a firing squad after some serious conflict with their superior officer and fellow soldiers. Put in front of a firing squad it would have been the end, if they were normal individuals, but they end up languishing in a rat infested prison cell wondering what will happen next. Enter Colonel Stryker…
One of the key elements within the X Men chronicles has been the element of government involvement in secret experimentation on mutants, often citizens of their own nation, in order to either create a super soldier or to find a means to combat these potential ‘menaces’ to the ‘good decent’ folk of Middle America. Naturally the very fact that the methods employed in such efforts are often questionable if not downright reprehensible and immoral never seems to enter the minds of those undertaking such programs. Still as they say, the road to hell is very much paved with good intentions. Colonel Stryker is an individual who has embraced this moral ambiguity in order to pursue his own crusade against a potential menace to American society, the ends in his view justifies the means.
The program that Stryker is in charge of is what many comic fans would know as Weapon X, on the surface to those from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill who need to know this is a program by the US military to create a super soldier to defend US interests in an increasingly shaky global climate. Stryker recruits the two brothers, Creed and Logan, in the cesspit of a US military prison cell in Vietnam for his special unit to undertake his agenda. They make their way to Lagos where a raid is staged on what appears to be a local warlord’s compound; an individual who seems to be heavily involved in the illegal diamond smuggling trade. Strangely though Stryker is not interested in all the illegal diamonds, he has his eyes on a rock of some black, glossy substance, this is the grail that he is looking for.
What can be so special about this rock? Well for one its extraterrestrial in nature for the other it is the source of that amazing metal that makes up Wolverine’s skeletal structure in later stories. With this material Stryker believes that he can at last achieve a major portion of his dreams, unfortunately Logan is getting sick of the whole affair and of Stryker’s methods and the fact that his brother, Creed, is as happy as a pig in mud with the way things are. After a tense confrontation in the Nigerian countryside Logan decides that he is going to call it quits and walks off into the deeps of the jungle hopefully putting this despicable affair behind.
Six years later we see Logan living with his girlfriend Kayla, a local school teacher, in the pristine wilderness of the Canadian Rockies. Here, in what could easily be called God’s Country for its pristine unspoilt wilderness, Logan makes ends meet as a lumberjack and even though he has the odd nightmare his life is great. Of course though all good things must come to an end, although Logan has no idea just what is going on with his life when Stryker and Creed decide to intrude into it with extreme prejudice. The end result of it all is that Logan is convinced by the insidious colonel to undergo the adamantium augmentation process so he can have the means to bring about the end of his brother.
It has to be said that the makers of this film have really worked with integrating the storyline into the overall storyline of the other movies, as well as including a few characters from the X Men comics that never made it into any of the previous films. We also get to see Deadpool, a character from Marvel comics who is often a semi comical character but here turns out to be the overall end goal of Stryker’s Weapon X program. In the six years since Logan’s absence Stryker and Creed have not been idle, they have been continuing to forward their agenda which has been capturing other mutants and stealing their powers for use by the Deadpool, the Deadpool being one of the unit that both Creed and Logan served with in Lagos, a guy by the name of Wade. It’s also interesting to finally see the inclusion of Remy Le Beau also known as Gambit, so called because he is a master card sharp into the corpus of X Men and related films.
This was a good film for a Sunday afternoon, which was when I finally got the chance to see it at my local cinema, and it was time and money well spent as far as I’m concerned. One could almost say that the role of Wolverine was made for Hugh Jackman, he plays the part well and does bring something of a degree of humanity to the character that has been lacking in the printed medium. Don’t wait for it to come out on video, take the time out to see it at your local cinema.
Director: Gavin Hood
Screenplay by: David Benioff & Skip Woods
Producers: Hugh Jackman, John Palermo, Lauren Schuler Donner & Ralph Winter
Starring: Hugh Jackman (Logan/Wolverine), Liev Schreiber (Victor Creed), Patrick Stewart (Charles Xavier), Will i Am (John Wraith), Lynn Collins (Kayla Silverfox), Taylor Kitsch (Gambit), Ryan Reynolds (Wade Wilson/Deadpool) & Danny Huston (Colonel Stryker).
Produced by: 20th Century Fox & Marvel
Released by: 20th Century Fox
Running Time: 110 minutes approx
Of all the many characters that have populated the Marvel Universe, and the X Men chronicles in particular, Wolverine has always been one of the most interesting and enigmatic. A man with a skeleton of adamantium, adamantium claws along with a healing factor that effectively makes him nigh indestructible, but the question that has puzzled fans of the comics was just exactly how did Wolverine end up the way he did. Certainly the origins of Wolverine have been detailed in the printed media in various forms and guises down through the years, now though we finally get to see the silver screen version of this particular tale. Our tale begins with the young James, a young boy suffering a bout of illness at home in the North West Territories of Canada sometime in the mid nineteenth century, a time when influenza and pneumonia could quite easily kill a young child. Kind of unusual considering that Logan becomes such a hardy and enduring individual in later life…
After a family tragedy involving the young Logan, his father and Victor Creed’s father, sees both him and Victor running off into the Canadian wilderness and from there to the south and the United States. The credits forms an interesting montage of the story of the young men as we say them fighting first in the Americana Civil War, then the First World War, the Normandy landings of WWII and then the Vietnam War which sees the two finally end up in front of a firing squad after some serious conflict with their superior officer and fellow soldiers. Put in front of a firing squad it would have been the end, if they were normal individuals, but they end up languishing in a rat infested prison cell wondering what will happen next. Enter Colonel Stryker…
The program that Stryker is in charge of is what many comic fans would know as Weapon X, on the surface to those from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill who need to know this is a program by the US military to create a super soldier to defend US interests in an increasingly shaky global climate. Stryker recruits the two brothers, Creed and Logan, in the cesspit of a US military prison cell in Vietnam for his special unit to undertake his agenda. They make their way to Lagos where a raid is staged on what appears to be a local warlord’s compound; an individual who seems to be heavily involved in the illegal diamond smuggling trade. Strangely though Stryker is not interested in all the illegal diamonds, he has his eyes on a rock of some black, glossy substance, this is the grail that he is looking for.
What can be so special about this rock? Well for one its extraterrestrial in nature for the other it is the source of that amazing metal that makes up Wolverine’s skeletal structure in later stories. With this material Stryker believes that he can at last achieve a major portion of his dreams, unfortunately Logan is getting sick of the whole affair and of Stryker’s methods and the fact that his brother, Creed, is as happy as a pig in mud with the way things are. After a tense confrontation in the Nigerian countryside Logan decides that he is going to call it quits and walks off into the deeps of the jungle hopefully putting this despicable affair behind.
Six years later we see Logan living with his girlfriend Kayla, a local school teacher, in the pristine wilderness of the Canadian Rockies. Here, in what could easily be called God’s Country for its pristine unspoilt wilderness, Logan makes ends meet as a lumberjack and even though he has the odd nightmare his life is great. Of course though all good things must come to an end, although Logan has no idea just what is going on with his life when Stryker and Creed decide to intrude into it with extreme prejudice. The end result of it all is that Logan is convinced by the insidious colonel to undergo the adamantium augmentation process so he can have the means to bring about the end of his brother.
It has to be said that the makers of this film have really worked with integrating the storyline into the overall storyline of the other movies, as well as including a few characters from the X Men comics that never made it into any of the previous films. We also get to see Deadpool, a character from Marvel comics who is often a semi comical character but here turns out to be the overall end goal of Stryker’s Weapon X program. In the six years since Logan’s absence Stryker and Creed have not been idle, they have been continuing to forward their agenda which has been capturing other mutants and stealing their powers for use by the Deadpool, the Deadpool being one of the unit that both Creed and Logan served with in Lagos, a guy by the name of Wade. It’s also interesting to finally see the inclusion of Remy Le Beau also known as Gambit, so called because he is a master card sharp into the corpus of X Men and related films.
This was a good film for a Sunday afternoon, which was when I finally got the chance to see it at my local cinema, and it was time and money well spent as far as I’m concerned. One could almost say that the role of Wolverine was made for Hugh Jackman, he plays the part well and does bring something of a degree of humanity to the character that has been lacking in the printed medium. Don’t wait for it to come out on video, take the time out to see it at your local cinema.
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