FILM: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

NO-ONE CAN STOP THE CLAW Hugh Jackman returns to the role that made him a star in ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’.

Prequel lost me at goodbye


Cinema
Daniel Carey

BACK in the bad old days, rugby followers used to say that the Irish team would be unbeatable if matches lasted 60 minutes rather than 80. Invariably, the boys in green would still be going strong around the hour mark, when all of a sudden they would run out of ideas.
This is basically what happens with ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’. As far as I know, director Gavin Hood was not involved in the Irish rugby set-up in the early 1990s. But the parallels are too obvious to ignore. This prequel to the X-Men trilogy starts off at a mile a minute, all energy, enthusiasm and creativity. The pace is nicely sustained for the first half, and then boom – it blows up into a series of set-pieces before a messy end. No Grand Slams needed here.
Hugh Jackman is back, reprising his role as Logan/Wolverine, and is always likeable even if he’s not on top form here. His psychopathic brother, Victor (played with relish by Liev Schreiber), is the star of the show, and the uneasy relationship between them is well teased out.
The action sequences in the early stages work well. Opening in 19th-century Canada, we are introduced to Logan and Victor as children. Both possess retractable claws in their knuckles, though bizarrely for a picture with ‘origins’ in the title, how these sharp weapons got there is never addressed. Both appear to be indestructible, and their self-healing powers come in useful as they serve in every to-do from the American Civil War to Vietnam. (They don’t age once they reach a certain level of adulthood, but that isn’t explained either. Never mind).
Having fallen foul of army discipline, they are offered a way out by William Stryker (Danny Huston), who is putting together ‘a special team with special privileges’. Victor is in his element, wreaking havoc with no consequences, but Logan has decided war is hell and wants out of the murky world of black ops.
Fast forward six years later. Our hero (by now sporting the maddest sideburns ever seen on screen) is a happily domesticated lumberjack, living with a wife who’s clearly doomed. “Looks like we’re going to need new sheets again, baby,” she notes after a nightmare leaves him clawing the bedclothes.
Logan’s old mutant colleagues show up and his blissful life is shattered – around the same time that the movie begins to lose its way. There’s a lot of talk about revenge, Logan’s ‘true nature’ and ‘embracing the animal’. Most of what happens from here on in appears to be a chance to remind the audience what special powers each of the characters have.
And ‘remind’ is the operative word here. In the early part of the film, the fact that a guy can disappear before reappearing somewhere else seems cool. Mind control and an ability to keep disconnected lights burning also get a giggle. But as time goes on, we seem to be revisiting everybody so they can show us what they do a second, third or fourth time. All that’s missing is the mutants turning to the camera after each fight and telling us, à la Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda’: “I did it with my powers.”
And if Jerry Maguire had Dorothy Boyd at hello, ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ effectively lost this viewer entirely at goodbye. In the closing stages, some of the characters’ behaviour made no sense to me, while certain bizarre things happen, presumably to tie up loose ends that fit in with the later (though already released) movies. Confused? You probably will be.