The idea of writing about Dot to Dot Festival may have made sense beforehand, but considering that the drinking started before mid-day, the reality is something else entirely. Nottingham's Student Union helpfully offers cups that contain about two-and-a-half pints - they're a thing of beauty, but coupled with all the other alcohol consumed, they make the process of articulating events pretty impossible. Better instead to talk about a film I saw a few weeks ago, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
The X-Men franchise is of particular importance to me. Aged eleven, obsessively reading Uncanny X-Men is almost certainly what instilled in me a passion for reading. I left comicbooks behind during my high-school years, only to get right back into them at college, at which point I started to learn that the genre had more to offer than just superhero comics - whilst also refusing to ignore that side of things, building up a comprehensive knowledge of all things X-Men. So naturally, the release of the movies was of great interest to me, and yet I was never able to fully embrace them. The first two Bryan Singer-directed efforts may have gone down well with the majority of critics and audiences, but to me they were lacking something in comparison to the best comics - they just couldn't compete. In that context, I didn't feel that X-Men 3 was the abomination that many made it out to be; it was simply the subpar culmination of a disappointing trilogy, one that at least showed a certain amount of boldness in a few of its scenes (specifically, the death of one character that I never saw coming, which provided the film with an ending that the established continuity of the comics has always resisted). All of which meant that the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine was of definite interest to me. Which is not to say that I was expecting too much from it.
The film tells the story of Wolverine's formative years - from his mutation activating in tragic circumstances as a young boy named James Howlett, the opening credits go on to show him (now going by the name Logan) and his brother - Victor 'Sabretooth' Creed - fighting in a succession of history's most famous wars, until Victor's violent nature escalates to such an extent that he kills a superior officer. With Logan standing by his brother, the two are sentenced to death by firing squad - which they survive due to their advanced healing factors, at which point they are recruited by William Stryker, joining a secret-ops team of mutants. However, Logan cannot abide the nature of the work Stryker expects of him, and so quits - a decision Victor doesn't take too well.
From this point on, the narrative is ostensibly centred around the conflict between Logan and Victor, with Logan trying desperately to avoid his more animalistic urges until Victor - who has fully embraced that side of himself - pushes him too far, at which point he feels that he has no choice but to become 'Wolverine.' But that would be giving it too much credit, because ultimately it never really explores the idea in any great depth. In fact, it never really does much of anything, except provide a series of CGI set-pieces occassionally punctuated by some expositionary hand-wringing. Hugh Jackman gets to spend a lot of time on his knees whilst looking up towards the sky, screaming "Noooo!" in an overblown manner. He doesn't, however, spend a great deal of time capturing the interest of the viewer. It isn't that Jackman is at fault, just that the plot demands that he spends most of his time moping, and as a consequence, he never gets to display the side of the character that helped make the actor's name when the original film was released - that of the charismatic anti-hero, which is the very essence of Wolverine's personality. What's more, the ensemble cast is largely underutilised. Liev Schreiber gets a reasonable amount of screen time, and uses it well, proving to be the best thing about the movie - he exudes the necessary menace to give justification to Wolverine's quest for vengeance. Everyone else is consigned to a peripheral role, and as far as the likes of Will.I.Am and Ryan Reynolds are concerned, that's probably for the best, but of genuine disappointment is that Gambit (as played by Taylor Kitsch - who excels in the superb Friday Night Lights television series) barely gets a look in. The laidback nature of Gambit's character would have added a sense of levity to the film, providing a nice contrast to the grim-and-gritty tone that prevails throughout. As it is, though, the misery prevails.
Even that would be acceptable in terms of setting the mood, if it weren't for the fact that the film doesn't hang together all that well. The love interest plot falls flat, providing both the painfully trite anecdote from which Wolverine derives his name, and a poor performance from Lynn Collins (as Kayla Silverfox), failures that undermine the entire narrative - they're intended to provide Wolverine with his motivation, yet it's impossible to truly invest in them. The final third unnecessarily complicates things, introducing a secret island (of all things), as well as Scott Summers (a.k.a. Cyclops) and a handful of other characters recognisable to those familiar with the X-Men mythos, none of whom add anything to the plot, serving only as a half-hearted attempt to address the human versus mutant conflict represented throughout the history of the franchise. And the manner in which the film ends essentially means that none of the events that preceded it matter anyway, a final insult to the audience.
Even with all that said, the film certainly isn't unwatchable - it moves along at a reasonable pace, for the most part. But there is no pressing reason for it to exist - it adds nothing to the character, which is a critical failing for a film intended to define him.
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