X Men 2: Pulling the Wolverine over our eyes...

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen. Before we throw ourselves headlong into yet more "critical analysis" (which here takes the meaning of bilious ranting as per usual), a rare moment of peaceful reflection. Try not to choke on your biscuits.

I won't keep you long: you may or may not know I started this blog back in September last year as a bit of a laugh and wasn't ever expecting anyone to read more than about two posts. Now, I'm not saying I'm trying to be Internet Famous (who the hell would actually want that?) but according to the analytics that I can't really interpret properly and my own spreadsheet (of course I have my own spreadsheet) I'll hit 1000 post views, some point in the imminent future. I've got about 100 of you fine, upstanding people on the Facebook group. That's way more than I ever expected, so a genuine thanks to all of you for being a part of what is effectively me flapping my gums from safely behind my keyboard. If I weren't so lazy I'd run some sort of giveaway/competition to celebrate, but I am really, really lazy.

Anyway, enough of this mawkish sentimental crap. We're here for a reason and that reason today is to administer a brutal savaging to the shameful debacle that was Wolverine: Origins.  

There's no need to sugar-coat anything here; "shit-show" is a fairly accurate and relatively polite description of what got left in lovingly coiled piles on our cinema screens. There were issues with this movie from the start; initially everyone thought we were going to get Weapon X, which would have been awesome. Then we found out Deadpool was going to be in it and the Internet lost its collective shit, especially when Ryan Reynolds was cast. Now that, obviously, worked out pretty well in the long run because last year's standalone Deadpool movie was awesome for a whole host of reasons. We'll come back to the first attempt at Deadpool later, but really it should have started flagging up warning signs that a side character in your own origin movie was more hotly anticipated than the main protagonist. It'd be like going to a Superman movie more excited about getting to see Jimmy Olsen than Superman. Which actually isn't so far from the truth nowadays but let's just gloss over that and move swiftly on.

So why did we not get what we expected? Weapon X is a fantastic comic, but if you look at it hard it's not very film friendly. Wolverine spends a great deal of his time in a VR helmet, nappy and not a lot else. He spends a lot of time murdering seven shades out of things and grunting, which is great for a cameo, but doesn't really carry a movie on its own. This was all before they got Deadpool right and ushered in the possibility of an R-rated superhero movie that actually might recoup its costs. Hollywood slowly working out that the audience for comic book movies isn't actually aged 10-14, it's giant man-children like me who are still grasping tightly to our youth and haven't had the good grace to settle down, start smoking a pipe and discussing whether or not today would be a good day to organise the shed. So instead of Weapon X we get some sort of revenge plot thing, where Stryker is trying to replicate Wolverine by magically fusing together the super powers of his former CIA kill squad made up of a Hobbit (I can never remember which one), Will.I.Am (who mercifully doesn't regale us with any of his pop hits), The Blob and a slightly less hirsute Sabretooth. Personal hygiene and good grooming are clearly important in this Wolverine's world, as well as being a good foot shorter; how did we go from 6 foot plus of snarling idiot in X-Men to creepy Liev Schreiber in this? I digress.

Basically the whole plot, if you want to call it that, is just pulling everything towards the final fight scene with Deadpool. Which is where the comic-reading world curled up into the foetal position and began weeping openly like so many children lost in a supermarket. We could list the calamities that befell Deadpool: laser eyes  (I have no idea why they're even there, other than to have a way to topple the cooling tower they're fighting on) swords hidden inside his arms (with blades so long they'd render the elbow immobile and he'd be walking around like Frankenstein's monster) teleportation (which I know Deadpool has, but in this context it's just all wrong and you kinda need Cable for that) and of course the fact that they sort of fused his mouth together. At which point the Internet let out an audible whimper, shut down and went to its safe space for a few days.

It's a fascinating character decision. They took all the things that actually made him Deadpool and sort of excised them, replacing them with strange and randomly selected super powers. Deadpool in this movie isn't even really a plot device. It could have been any nameless drone sandwiched together from any number of disposable mutants; he's literally just there to give Wolverine something to do while Stryker finds his magical amnesia-tipped adamantium bullets. There's literally nothing here worth any sort of praise; Jackman grumbles through his lines in a suitably Wolverine-esque fashion, but when you're given absolute crap like introducing The Blob's name by having him mishear Wolverine say 'Bub' you are not on a winner. Trust me, I know crap puns. 

The Wolverine, (King of Snappy Titles) was better but only by virtue of the fact it didn't get as much stuff wrong. Or at least it did, but not anything anyone cared very much about. Silver Samurai becomes a giant suit of armour (think a Japanese Ironmonger but with added chrome cleaner), Wolverine loses his healing powers because he swallowed an insect or something, Silver Samurai turns out to be a war buddy who needs Wolverine's adamantium or healing powers or blood or something so he can not die of old age (there are more efficient ways of getting a hip replacement than connecting yourself to a giant murder-bot #justsaying) but apparently the only way to do that is lead him a merry chase round Japan and then goad him into sticking his claws in the specially designed knuckles of the Silver Samurai suit... wait, stop. I'm done. I'm all for ludicrous sci-fi, with gun battles and sword fights and explosions but the flimsiness of the narrative just gets in the way. It's more like one of the crap early 2000s Bond movies in places (fight scene on the roof of a train anyone?) and it's just... disappointing.

Logan on the other hand was an absolute joy to watch. Not just a fitting swan song, but a genuinely affecting movie which was R-rated violent (thanks Deadpool), but still thoughtful. There are a couple of hokey moments, but as a piece of storytelling, I genuinely can't think of a better way to end a pretty chequered story. On the whole I think the X-Men Cinematic Universe has been fair to middling, but I will concede Wolverine being a fairly consistent high point. Hats off Mr. Jackman, and best of luck to the actor who gets the call for the inevitable reboot a couple of years down the line...