Reviewing the Previews: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

We all love doing it. Sitting in the theatre before a movie starts watching the trailers we make immediate judgments on how good the movie will be as soon as the 60-90 second preview ends. Dane Cook has a comedy bit about this.

As much as I dislike most movie trailers for giving away the whole movie they do give us an insight into how a film will play out, though I must say in some instances the film is outpaced by its trailer (see every romantic comedy to be churned out in the last 5 years).

(Potential spoilers about the films to follow, stop reading if you want to avoid them)
-I have very subdued expectations for this film, given how the third X-men feature went. Hugh Jackman is good as Wolverine, definitely looks the part, but can he actually carry an entire film with it? We’ve yet to see him in a completely starring film role (Boy from Oz doesn’t count) in a GOOD movie.

-From the trailer it looks like we’ll be going highlander style through the years as we see him dressed in civil war outfit and world war II army fatigues. We’re gonna get the complete arc of his life as several scenes involve him as a young boy too. If you’ve wondered about how Wolverine got this way, this is certainly the film for you.

-However, it does look like they are trying to cram as many comic book heroes and x-men into the film as possible. From first glance besides Wolverine, it looks like we’ll get to see Sabretooth (played deliciously it seems by Liev Schreiber), Emma Frost “The White Queen”, Deadpool, The Blob, Agent Zero, Beak, Cyclops (not played by James Marsden), and Gambit (YAY! FINALLY!) And that’s just all the ones you can make out from the trailer, who knows who else might show up.

-The problem with so many is that clearly we’ll be given the 10 second introduction to each one with maybe a gentle montage about their abilities and backgrounds. But no matter what, some characters are going to be left behind as far as character development goes, which is sad since the X-men have an entire universe (literally) of great stories to tell. You just hope none of them get short-changed.

-There also is a ton of whiz-bang action. Humvees chasing Wolverine on motorcycle, him getting launched at a helicopter, explosions, boxing matches, war scenes, etc. There’s going to be a ton going on. You wonder if the story will be bogged down in itself with all this action.

-The fight scene between Sabretooth and Wolverine could be epic. I’m hoping that they really give time for this, like 15 or 20 minutes of just all out war between the two of them. Really the whole film should build to this moment and if it does; they need to deliver.

In the end, its hard even for a cynic like me, not to be excited by this film. At the very least we get another shot at having X-men on the screen and thankfully Brett Ratner isn’t involved. So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice. Rating: 8/10