Critics' Reviews: Discussion

[Kanon]

It's 6/6 in rottentomatoes now...

 

[Drz]

Well like i said about Watchmen, that was like 95% before most critics started coming. I can see this movie getting slightly better reviews than Watchmen due to the general populace understanding this plot heh. =P

 

[chaseter]

The newest review on RT from IGN says it is a forgettable movie with a lot of problems and gave it 3/5 which is a pass but barely. I think I agree with that review the most so far. This is a popcorn movie that the general audience will love but fans will be dissapointed. It has some good moments and some bad moments but could have been a lot better...I think that will be the general consensus of critics.

http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/977/977183p2.html

 

[Project862006]

i think we can all agree this film would of benefited for a grittier and a darker tone in the tone of the x2 weapon x flashbacks

x2 was pg 13 and those flashbacks were allowed just simple things like the look of the room where he gets operated on.In x2 flashbacks it had a unsanitary look to it it really gave a feel that this base was a secret.You also got a mad scientist vibe about the flashbacks which i loved.

 

[Project862006]

double post.

 

[icelemt38]

Supposedly Hood got 90% the movie he wanted, I wonder if that 10% was the grittier, darker vibe of the set and things.

 

[Project862006]

doubt it wolverine origins looked too clean and stylized for the tone it should of gotten

 

[Anita18]

I didn't notice problems with the edit... Gambit interrupts, I wouldn't have, but I can understand why he would take the chance to kill both men...

What it bothered me (and is a editing/planification issue) is how Gambit goes from being thrown aside to coming from far away in the roofs... Not sure if it's bad editing, choreography, whatever, or me just wasn't expecting it, but it felt weird.

So...this is in the final too?

Literally, while watching the workprint, the first thing that came into my head was, ".....WTF?" And I know continuity errors aren't usually a big deal, but it was just so out there that it really did take me out of the movie.

 

[Project862006]

yeah i know like it was so hard to show gambit climbing a roof

 

[Anton Oksehud]

My greatest gripe with the final version (saw it 2 hours ago) is:

It is actually SHORTER than the workprint !!!!
I noticed a scene in Nigeria from the workprint ("Victor: High Lookout") is missing from the final version.
One moment the team is on the ground, the next, Victor is grinning from the rooftop, asking Logan whether he has fun yet, and the next, the entire team is in the elevator....

SHEEESH Fox, why could the damage control after the leak not be just:
"Hey, the effects/sounds/music are not finalized yet", instead of lying about additional, nonexistant footage....

BTW: Weapon XI still gets decapitated....

 

[Noon]

Just saw the movie at a staff screening at the cinema I work at. I literally am fresh out of the screen and just home, so excuse me if I am a little too scathing in my thoughts. The memory is fresh in my mind and I seem to have more bad than good to say, although I desperatly wanted to like this movie...

Spoiler

I feel so let down. Jackman has said continually that this is a Wolverine film made for the fans, but from my perspective they threw everything the fans love about the character out the window to make the film more appealing to mass movie goers who may never have heard of the character. It doesn't even stay true to the Wolverine story portrayed in the X-Men films. As Project862006 points out above, his past in the X-Men films is shown as a lot darker and grittier. This whole "He could walk out of this movie and straight into that bar in X1" stuff is bull****.

Wolverine in my mind has always been a loner, that is why he adds a dynamic tension to a team like the X-Men. He will never really be a team player but he is desperate to belong somewhere. In the very popular and very well written graphic novel Wolverine: Origin it is very subtly hinted that Wolverine has a half brother known only as 'Dog'. Some people have speculated that this character could be Sabretooth, but it was always left ambiguous. The way it should be. In this film from the very beginning we are shown that Logan and Victor are brothers, and not only this but they have always stuck together and fought side by side through centuries of wars. So from the start, the character of Wolverine we know and love, the loner and outsider, is shown to have lived his very long life alongside his close brother all the way. The ambiguity is gone, as is any hope that a sequel might show the Japan era of Logan's life (where does that fit in the timeline if he has spent his whole life fighting in wars right up to Vietnam alongside Creed, seemingly joined at the hip) and one of the founding aspects of Wolverine as a character: the he is a loner.

Even the histories and origins of supporting characters were twisted and maimed in order to satisfy Gavin Hoods convoluted idea of Wolverine's "Origin". I was pleased to see great performances for the characters of Victor Creed and Col. Stryker as well as the appearances of Silver Fox, Wraith and the Blob. Many characters were shoved into this movie that were never needed, distracted from the main plot which could really have used room to pace things. The story progressed too quickly and it felt rushed to get to the 'big showdown'.

Having Cyclops and Emma Frost in this film was frivolous and unnecessary and in the end didn't even do the characters justice, only serving to confuse things. Emma Frost and Silver Fox are sisters now? So I suppose Emma is also part of a Native American tribe? A surprise and brief appearance of Charles Xavier played by a comically over CGI'd Patrick Stewart was incredibly forced and cheesy and only made me cringe. I waited with baited breath to see the reveal of Gambit, expecting familliar black eyes with red iris and a sexy southern drawl. I got neither, which left me strangely confused. Why bother having Gambit in this film if you're not even going to make him have the defining features of the character Gambit.

The only mutant cameo that I liked was one of the prisoners of the Weapon X program where I was able to go "Hey, there's Quicksilver!" Wolverine releasing the son of Magneto from a prison camp wonderfully complimented previous suggestions in other medias that Wolverine was also responsible for helping a young Magneto escape a Nazi prison camp, a nod that would please knowing fans. Needless to say Quicksilver had almost no part in the film.

I can see this has become a rant now, so I'll wrap it up. Despite my problems with the films, I will buy it on DVD. I may even go see it again in the cinema. I am a faithful movie goer and Hugh Jackman fan. It is good to see Wolverine back on the big screen and it is an entertaining movie, but only if you put out of your mind all of the great story telling that went into books like Wolverine: Origin and Barry Windsor-Smith's Weapon X, that has been so carelessly cast aside in favour of action shots, helicopters exploding and a character that I am supposed to believe is 'Deadpool'.

 

[Kanon]

It is actually SHORTER than the workprint !!!!
I noticed a scene in Nigeria from the workprint ("Victor: High Lookout") is missing from the final version.
One moment the team is on the ground, the next, Victor is grinning from the rooftop, asking Logan whether he has fun yet, and the next, the entire team is in the elevator....

I remember clearly the shoots of Victor climbing in my showings of the movie.

 

[Kanon]

yeah i know like it was so hard to show gambit climbing a roof

My problem is timing. I have no problem assuming he left, and climbed to the roof, but... when did he do it? he is on the floor, and then he comes running from two blocks away at the least!

 

[Drz]

Thanks for the reviews guys, shame to hear this is even shorter then the workprint version, and yeah but hey atleat the game is looking good! :P

 

[Spider-ManHero12]

Wow, I'm kind of surprised at some of these review. Ahh well, I honestly think I'll like it.

 

[Project862006]

Noon his eyes do gt black and red shows it even in the trailers lol

 

[Project862006]

what end scene did you get noon

 

[BestGirl]

Thanks for the reviews guys, shame to hear this is even shorter then the workprint version, and yeah but hey atleat the game is looking good! :P

Wait a second, the finished movie is even shorter than the workprint? The same workprint people claimed already went too fast? How many minutes were shaved off?

 

[Anton Oksehud]

Wait a second, the finished movie is even shorter than the workprint? The same workprint people claimed already went too fast? How many minutes were shaved off?

I clocked the final version at 1hr 45ms (workprint: 1hr 46ms)

 

[Anton Oksehud]

I remember clearly the shoots of Victor climbing in my showings of the movie.

You did ???
Did Stryker command him up there ? Because I saw neither at my screening...

 

[Psykoelf]

i think we can all agree this film would of benefited for a grittier and a darker tone in the tone of the x2 weapon x flashbacks

x2 was pg 13 and those flashbacks were allowed just simple things like the look of the room where he gets operated on.In x2 flashbacks it had a unsanitary look to it it really gave a feel that this base was a secret.You also got a mad scientist vibe about the flashbacks which i loved.

I have to agree there with you. Everything was kinda too bright and perky. It left me with the same reaction as to X3, so I think that I should go watch it again at a more convenient time and not the midnight screening.

I found the movie overall to be lacking and difficult to take seriously due to the stuttering of the story flow. When i was discussing it with friends afterwards, we all commented that it seemed that a lot of footage was missing out of scenes (the end act when Logan is about to be crushed by the tower debris and then randomly Gambit just appearing to save him out of nowhere is an example that springs to mind). Everything just kept leap frogging, there seemed no distance in time between scenes, so it wasn't making a whole lot of sense to me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a pretty avid Wolverine/X-Men reader, I know my history and I know enough that liberties need to be taken with these movies to make them publicly appealing, but even after a few beers prior, i was "WTF?". There just didn't seem enough in the story or character development to keep a flow.

Character wise, Gambit was awesome what we saw of him. Some of my friends who I went with had no clue about Gambit, but they raved about him afterwards. It would of been nicer had he been tied heavier into the story following his introduction. Deadpool I thought was massacred. The most important characteristic of him (being his mouth) was sewn shut. No longer the Merc with a Mouth but a Merc who's a Mute. Again WTF? .. and other powers ... uh yeah ...

FX were pretty cool overall, but I have to ask was Xavier only an incomplete CGI add in?

Adamantium bullets? Maybe I could be wrong in this, but wouldn't Logans skeleton just ricochet a bullet. His claws don't look to leave scratches in themselves when rubbing them together. Also didn't he get shot in the head in the same spot as in X2?

Overall rating: pants dropped to just above the knees. The trailers to Terminator: Salvation, Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen were a saving grace

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

^Did they keep all of the Jackman nudity? I'm curious because that was my favorite part of the flick and yes...I know how sad that is.

 

[Nell2ThaIzzay]

There is no point explaining a "cameo" that lasts about 15 minutes? 15 minutes of a guy doing whatever the hell he wants and the audience can't even find out how? Not even a 1 second explanation of "he charges things with kinetic energy"?

Yeah, sure sounds pointless to me.

And the guys didn't complain, they were generally confused. They wanted to know.

Gambit wasn't in the movie for anything close to 15 minutes. Try 5, tops.

 

[Nell2ThaIzzay]

I'm going to punch the next person who complains about Emma Frost's

Spoiler

lack of Native American heritage when she is Silverfox's sister

Do you know how easy it is to

Spoiler

not share the same ethnicities with someone you are related to, even as close as a sister? My brother has Mexican and Italian blood in him, which I do not, and I have Native American blood, which he does not. How is that possible? Very possible - it's called same father, different mothers. My mother is part Native American, while his mother is Mexican and Italian. The genes that we do share - Irish and German - come from our father. In the case of Kayla Silverfox, and Emma Frost, both with differing last names, it's very possible that they share the same mother, but have different fathers, Kayla's father being Native American. Therefore, Emma Frost would not have Native American blood, despite being Kayla's sister. It's a very common relationship called "half sibling"

 

[Chewy]

Gambit wasn't in the movie for anything close to 15 minutes. Try 5, tops.

If was closer to 15 minutes than 5