The original 'Deadpool & Wolverine' has not gotten better with time
With Deadpool & Wolverine on the horizon, I thought it would be fun to re-educate myself on the complex and layered cinematic history between the two characters. As no such history exists, I was instead reduced to watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
When I was younger, I hated this movie for how it made no damn sense as a prequel to the original X-Men trilogy. I'll not get into the nitty gritty, but it established relationships between characters that didn't exist "later" and messed with the ages of characters in a way that broke the fourth dimension. Essentially, it was the beginning of the X-Men timeline becoming a sloppy, incoherent mess.
Origins:Wolverine doesn't work as a part of a larger whole, and until now I've never been able to watch it without that context in mind. I'm no longer as invested in timelines and franchise contunuity as I used to be (although I'm not defending this movie's easily avoidable mistakes), so perhaps this movie would improve in my estimation upon a rewatch? Was I on the cusp on ushering forth a new, wide-spread appreciation for this maligned prequel à la Star Wars?
The answer won't surprise you!
Victorrrrrr!
Normally at this stage in my reviews, I provide a logline for the reader, summarising the premise of the story. I usually don't have much trouble with it, but this time I'm stumped. Origins:Wolverine starts in such a stuttering manner--repeatedly grinding to a halt after concluding yet another set-up sequence--that I'm having difficulty phrasing what this movie is about.
In one way I suppose the movie is about James (Hugh Jackman) and his half-brother Victor (Liev Schreiber). After fighting side by side for decades--their mutant abilities grant them long life--they're recruited into a special ops team comprised of fellow mutants. Repulsed by Victor's bloodlust, James quits the team and attempts to live a normal life, which doesn't best please Victor.
The relationship between the brothers is half-baked at best though. In the opening scene, James murders Victor's dad and discovers the man is his father too. This event is never mentioned again in the movie. There is such little brotherly love between these characters that they could've just as easily NOT been brothers and the rerwite would've taken less than an hour. Victor is such a dimensionless character that it's frustrating to see the writers waste so much time on him.
The Dead Pool
But you're not hear to read about some guy called Victor. You're here for Deadpool, baby! In case you're unfamiliar with the story, Ryan Reynolds actually played the character of Wade Wilson a.k.a. Deadpool way back in 2009 for this movie. His frustrations with how the character was handled lead to him eventually producing and starring in 2016's Deadpool, featuring the now-ubiquitious, comic-book-accurate version of the character.
So if I'm right, Wade Wilson speaks one line to Logan the whole movie. Despite both being part of the mutant special ops team, Logan pretty much doesn't do anything for the entire sequence where this team is extant. I guess the writers didn't want us to see Logan complicit in the war crimes of his peers, but the alternative is that the title character of the movie spends about ten minutes lurking in the background of scenes, not contributing anything.
Discussing the many ways the writers did a diservice to Wade is well-trod ground, but I'd be remiss to point out how un-funny and expresionless the character is here. Whether you find the recent Deadpool movies funny or not is down to your subjective taste, but you can't deny the sheer expressiveness and life of Deadpool's character. Funnily enough, there is a post-credits scene where Wade, decapitated, fumbles around for his head before turning to the camera and shushing the audience to secrecy. It's a bizarre nod to a possible future with this character that utilises fourth-wall-breaking humour, indicating that the writers knew that this version of Deadpool was all wrong to begin with.
To be equitable, the writers did a pretty poor job with nearly every character in this movie--not just Wade Wilson. Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber both manage to imbue their characters with menace, but in terms of character arcs, motivations, and logical decision-making, Origins is a total mess. Tell me again why the bad guys needed to give Logan his adamantium skeleton before extracting his DNA for 'The Dead Pool'?
Canadian Pride
This was Jackman's fourth time playing Wolverine, but for me, this was my first time revisiting his performance in years and I was struck by how good he was. It's perhaps too easy to take Jackman's excellent embodiment of this character as a given, but coming in cold to this performance really highlighted for me how lucky the franchise was to have Jackman in it's corner. He's the only X-Man performer to both never get replaced and to have endured to this day and there's a very good reason for that. The way he growls, the way he fights, the way he curses--it's all so Wolverine. He really feels like a live-action version of Cal Dodd's animated interation of the character, as seen in X-Men: The Animated Series and more recently, X-Men '97.
Lynn Collins plays Logan's quickly-murdered, revived-in-a-nonsensical-plot-twist, seduced-him-for-the-enemy-but-actually-the-love-was-real girlfriend, Kayla. She's honestly pretty good in the role, but its a thankless character. She's nothing on Jean Grey, with whom Logan has a three-film-long infatuation in the movies preceeding Origins, causing this romance to fall particularly flat. Logan's actions later in the film are motivated by revenge for her "death", but we've hardly seen them on-screen enough to care.
I haven't even mentioned Taylor Kitch as the mutant hustler Gambit, or will.i.am (yes) as some guy in a cowboy hat with way too much screen time who can teleport or Danny Huston as Colonel Stryker. Nor will I. There simply isn't anything interesting to say about them. This movie is stuffed with under-developed characters that struggle to leave an impression. Christ, I just remembered that Cyclops and Emma Frost are in this movie! It's all so terribly slapdash.
Conclusion
Is it worth revisiting this movie before Deadpool & Wolverine? That's an emphatic no from me, dawg. There are countless better X-Men movies than this, but I'd actually recommend X-Men '97 over most of them. The only positive that came from watching this movie was a resurrected excitement to see Jackman as Wolverine on the big screen again. For my money, he's the best at what he does, and what he does is pretty damn cool.
***
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