DVD's and Films You Have Watched Recently

[CW Saton]

Wolverine

This is the most cliche movie I think I've ever seen. I probably predicted the entire storyline in about twenty minutes and it was painful to watch. So Wolverine's jacket and bike are indestructible too? And if he has his memory wiped how did he find them again later? The only thing that was ok about this entire film was the Gambit, Deadpool and Sabertooth characters.

 

seeings that you've just deconstructed the movie in 'intense detail', i'll counter-analyse.

 

The jacket and bike?? why even argue about that? the jacket just looks fucking cool, that's all there is too it. As for the bike, well that was fucking cool too. If you wanna argue about that in a movie where a guy can slice moving bullets with a sword and a man can make the floor shake by smacking it with his cane, you sir are fucking stupid.

 

as for the memory thing, like i said, you can kinda watch this movie as a stand alone piece. The fact that Wolverine walks off at the end doesn't really mean anything other than it shows that Wolverine's lost his memory and he left alone. The time between this movie and the X-Men is a good few years, what's to say that something doesn't happen in them years that leads Wolverine back to Magneto and his new crew? it's not really worth thinking about. Having said that, i wouldn't be surprised if there's a dvd extra or something which explains what happened.

 

So essentially you're saying that you can't criticise a film just because it's badly made? And even more so if it's a consistently ridiculous film?

 

I've not seen the film, but from your description of it I think I'll be giving it a miss. I'm still trying to shake the memory of the last god-fucking-awful X-Men film.

 

 

 

[Egg Shen]

i don't think anyone could say that Wolverine was badly made.

[CW Saton]

Well, like I said, I've not seen it so I can't judge. Going from your description however, it sounds as if there are several consistency errors. Which to me would imply bad or simply lazy writing.

[Au]

Which is exactly what I said - it's mainly very lazy.

 

It's not as bad as X-Men 3 though. That film was absolutely terrible.

[Mr. Seven]

I liked this review from http://www.collider.com:

 

Warning, it's full of SPOILERS.

 

Before I begin, allow me a brief disclaimer because some may regard this review as my determination to hate "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" or some strange vendetta against 20th Century Fox. I went in wanting to like this movie. I would always prefer to see a good movie over a bad one. I also don't really care about Fox one way or the other. I think they should look at their films and realize that something's not clicking and fix the problem, but I don't lay awake at night thinking, "How am I gonna fuck Fox today?"

 

 

 

In truth, I am dumbstruck by how awful I found "Wolverine" and think it is a landmark in not only in Fox's track record of terrible movies, but in how bad superhero movies can get. "X-Men Origins" is worse than "Elektra". It is worse than "Ghost Rider". It is worse than the 2004 version of "The Punisher". It is worse than the 1989 version of "The Punisher". The only superhero movies worse than "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" may be "Batman & Robin" and "Superman III" and "IV". To try to give you a vague idea of how bad this film is, my pen ran out of ink writing down all the terrible things in this movie. I have had this pen on my keychain for seven years and it ran out of ink because it couldn't handle that amount of hate it had to transcribe and killed itself.

 

 

 

I would say that everything I'm about to tell you would "ruin" the movie for you but that would be working under the assumption that the film is not already ruined. That it is not a disfigured mess, blundering from one scene to the next, impatient for the next atrocious-looking set piece, and destroying all logic and common sense in its path. If you are hell-bent on seeing "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", then you are literally bent on going to hell and there's nothing I can do to save you.

 

 

 

Deceptively, the film opens with some promise. A sickly kid named James is lying in bed while an older boy, Victor, sharpens a knife in the corner and keeps Jimmy company. However, events quickly go sour as Jimmy's father is murdered by Victor's father who turns out to be James' biological father (blame the soap opera that was Marvel's "Origin" comic miniseries for this twist). Unfortunately for Victor's dad, it turns out that sickly young James is actually young Wolverine and in a rage he skewers his bio-pops in a tidy bit of melodrama as his true father reveals their connection and then croaks. James and Victor run away (and although it's a small part, the actor playing young Victor does a great job in quickly establishing the character) and then we're treated to the opening credits which serve as a montage of Jimmy (Hugh Jackman) and Victor (Liev Schreiber) battling through war after war. It's an effective opening sequence because it sets these men as fierce, predatory animals who can only thrive amongst violence. Furthermore, it makes sure that the audience members unfamiliar with the comics and the characters will understand that these two men are mutants who can heal and that's why they've lived for so long. The film appeared to be heading in a promising direction in setting up the conflict between these brothers.

 

 

But then William Stryker (Danny Huston) enters the picture and it all begins to tumble downhill. You may remember that Stryker appeared in "X2" and was played rather well by Brian Cox. He was a sinister, bigoted man but Cox imbued the character with pain and loss and a spiteful-yet-almost-envious relationship with mutants that grew from his own feelings towards his son. Hopefully you remember that because Danny Huston certainly doesn't. He has none of Cox's mannerisms or even the southern dialect. I don't care that the two men don't resemble each other. I care because it's lazy acting on Huston's part.

 

 

 

Stryker recruits Jimmy and Victor for a special team but because the film chooses to define characters by big actions rather than subtlety, it's up to each actor to do their best with what they're given. The team consists of Bird (Dominic Monaghan) who can talk to machines and electronics; Wraith (will.i.am), a teleporter; Fred Dukes (Kevin Durand) who can absorb any impact; Agent Zero (Daniel Henney) who can manipulate guns and bullets to hit any target; our boys Jimmy and Victor; and then there's Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), a smart-alecky and humorous fast-talker who is highly skilled with swords. It seems like a promising start to pile these actors together as a proto-X-Men and see how their relationships will develop.

 

 

 

But I guess relationships are for fags because the team breaks up within the span of fifteen minutes. It's one big set-piece, all the mutants get to dazzle us with their abilities, we see that Stryker's trying to obtain a special rock (which anyone who has half-an-idea of the backstory will understand is the indestructible mineral adamantium) and then once they start threatening some villagers for more, Jimmy goes and breaks up the band and goes to Canada for six years. That's it. You will not see Ryan Reynolds and his highly entertaining character again until the end of the movie and that's when he really gets ruined, but more on that later.

 

 

This is the first of the film's key mistakes because it thinks that Wolverine's cheesy love story with a woman named Kayla (Lynn Collins) is more interesting than his centuries long brotherhood with Victor. We then get even more melodrama as the film absolutely murders all subtlety and Harry Gregson-Williams awful score smothers every emotion with music that thinks you're too stupid to know what to feel and it's a crutch because you can't feel anything since the film thinks you're too stupid to comprehend characters with more than one dimension.

 

 

 

And that's what "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" feels like: a stupid person calling you stupid for a hundred and seven minutes. The film thinks you're too dumb to wonder why Kayla tells Jimmy a myth about a Wolverine without any prompting other than the film hates subtlety and wants you know why he chooses "Wolverine" as his name. The film thinks you're too passive to wonder why characters stop calling him "Jimmy" and then start calling him "Logan" for no reason or why a film that has to be set in the late 70s/early 80s (the film makes it clear that the last war Wolverine and Victor fought in was Vietnam and even if you assume they were fighting until 1975, it can only be 1981 at the latest), everyone dresses in modern clothing. "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" hates you and never misses an opportunity to condescend to its audience.

 

 

 

And that's ridiculous because the film is so unbelievably stupid. Logan falls for the world's most obvious manipulation as Stryker secretly has Victor pick off old teammates and then "kill" Kayla so that Logan will join the "Weapon X" program and allow his skeleton to be coated in adamantium so he can be strong enough to take his revenge on Victor. Of course, what Stryker really wants is to steal Logan's mutant ability and use Logan as a test subject for another, even dumber program. After getting his shiny skeleton, Logan hears (underwater, no less) that Stryker plans to erase his memory so he busts out and goes on the run where he meets up with

[Almighty Rod]

That review is brilliant. Couldn't agree more with it.

[Egg Shen]

i agree with some of what's said in that review, still doesn't mean i didn't enjoy it

[KFR42]

Just watch Godzilla: Final wars. Brilliantly cheesey, filled with loads of giant monsters and moderate amounts of kung fu. It really is the ultimate godzilla movie. He even fights the crappy fake godzilla from the US version and kills him in seconds.

[Tequila_Boy]

i agree with some of what's said in that review, still doesn't mean i didn't enjoy it

 

I was talking about this today with my bandmate. Sure the cinematography didn't change my views on life and made me think of the inspiration Hitchcock must of had on this materpiece as he used the doppelganger technique to great effect in a similar way as was used by the great German Arthouse Pioneers of Ages gone by, but can't people just turn their brains off and enjoy a film for what it is, not what it isn't anymore?

 

 

"Throw in some nudity and we've got a film"

Edited May 6, 2009 by Tequila_Boy

[Egg Shen]

it doesn't appear so, everyone's a critic these days. I blame the internet.

 

like ive said before, i think it sucks that people go into movies purposely to nitpick and come up with faults. I'm positive there's people who are out there who go into cinema's with a pen and paper trying to write down as much bad stuff as they can. It seems like a competition at this point, they just can't wait to get home and write as much bad stuff as they can on the boards/blogs.

 

I don't mean to pick on Seven, cause he'll come on and try to rip me apart with one of clever, articulate replies (every notice how every one of his replies is edited, i swear he takes a good hour writing one), but that muthafucker hates everything. He needs a new hobby, he's making himself miserable, poor guy.

 

 

[Keith Houchen]

I don't mean to pick on Seven, cause he'll come on and try to rip me apart with one of clever, articulate replies (every notice how every one of his replies is edited, i swear he takes a good hour writing one), but that muthafucker hates everything. He needs a new hobby, he's making himself miserable, poor guy.

I could have sworn he did a thread that required a lot of effort where he named and posted his favourite 50 songs of last year.

[Egg Shen]

haha, fair point.

 

[Gwailofilms]

i don't think anyone could say that Wolverine was badly made.

Some fucking awful FX work says otherwise.

[spikester]

I got around to watching Punisher Warzone last night.

 

I actually really liked it. Miles more gory and graphic than I was expecting it to be, so I guess that helped with my enjoyment of it. Nice to see McNulty from The Wire and Julie Benz

[Au]

Punisher: Warzone remains the only film I've ever turned off without seeing the ending. I'm really surprised that so many people have such positives opinions of it.