X-Men Origins: Wolverine vs Mission: Impossible

Everyone knows Wolverine (or, sigh, X-Men Origins: Wolverine) couldn’t possibly be that good. There are way too many characters, way too tacky a marketing campaign, it’s PG-13 when it should be a bloody R, and it leaked early, putting a bad vibe over everything. I hate when movies leak early. It’s like if you find out a baby’s gonna be a dick when he turns seventeen.

So if Wolverine (XO:W?) is the slightest bit good, then I’m all for it. I’ll stay through the credits for every last scrap. I’ll be down for a sequel. I’ll recommend it to all and rave and give it an awesome grade on here, just like I did for X-Men 3 (sorry about that, by the way), not because it’s especially good, but because it’s not terrible.

And that’s exactly what I’m doing. Wolverine, the movie, is a mess, and it’s kind of awful, but I loved it a little anyway. With Iron Man and The Dark Knight fresh in your memories, you’ve got a lot to overcome. Take a deep breath in the lobby; you’ll be fine. I mean, come on, we all mostly watch crap anyway, right?

We meet Wolverine when he’s a tiny pre-Civil War kid named James living in the Canadian wilderness. James is a sickly, whiny boy, who coos and blinks like Ferris Beuller when his folks check on him. Nearby is his friend, Victor, an angry older kid who will of course become Sabretooth. One spontaneous killing with bone claws later, and James and Victor are on the run. Thankfully, this section of the movie is brief. The scene with young Wolverine has no motivation, is confusing, poorly edited and not interesting enough to start the movie. Plus, in the pre-telephone age, that was one quickly-assembled angry mob. James and Victor are being chased by lantern-carrying locals before they even get their shoes on. Luckily, this moment is followed by a crack credits sequence, showing James and Victor fighting in every major American War from the Civil War to Vietnam. Why they agreed to this is unknown, since they were Canadian, but the montage is a stunner nonetheless. It’s violent, surprisingly witty, and full of freeze-frame, slow-motion and sepia toned diorama-style images. Why the rest of the movie isn’t as vibrant is beyond me.

After failing to die before a firing squad, Victor and James are outed as mutants and recruited by Captain Stryker (Danny Huston) for Team X, which also includes Bolt (Dominic Monoghan) Wraith (Will.i.am) Blob (Kevin Durand), Agent Zero (Daniel Henney) and Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds). No one’s ever actually called by their codename, and only Ryan Reynolds truly makes an impact, so I kind of wish they’d thinned the cast a little (although seeing Dominic Monoghan made me realize how much I miss Charlie on Lost.) As you can see, for a movie with one guy’s name in the title, that’s a lot of characters. Soon enough, the team’s disbanded, after Wolverine objects to a covert mission in which too many innocents were killed (most, gleefully, by Sabretooth, now played by Liev Schrieber, who is so well cast I can’t believe no one’s thought of him for something like this before.) Wolverine settles as Logan, working as a logger in the mountains with his new girlfriend, Kayla, and all is blissful snuggling and star-watching for the rest of his life. Well, for a couple scenes anyway. Stryker finds Wolverine and tells him someone is targeting his former teammates. It’s Sabretooth, duh. I mean, who could it be?

After a personal tragedy spoiled in the trailer (but occurring an hour into the movie), Wolverine agrees to rejoin Stryker, and undergoes experiments to become Weapon X, an unstoppable revenge machine. Logan is warned that the procedure will be the most painful experience of his life, but it’s over in less time than it takes you to brush your teeth every morning, and that’s assuming you don’t floss. If you floss, he’s got you beat. Since this moment is the true origin of Wolverine, and that’s what the movie’s about, it’s odd to rush it. 

And then, of course, shit goes wrong, Wolverine gets pissed (finally!) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine zips and swings for the rest of its screen time, like the credits hinted it could. It’s still a jumble of way too many underdeveloped characters (we meet Gambit, young Cyclops and more), but it’s a hell of a good time, full of big-time summer movie stunts, foreshadowing of the X-Men trilogy, and a great action movie performance from Hugh Jackman. X-Men Origins: Wolverine was directed by Gavin Hood, who also directed the acclaimed Tsotsi, and was probably expected to do something more impressive this time, but here we are. If there’s a source of the problems in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, besides the awkward title, it’s the direction (although the screenwriting and editing share the blame). Ultimately, I recommend X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but it’s not so much about it being good as it is about, you know, how awesome it was that he cut the helicopter out of the sky. You know how it is. By the way, how lame is it that the coolest fight rips off The Phantom Stupid Menace? 

The first Mission: Impossible movie does a bit of what X-Men Origins: Wolverine sets out to do, but surprisingly, doesn’t play it as safe, and develops a focus much quicker without missing out on any action. I suppose Mission: Impossible isn’t as beloved a property as Wolverine, but still, it takes brave steps toward establishing its own identity apart from its source, steps X-Men Origins: Wolverine is terrified of. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has a team in the beginning, like Wolverine, and then they’re all shoved to the background, killed, or revealed to be villainous. You might think that happens in X-Men Origins: Wolverine too, but in Mission: Impossible, it happens efficiently in the first third of the movie (in Mission: Impossible, the role of Dominic Monoghan is played by Emilio Estevez). Tom Cruise is safely within his element in Mission: Impossible, doing his regular mix of intelligence, intensity and like, how much he likes sports or something. Say what you will about Tom Cruise, but that hanging-over-the-computers business couldn’t be played by just anyone. We have to believe Ethan Hunt is fit enough to ride the cable down, and then smart enough to hack the computer when he gets there. 

Can you believe Brian DePalma directed this? After twenty-some years of directing stylish, sometimes cheesy thrillers, he had an ace action power we’d never seen. Shit, give this guy the next Wolverine and half the casting budget, and I’m there. 

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: C+

Mission: Impossible: B