X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Rated M for Mature (360, PS3, PC)
Rated T for Teen (PS2, PSP, Wii)
Released May 1
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2, PSP, DS
Published by Activision
What It Is: X-Men Origins: Wolverine is the video game tie-in to the movie spin-off of the series of film adaptations of the X-Men comics. That sentence alone contains about four reasons why this game should be awful. It’s not just low expectations that make Wolverine shockingly fun, though. This here is one finely tuned and calibrated piece of total junkcorn escapism.
You’ll pop your claws over: The game’s smooth implementation of Wolverine’s skills. Superpowers can be hard to do in a game, but Wolverine’s powers (razor-sharp claws, a powerful healing factor, an uncanny ability to appear in 20 comics a month) lend themselves well to video games. Automatic health regeneration pops up in most action games these days, but what makes no narrative sense with a litany of FPS soldiers works perfectly with a comic-book mutant.
It’s also surprisingly satisfying to slice and dice your way through entire platoons of bad guys. It’s even more surprising that the game doesn’t shy away from depicting the carnage caused by a dude with knife-hands. Wolverine paints the walls with blood and viscera, and the game celebrates dismemberment and decapitation. A light RPG sheen adds a modicum of depth, as each kill and secret discovery earns experience points that eventually help boost character stats and attacks. The graphics are also more polished than expected from a movie tie-in.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine earned $85 million over the weekend, down a bit from the opening weekend of the previous film in the franchise, X-Men: The Last Stand. Here I’ll pose a few of Wolverine’s nagging questions. Several give away the ending, and some of them may have actual, logical answers.
1. First, one that involves no spoilers: Why are the special effects so bad? Several of my friends pointed out that they’re noticeably worse than the first X-Men film, which came out almost 10 years ago. I like the theory advanced by Alexandra DuPont, the best writer at Ain’t It Cool News:
The special effects are shiny and unconvincing. They are a very specific kind of shiny and unconvincing — where it looks like the studio realized the movie wasn’t going to be as successful as they’d hoped, so they told every effects house working on the show to skip the last couple of rendering passes to save money.
But that doesn’t account for the lousy ‘fat guy’ make-up on The Blob. Any other ideas?
THE PITCH: This X-Men prequel fills in the backstory of Wolverine/Logan/James Howlett (Hugh Jackman), revealing a glimpse of his 19th-century Canadian childhood, his similarly powered psychotic brother Victor, aka Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber), and the 1970s-era government conspiracy that gives him both a metal skeleton and a bloody-minded vendetta. Snikt!
MONEY SHOTS: The opening credits show Logan and Victor fighting in the Civil War, World Wars I and II and Vietnam. Logan and a team of Nam-era mutant commandos wreak havoc on an African diamond-smuggling compound. Wolverine takes on a helicopter in an appropriately big, dumb action scene. Louisianan mutant Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) channels his cool explosive powers through a walking stick and playing cards. The outlandish final fight takes place along the rim of a nuclear reactor coolant tower.
Now that the long-anticipated, much-hyped pop epic Watchmen has reached theaters, we can finally get on with our lives… by anticipating the soon-to-be-hyped pop epic summer movies! Several studios have recently released a batch of new, full-length trailers for the would-be biggest blockbusters of the hot months, including the latest from Pixar and several relaunches of science fiction’s most lucrative franchises. Based on these clips, which do you most want to see?
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May 1)
Oscar host Hugh Jackman stars in this prequel to the X-Men trilogy that fills in the backstory of Wolverine and should answer questions like, “How old is he?” “Why does he have a metal skeleton?” and “Why is Liev Schreiber portraying Sabretooth, a bad guy played by huge wrestler Tyler Mane in the first film?” Director Gavin Hood previously made some heavy dramas, including South African Oscar nominee Tsotsi and the homeland security thriller Rendition, but hasn’t helmed a huge Hollywood action franchise before. At any rate, it’s the season’s only big comic book movie.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
