X-Men Origins: Wolverine

This is not a very good movie. But some of my friends have gone off the deep end and started making absurd and overblown claims about its awfulness. So to be clear, lots of problems with this one. But it’s definitely better than Daredevil, Elektra, X-Men: The Last Stand, Punisher: War Zone, Fantastic Four, or Fanastic Four 2.

But why quibble? It’s not good. And in a larger sense, it’s horribly ill-conceived. Wolverine isn’t a character whose origins we’re curious about. Wolverine is a character whose origin is that he has no memories and we don’t know where he’s from other than that at some point he was mixed up with a shady covert ops program that bonded adamantium to his skeleton. That’s the origin. That’s the character. Apparently the Origin comic on which the film is based was written specifically in order to pre-empt Hollywood doing the origin. But Marvel’s initial instincts were right—it’s integral to the character that we don’t know his origins.

Meanwhile, as a Canadaphile it was disappointing to see Logan, a Canadian, depicted as having served in the American army in World War One and World War Two. Given that the Canadian military actually entered both wars years before the American military did, it would be kind of odd for a Canadian with a taste for warfighting to have waited around for the states to get involved.