Why You Should be Thankful for X-Men Origins: Wolverine

X-Men Origins: Wolverine will forever be remembered as the right cross of a one-two punch that, coupled with X-Men: The Last Stand, nearly buried the credibility of the X-Men movie franchise. Not even I, superhero movie apologist that I am, can sit here and tell you that this is a particularly good film. That being said, I came not to bury X-Men Origins: Wolverine (the internet has already done a fine job of that over the last five years), nor to praise it. I’m just a guy looking for a silver lining.

A Wolverine solo movie seemed inevitable, as the character had already spent the last twenty years as the center of attention in any and all attempts to bring the X-Men to other media. Hell, most of the unproduced X-Men movies before Bryan Singer finally came along and got things done were actually titled Wolverine and the X-Men. The prefix-less solo Wolverinefilm, scripted by David Benioff was put into development in 2004, around the same time that Deadpooland Magnetowere eyed by Fox as potential spinoffs.

2006's X-Men: The Last Stand killed off so many key players in the franchise that calling the prospect of a linear X-Men 4 impractical would be generous. And long before "shared cinematic universe" became a phrase I had to type on a daily basis, 20th Century Fox knew what they had to do. They had to make an X-Men movie without the X-Men (but still featured enough mutants to keep the toy companies happy), that they could still brand as an X-Men movie, and that prominently featured their most marketable character and bankable star. 

Why not, right? Marvel Comics had been doing the same thing on paper for years. It's not like anyone was clamoring for a Cyclops movie. Then again Cyclops Unclenches has a nice ring to it. Gavin Hood came on to direct, and armed with a script that carried echoes of some of the better stories in Wolvie's back catalog, everything seemed in order. Those who have seen the finished product (or the workprint) now know better, but on the internet, everyone's mutant power is hindsight, so let's not go crazy.

"We're the X-Pendables. Hello? Is this thing on?"

In some ways, particularly during its first act, X-Men Origins: Wolverine has a rather appealing late night cable action movie aesthetic. In the days before every superhero movie had to be a nine figure affair, most of us would have predicted exactly that vibe for a character like Logan, who really came of age during the golden age of the macho action hero of Ronnie Reagan's 1980s. The thing is, X-Men Origins: Wolverineisn’t a late night cable movie. It’s the fourth installment of one of the most successful superhero franchises ever and (one Brett Ratner directed exception aside) a beloved one at that.

There are a few (very few) positives to be had, to be sure. This is the movie that gives us our first look at Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson, Liev Schrieber’s excellent Sabertooth, and the expected rebel-with-only-a-hint-of-conscience cool of Hugh Jackman’s Logan. It's also loaded with enough fan service and easter eggs to make Kevin Feige blush, and this was something that still felt somewhat novel in 2009.

None of these niceties change the fact that this first stab at a Wolverine solo movie is rough going, full of poor special effects and worse dialogue. It’s also, somehow, a remarkably bloodless affair for a movie about a guy with claws. Then again, it appears that those claws were used to edit this one.

To be fair, director Gavin Hood has told tales of "getting pages the night before and trying to make them work" the next day, which certainly isn't conducive to any kind of creative endeavor. Richard Donner stepped in to help mediate things, but that's never a good sign on a big budget film set. For his part, Mr. Hood has been gracious, saying things like"one must have a certain humility...I do respect the fact that I am being hired to pick up the ball on an established franchise that is extremely precious to this studio." 

But here comes that silver lining...

"Channing Tatum? Who dat?"

In a rather sideways fashion, we have the critical failure (although, it should be stressed, not a box-office one) of X-Men Origins: Wolverine to thank for the ultimate revitalization of the X-Men movie franchise. This was originally planned as the first of a series of X-Men solo movies, and things were moving briskly towards headlining spots for Magneto and Deadpool. It’s rather clear that Fox had eyes on a Taylor Kitsch Gambitmovie, as well, something that might have worked had they not introduced the character with a poorly staged, mind-numbing action sequence that quickly eliminated any goodwill that Taylor Kitsch had built up in his few minutes as Gambit. We'll be getting that Gambit solo movie soon enough, though, this time with Channing Tatum in the lead.

X-Men Origins: Magneto had a rather good script written by Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air) and was set to be directed by David Goyer. There are some very recognizable bits of that script that made it into X-Men: First Class, a movie that Sheldon Turner shares a story credit on.

X-Men: First Class soon turned out to be a fine movie in its own right, although it struggled a little at the box-office (ahem...by X-Men standards), perhaps because of confusion among general audiences as to whether or not this was intended to be a prequel to the existing series or a flat-out reboot. The truth ended up being somewhere in the middle, but we wouldn’t know that for sure until much later. The bad taste left by X-Men 3 and X-Men Origins probably didn’t help, either.

The critical reception to X-Men Origins: Wolverine buried Wolvie’s solo movie prospects for the next four years. This, coupled with the perceived underperformance of X-Men: First Class ultimately gave Fox license to do something previously unheard of in superhero movies: an actual on camera continuity reset. By the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past, most (if not all) of the events of X-Men Origins: Wolverine were safely eliminated, with a new timeline that appears to be, ummm...well, it’s best not to think about it too much. But the good news is, you never have to really think about this movie too hard again, either. That’s right, folks, because of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, we may have the ultimate case of fidelity between a superhero movie and the source material: the continuity of the X-Men films is now just as incomprehensible as the X-Men comics. That’s really impressive.

Of course, the biggest success story to come out of X-Men Origins: Wolverine was probably the most outrageous failure at the time. C'mon, you know what I'm getting at here:

"Baraka? Is that you?"

I am, of course, talking about Deadpool. While Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson is in good (if unmasked) form during his few scenes early on, the Deadpool we got at film’s end was, ummmm...well, c’mon, you’ve heard it all before, haven’t you?

But it was the X-Men Origins model for solo spinoff films, and Reynolds’ appropriately charismatic and smartass-y performance, that convinced Fox to finally take a chance on an obscure fan favorite like Deadpool. And that chance led to Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick’s hilarious draft (which, it should be noted, has virtually nothing to do with this Wolverine movie), Zombieland's Tim Miller coming on as director, that ridiculous test footage, and finally, almost five years later, the promise of an actual release date. It was a long, strange journey for the Deadpoolmovie, and you can read about it in more detail here.

You see? I told you I’d find a silver lining in all of this. You know where to send the hate mail.

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