My Worst Movies Of 2012

2012 In Review: Best And Worst.... 

And Afew Things In Between

Part 2: The Worst

And is had to happen, and simply because I wanted to break this up into four posts instead of one giant one, we come to the second part of our best of 2012 series, the worst movies of the year, and believe me, there were some really, and I mean REALLY bad movies made in the last year, why is that? I've no idea, but i guess for every year full of amazing goodness, there has to be epic failures, you know the balance out the whole karma thing. Anyway, after its a trip to TV Land.. the metaphorical place not the network that sold out afew years back. Anyway, here we go.... A'Room A'Zoom!!!

 Worst Movie Of 2012

The Dictator

 

Maybe I am just too old, but i seriously do not get what in the hell Sasha Baron Cohen was doing with this film, is his goal in life to piss off every single ethnic group there is? I seriously not get the point, oh sure, he struck comedy gold with Borat, but every film after that, has been nothing more then the same film, each time pushing farther and farther into offensive territory, i get that he's trying to "make real life funny" and though it worked brilliantly once, it really hasn't sense, and all he does is get more and more offensive as he goes. I mean honestly, is it really a good idea to do a whole movie where you're lighting a gas fire under a group of people that many already find polarizing? It makes no sense, and honestly Cohen is a friggin idiot for thinking it was a good idea. The only thing worth seeing in this train wreck of a film was the DartzKombat SUV in all gold that Cohen had them make for the movie, and really, thats only if you are a fan or the DartzKombat company and their insanely high end stuff. Otherwise this is just an offensive pile of camel shit that should have been buried in that landfill all those unsold E.T games for the Atari ended up. Seriously, the three people that still think this guy's stuff is funny, you need to stop giving this guy money to make films, he's almost as bad at it as Uwe Boll, yes, I so went there, and I mean it.

  Worst Drama Of 2012

The Lucky One

Ok this pile of shit was flawed from the very get go, and continues to prove that just because its "from the writer of the notebook" doesn't mean its good, hell it doesn't even mean its passable, and also, it proves that "if you're a bird, then i'm a bird" is a really moronic statement in any context. But enough about that, here is the basics on this crapfest; a US Marine is in Afghanistan and survives a midnight attack on his location, as he cleans up the wreckage, he sees a shiny glint in the sun and walks over to see what it is, as he bends down to pick up the picture it turns out to be, an unexploded mortar goes off right where he was standing before he went to investigate. Its a picture of a girl with "Be safe" written on the back of it. He keeps it with him looking to find who it belongs too, in the meantime, he continues to barely escape being killed several times, he calls the girl in the picture his guardian angel. From there, he goes home and as you can guess, he decides to go track down the girl, so him and his dog embark on an epic quest of love, by which i mean walking from Colorado to Louisiana, if you can stay with the film through all of the contrived and hackneyed recycled plots from every other chick film from the last few years that they mash together like a bumble bee mashed between the hands of a mentally unstable child who thinks their parents will be proud of them for their first murder, i'm sure you can guess that buy the end of the film, he not only finds the girl, but also they fall in love and end up happy, you know just like every single other shitty mush movie written over a weekend.

Worst Comedy Of 2012

 The Sitter

Ok i hate to be the one that has to do this, but, Jonah Hill is NOT FUNNY. Seriously, he is just the worst, between that horrible Allen Gregory cartoon of his that got canceled as quickly as it was forced on all of us, and crap like The Sitter, he just isn't funny. Oh sure, he has been in funny movies, but they were not funny because of him, which a lot of people seem to not really get the idea of, he's like a fat Paul Giamatti, people just haven't figured out yet he's a horrible actor who somehow gets into great to moderately good movies.I could honestly go on and on about how this guy is the Rob Liefeld comic book drawing of actors, but instead I'll focus on why exactly The Sitter deserves the title of worst comedy of last year.  See, it kind of is the definition of what is wrong with not only Jonah Hill, but his entire career, The plot is basically recycled from the 1980s, a common practice in Hill's career, in this case its a blatant rip on both Adventures In Babysitting and just about any teenage sex comedy in the last 30 years tossed in for extra "laughs". As you can expect the film takes Hill and his tag along trio deep into the city and after a series of out of the realm of believable things happen, they all eventually end up back home safe and sound. Its just horribly predictable and possibly one of the worst hackjobs i've ever seen in a film. i'm telling y'all, for serious, don't keep getting fooled by this knock off Seth Rogan, he's a horrible actor, who just happens to get into good movies. 

Worst Animated Movie of 2012

Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3D

There were alot of horrible animated movies that just were horrible this year, but of all the really horrible films, this has to be the most WTF and puzzlingly bad of them all. First off, its in 3D, which really isn't all that needed these days honestly, let alone in animated films, but also, why on earth is there, after all this time, a film explaining the origins of the living dead? I mean is it really needed? Do we really need to know where Zombies come from? And in 3D? I mean honestly, what is the point of this horrible attempt at cashing in on the greatest public domain franchise there has ever been? It just doesn't make any sense at all and is completely useless. Seriously, Zombies are Zombies, they just are, thats all you need to know for a night of the living dead movie, you don't need to know their names and their feelings and all of this other horrible horrible crap, doing anything at all to them other then just a shameless attempt to cash in on the horrible teenage supernatural romance bullshit thats going around these days. Avoid this horrible box of shit if you can, avoid it like a boss.

Worst Sci Fi Movie Of 2012

Prometheus

Now i wanna be clear, there were some HORRIBLE sci fi movies last year, I mean seriously horrible, but the one that took the cake, just barely edging ahead of the pack was this monstrosity, now on the surface, Prometheus looked like a good idea, I argued that it should have been called Aliens: Prometheus, or something, seeing as with out telling you, it is ofcourse the origin of the creation of the creatures we know of from the Aliens movies and the ever stumbling at the opening gate Alien vs. Predator series. Now i've always argued that the Aliens never really needed a "how they were created" film, I mean they're a race of aliens, isn't that enough? Do we really need to know they came from humans who mucked about on a planet they really shouldn't have? No, we didn't, again, they're a race of aliens, who the hell cares what they were created from, they're aliens, that should be enough of a backstory, though maybe I would have liked to see a home planet populated by them, but thats just a passing curiosity. In all do fairness, this movie didn't need to be made at all, it tells a story that didn't need to be told, a story that also makes very little sense, but also, and this is the key here, THIS FILM WAS BORING AS HELL, seriously you could have done this whole story in maybe a 30 minute short film or something if you even needed to make it at all. Its seriously no wonder this thing flopped and flopped hardcore at the box office.

Worst Action Film Of 2012

Battleship

Oh boy oh boy was this one a pile! Seriously, this had so little going for it, it had no chance really but to be the steaming pile of camp that it ended up becoming. Not even Liam Neesson grimacing "you sunk my battleship" couldn't save this from soon being the go to movie for the SyFy Channel when it wants big ratings, to give you an idea of how bad this movie bombed? The knock off made by Asylum Pictures, a company that does nothing but make movies that sound like or are blatant rip offs of big name films, did better sales wise, then this did. Yes you read that right, the big name film, did WORSE then the knock off made by the people who gave you such epic piles of shit as Snakes on A Train, Transmorphers, and Titanic 2. If that doesn't define a film as a pile of shit, nothing will. The whole film is completely flawed, the idea of a fleet of navy ships being blocked inside this sort of grid by some alien invasion force that is both attacking them, and the major cities across the globe, thus in a sense, creating a battle that happens on a grid somewhat like that of the boardgame Battleship, on which the film is based. Seriously this was a giant F/X flop, and it honestly shouldn't have been released to theaters, it was just a bad idea all around. I should also say it just barely beat out John Carter Of Mars for this award by the narrowest of margins, but we'll get to that film in abit.

And now, here are afew others that I felt deserve awards,  simply because I can't find a worst documentary or foreign film...

Most Hilarious Flop

John Carter

Man oh man, was this thing a stinker on levels of suck and fail that Uwe Boll hasn't even discovered yet, I still can not for the life me of me understand what the logic behind this was for Disney, it boggles the mind really. Its almost like the thought process went something like this; "hey, lets take what is gonna be our first tentpole blockbuster of the summer, John Carter Of Mars, shorten the name to simply John Carter, so people who remember the old sci fi stories will be confused as to if this movie is about that character, oh and while we're at it, lets not promote the movie at all until a week before it opens in theaters, and even then, lets do a light peppering of adds, after all, no one wants to see the continued bombardment of adds for a movie that cost 250mil. to make. That'd be silly of us, people will just show up, you know, because we're Disney, and people cult follow us.." .. gah, seriously just typing that out, even in my mocking manner, made me feel like I almost drank some of the disney koolaid. Honestly, if you can avoid this stinker, please, by all means do so. For yourself, for your family, for your parents, for 9/11, for america!

Most WTF Plotpoint

Bruce Wayne's logic and science defying recovery 

in The Dark Knight Rises

Ok, now I will admit, way back in the 1990s, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, long before there was ever a thing called a "vegan", when cartoons weren't just lazy translated anime about spikey haired kids on motorcycles playing card games, and we truly believed Austin 3:16 said "I just whooped your ass" not "I am a drunken redneck that beat both of my wives.", I, like many, fell for the hype that was a batman sales boosting storyline called Knightfall, where in a recently introduced, but still rather obscure Bat baddie by the name of Bane, would break the back of Bruce Wayne, who would, for a time have to give up the mantle of Batman, and though we all questioned why the fill in job was given to equally obscure and also recently introduced character of Azrael, instead of the original Robin, now going by Nightwing, or the current Robin, or anyone really, we all still went along for the two year ride that would see not only the worst Batman suit ever, but we'd be subject to one of the oddest explanations of how Batman was able to walk again. It worked on us all once, surely it wouldn't work on us all a second time would it? Hey guess what? IT WORKED ON US A SECOND TIME. Though admittedly this time it was alot more WTFy then the first time around. involving some kind of magical knee braces and someone mauy tai punching his back into place with the power of kung fu. Seriously, how in the hell did we let that happen a second time? Honestly comic book nerds, we've becoming far too complacent for our own good these days, someone needed to nerdrage about that lazy bit of writing, but yet, none of us did. Shame on us, shame on all of us.

Worst Attempt At Aiming A Movie At Black People

Red Tails

Hey gang! You wanna know whats not a good idea for a movie? Take something as historically important as the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, a group that truly do deserve a proper movie made about them, and then instead of making a respectful and possibly epic movie aimed at the african american community that doesn't have the prefix "Tyler Perry's" before its name, you make it the most horridly hacktastic and embarrassingly ghetto film that you can make it, oh and while you're at it, toss in atleast one rapper, and afew actors from all of those generic gangsta movies that end up on BET, give it a hip hop soundtrack, even though its set in World War 2, and then force the catchphrase "How do you like that, MR HITLER!" into the ghetto lexicon simply by using it in EVERY add you have for the film. Oh and also, completely make up your characters, instead of using the real names of the true Tuskegee Airmen, thus completely invalidating them and their place in history. Also, you wanna know what the worst part is? The very worst part of this attempt at ghettoing up one of the most important things to happen in the second world war, is that the film was written by Aaron McGuder, the created of the often controversial comic strip The Boondocks, which would normally mock the shit out of a pile of crap this big and this bad. I kind of wonder if he did it on purpose....

Movie It Pained Me To Give A Bad Review To..

Dark Shadows

Sigh, you all have no idea how painful it was for me to give this movie such a bad review, I grew up a fan, it was one of the things my parents felt I needed to grow up knowing about, much like they felt with Star Trek, Doctor Who, Blakes Seven, The Prisoner and tons of other classic sci fi stuff that is now hallowed ground to the nerds of the world. I wanted this movie to be good, it had all the things it needed to be so, Johnny Depp as the pre-Buffy archtype of what a vampire was like on tv, also set in the 1970s to give it that retro feel, the amazing Jackie Earl Haley as one of the best henchmen ever to hench, so much right with this, I wanted it to be good, I wanted it to be stellar, I wanted it to be the best it could be. But alas, it was not, it was just a half assed lazy attempt at an unfinished screenplay that read worse then some of the lazier written fanfiction out there, half of the characters were missing or glossed over, and what is there, isn't even close to what would account for a "story", more just two mystical older then dirt characters tossing insults at each other and fucking for half the film, then a forced joke about Alice Cooper, followed by a final act that made no sense at all, seeing as half of the cast has plot twists happen that were not even so much as hinted at before... Seriously this film has so much wrong with it left me crying like a baby that'd lost his favorite toy when this film was over. It just was so awful and I still feel sad at how bad this one was.

And thats about all i can think of, next onto tv... and hopefully it won't take me forever to get this one done like these last two...


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BC

Green Lantern

Green Lantern:

Well, Atleast It Was Still Better Than

Superman Returns... Kinda.

I believe it was the great Adam West who, while wearing his iconic guise as 1960s Batman, said "Somedays, You just can't get rid of a bomb..", a sort of tongue in cheek nod to what many Hollywood higher-ups believed of the idea of taking Batman from the small screen to the big screen, and though this line would go on to define one of the greatest camp films of all time, in a less fun way, it also defines the way that nearly every movie based on a DC Comics character that has followed that lovely bit of camp history, and yes all you hardcore comic nerds out there, I said "nearly every" because Superman and Superman II, as well as the Nolan Batman films and Watchmen are infact, brilliant films. For some reason, which no one can really figure out, all the things that DC Comics Animation division gets right, DC Comic's movie division gets wrong, well unless its Batman, its frustrating really, watching the constant build up and build up and almost Icarisian fall from the top of the box office to relative obscurity outside of its core fandom. As some of you either already know, or can judge by my statement, Green Lantern is no exception to the list of non-Batman related DC Comics bombs, which is sad, because visually, this film is beautiful, but, a bomb is a bomb no matter how you look at it.

Green Lantern tries to mash together the classic origin of Hal Jordan with a more recent, more confusing retcon that didn't really play over all that well in the comic books, and someone for whatever reason felt it would be a good idea to add to the movie, you know, because stuff tried in a comic book that is almost universally panned, works so well in the movies. The story starts millions of years before the Earth was formed on a planet called Oa, where we meet The Guardians Of The Universe, who are using the essence of willpower, which is for some reason green, to create an intergalactic police force to help them in their peace keeping efforts, this force would be called The Green Lantern Corps. The Lantern Corps split the universe into 3600 sectors, sending one Corps. member to each sector, each member is equiped with a power ring that allows them to do incredible things, and a lantern for which to recharge the ring, they are expected to travel between all the planets in their sector, doing whatever needs to be done for the lantern corps. Its very military that way, assuming you aren't already asleep at this point.

Apparently, not long after this, one of the elder Lanterns, Abin Sur, fought, and then imprisoned a being known as Parallax, a creature made of complete and utter fear, locking him away in the "lost sector" known as Sector 666. If your brain hasn't exploded yet, or if you gone to get popcorn or ice cream or whatever the hell it is they serve at movie theaters where you are and just didn't care about that first part, its ok, it'll be explained again in a second, because surprise! In a twist of story that only M. Night Shyamalan could have figured on, Parallax escapes! And his list of things to do once he breaks out of Lantern prison is as follows 1) Get an Arch Deluxe and some McNuggets at Space McDonalds, 2) Trash a Space McDonalds because even they don't have The Arch Deluxe anymore. 3) Settle for a Baconator at Space Wendy's out of frustration and self hate. 4) Find and destroy Abin Sur for locking him away in the not Phantom Zone. 5) Bang Abin Sur's wife cuz he's been in the not phantom zone for a long time and feels he deserves to be her post death of her husband bang after all those years of him avoiding having to kneel before Zod.

After leaving Abin Sur for dead on a small unimportant mudball called Earth and rushing to the awaiting bedroom of a grief stricken recently widowed Mrs. Abin Sur, Parallax didn't check his work, and though near death, Adin Sur, like megatron at the end of act one of the 1986 Transformers movie, still functions, however instead of being tossed out of Astrotrain to float through space till found and reformatted by a giant robotic Orson Welles, Adin's ring searches the planet for a replacement, knowing that it can not repair the wounds to Abin's body, because like they said in the lost sector, when Parallax shanks you, you stay shanked. Apparently the ring settles on hot shot test pilot and all around one dimensional douchebag Hal Jordan, I'm kind of assuming the ring is broken at this point, or because the ring is the only person that really liked Two Guys A Girl And A Pizza Place, or it secretly hates itself, or all of us. After the ring transports Jordan to where Abin lies dying, where he's explained why he's there, and what his fate is to be, Jordan, possibly being drunk on Red Bull, Prozac and Corona Light, or angry cuz his missed his last GTL, he accepts ownership of the ring and the lantern and told to speak the oath to make it official, later back at his douchepad, Hal, in what is probably the only funny scene in the film, tries many different ideas of what the oath could be, hoping to activate the ring, after the ring gets bored with him being stupid about it, it puts him in a trance and he recites the iconic Oath Of The Green Lantern Corps; In Brightest Day, In Darkest Night, No Evil Can Escape My Might, Beware My Power GReen Lantern's Light! ..... apparently the evil that let this script make it to film escaped your might, so you're 0 and 1 already there Sport Billy. Oh also at this point we discover that a small bit of Parallax's DNA has infected a scientist working for the secret alien investigation branch of the US Government, and is slowly taking him over, you know, because the film needs a villain at this point because Sinestro hasn't made his heel turn yet... oopsie, spoiler there as if any of you care at this point in the film.

After reciting the oath, Hal decides to do what his marvel comics counterpart Iron Man would do on a night ends in a y, which is go to a bar and get drunk, because the best way to celebrate meeting your first dying purple alien is to get kriggity kriggity krunk up in this mug and make it rain for your now dead purple homie. And a night of getting toe up from the floo' up isn't completel with out a fight or some kind as an ender, when Hal goes to punch one of the guys trying to get all up in his grill, the ring forms a giant green hand and knocks out the rapscallion trying to get Hal to fight with him faster then Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson's Punch-out. Hal, puzzled, really drunk, and partly believing he's just gotten his Duchess of Queensbery rules on, runs home, where he can sleep off his booze and brag to the internet about his fisticuffs action. At this point, Hal is magic ring'd away to the planet of Oa, the home of the Green Lantern Corps, where he's put through Lantern Bootcamp, and no, I am not leaving out stuff for comedy's sake, it seriously happens this fast in the film. He's put through Lantern Bootcamp and impresses most of the corps members who mostly believe humans are lower primate lifeforms, below the intelligence level or refinement deserving of a lantern. The Lanterns are kind of a mix of the Marines and the Heaven's Gate cult if you haven't figured it out yet, the Guardians even look like little Marshall Applewhite clones, oh and also the green lanterns are dicks. One person Hal doesn't impress with his stupid human tricks is Lantern answer to D.H Hartman, Sinestro, who's so dickish that his nose even looks like one. Sinestro hates humans, I'd assume because his mom is one and he hates them for it, or maybe he's just racist or something, anyway he objects to Hal being a lantern and has a girly hissy fit about it, right there infront of everyone, you know, cuz thats how the leader of a universe wide multi race law enforcement organization should behave., like a whiny bitch. Eventually, that leads to fight between the two, a fight thats so bromantic it would give the late Paul Lynde sexual arousal, complete with a very phallic scene of Ryan Reynolds with a very phallic looking giant machine gun, looking very phallic, for serious, this scene would be on a dvd looping it on Charles Nelson Riley's porn collection.

As you'd guess, this fight leads to a mutual respect between the two, but it also leads to Sinestro deciding that the only way they can defeat the now done banging Abin Sur's widow Parallax, is the create a ring out of the same stuff Parallax is made from, because you know, becoming the all powerful murder being is always the way to beat it. Once its crafted, the guardians prepare for the invasion of Oa, Hal, who Sinestro still doesn't really a'cotton too, is furious to discover they plan on making their stand against Parallax on his eventual return to Oa, with everyone believing Earth should be sacrificed for the good of the rest of the universe in order to stop the dreaded sort of vaguely explained creature thingie. Hal, forgetting that everyone apparently hates humans, is outraged at this and asks for help in defending his home world, and the rest of the lantern corps, ignore him and he storms off to defend earth alone, you know, cuz thats what heroes do. The final battle happens and as I'm sure you can figure out by now, the power of the one ring is greater then the power of an all powerful being of pure fear or whatever the hell he is, and Hal, taking a page from the preachings of Mr. T, tosses Parallax into the sun, because nothing can survive the heat of the sun, though i'm really not sure if Parallax is alive or not, so, yeah. In the end, Hal passes out only to be saved by Sinestro and afew of the other corps members, who bring him back to Oa where everyone now loves him and humans, claiming he's a true lantern now, and giving him control over earth. In the end, they show Sinestro don the yellow ring made of whatever Parallax was, implying his soon to be heel turn which would probably be the plot of a second film, had this film not bombed at the box office.

So its not really a question of if the movie is worth seeing or not, its a question of, just how much mashed together half baked half understood ideas can you take at one time on film? If you're like me, and is aware of the source material, and among the masses who were outraged at the entire retcon of the entire Parallax thing, see in the comics, Hal's hometown of Coast City is decimated by some massive event and the Guardians forbid Hal from using his ring's power to save the city, not even the family and friends he had there, saying they died nobly and with honor, there is no reason to bring them back to life, Hal becomes enraged, breaks into the vault where the unused power rings are kept and steals all but one which had fallen out of his hands in the raid, becomes insane with power and becomes Parallax, leading to a new Green Lantern, one people actually liked, in preparation for this film, the whole story of Parallax was retcon'd to something very vague and very confusing and alot like what he is in the film, and Hal is "freed" of his essence, which allows him to be the Green Lantern again, which REALLY pissed the fanbase off, it really doesn't surprise me that the whole involvement of Parallax was kept secret till the last minute given the uproar it has caused among the fans, and is infact the reason this film didn't match numbers with giant comic to movie adaptions like Iron Man and X-Men First Class, which is what DC was hoping to do with this film, lay the groundwork to have a shared movieverse like what Marvel's doing, and sadly, much like with Superman Returns, which really was just 2 hours of Superman doing general dickery and being a deadbeat dad, it just failed in the most horrible way. Even taking the comic book knowledge out of the situation, and my sarcastic write up aside, the film just isn't that good, its rushed, its confused, it feels like there are giant chunks missing that should give us abit more of a clue as to whats going on at any given time, and also, the CGI looks wrong, it looks like someone took the engine used to make Avatar, and then cell shaded it to give it "depth", and then ofcourse ran it through a 3D filter, which really made things worse, there was less need for 3D in this film then there was in Yogi Bear, and if you've suffered through that 90 car crack up of a bad film, you'll know that it didn't need 3D at all, you know, like most films these days. So if you're just a die hard comic book adaptation fan, or you just have two hours and a free movie pass you wanna kill, or because deep down you hate yourself, then go see Green Lantern, but if you're one of those people that actually enjoys their time at the movies, and doesn't like to have them wasted by just horrible horrible stuff, go see something else. But thats my two cents...

If you're still interested, here is the trailer....



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BC

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Xmen Origins: Wolverine:
Or How A Comic Book Film Can Go Completely Wrong,
But I don't learn to Love The Bomb

Its never been a hidden fact that I am a very big comic book fan, and its in that truth that I feel I must also at this time state that though I do love the characters that I love, as any good comic fan does, I am in the minority of fans who enjoy, and in some cases welcome change when a comic is adapted to the movie or television screen, I welcome the idea of improvement or change, I find it refreshing and sometimes enough to bring new life to a forgotten, obscure or not “top level” character, like how the X-Men movies made Bobby “Iceman” Drake and John “Pyro”Allerdyce seem like characters people could actually care about, instead of flat cardboard cut outs doomed to the background role of supporting cast for instance, and sometimes changing a character fails, like in X-Men: The Last Stand, when Jean Grey's Phoenix storyline was relegated to a brief hardly explained subplot that really made no sense at all and kind of made me, and a lot of others from what I gather, angry that the story that drew them into comics as a child was barely a subplot that was tossed in at the last minute believing just because the Phoenix appeared on screen, comic fans would eat it up and cheer. Instead it become an example of how sometimes, these drastic changes are just too much and push the character past re-invention, into the realm of completely mishandled shlock put on screen only to make money off the characters who appear in it, with no regard or thought given to the source material at all. Such is the case with the new film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, where I am left to wonder if the writers had any clue of who they were writing or what the story was about. As I said, change in comic book properties can be good, and when they are, normally they are very good, but when they go wrong, they become very bad, and sadly, Wolverine is very bad. So bad infact I kind of wonder if it was made simply to tank the X-Men franchise before Fox Studio's contract to make movies in the series ran out, sort of theatrical sabotage if you will, because there is no logical way I can fathom anyone thinking this film's script was a good idea.



Now, the general idea for many years has been that to properly make a movie about Wolverine, you would have to split it into two films, one telling the story of his childhood in northern British Columbia Canada, and end at the end of his adult life in the logging camps in Manitoba Canada, and the next explaining how he got the metal skeleton and the entire Weapon X saga. Told separately they are both rich and detailed stories that would each bring in a great deal of money at the box office, and they would showcase the rich history of the character and those in his life. However, this new film, does not do this. Infact it really only takes about five persent of the character's history, adds in a lot of characters who were not linked at all, and somehow have changed powers from what they should, and then fills in the rest as they go. The best wording I could use to explain this script is horrible fan-fiction, and I'm talking worse then those Star Wars, Star Trek, The Smurfs, Transformers, Golden Girls, Twilight, Harry Potter, etc, ones where people write themselves or some role playing character they made up for some table top role playing game involving graph paper and 20 sided dice into the story simply so they can save the day and end up in a hot tub in the end with all the female/male characters or both depending on how the writer rolls, sort of Fan-Fiction here, like the kind you would find on the hard drive of someone thats never seen a member of the opposite sex thats not a jpeg or doesn't know of life outside their parent's basement or garage. I'm sure you get the idea now.



The film starts out where it should, in a stately old manor in upper British Columbia Canada, with no statement of how long ago it was, its supposed to be the early 1850s or so, we see a little sickly boy in bed coughing, while an older boy who is carving something with a knife sits near by, the young boy in the bed is James Hewlett, though his last name is never given, he's simply called James, James' father walks in to check on the boy and to thank Victor, the older boy for watching his son, you then hear Victor's father, a man Identified as Thomas Creed outside the door yelling, James' father looks at Victor and says “your father's come looking for you again, he sounds angry and abit on the drunk side” with a sigh, Victor looks at him and says “With all do respect sir, its not my name he's calling out.”. James' father lets out a sigh and says “you stay here with James, I shall handle this..” next you hear some yelling, and shouting, and then a gunshot. Victor looks to the door shocked as James jumps out of bed calling his father's name and then yells horrified to see that his father is shot dead on the sitting room floor. He stands over the body, looking over at his mother, and at Thomas Creed, he lets out a yell, three claws made out of bone rip from the skin of James' forearms, as he runs at Thomas Creed spearing him into the wall killing him, with his last words he tells James that he was his father, not the man he believed to be, he pulls his claws out of Thomas Creed as he dies, and looks at them in horror, his mother, on the floor near by looks at him crying, yelling “What are you? You're a monster! You are not my son, you're a monster!”, James panics, Victor comes running out, says to him that they have to leave because the police will blame them, James agrees and they go running into the woods of northern British Columbia Canada. At one point they stop, Victor tells James that after the revelation that they are brothers, it means they need to stick together, because brothers look out for each other, they both promise to always care for and look after each other, no matter what. The next scene shows them running through a field, and as the camera pans back you see them get older and it transitions into them as they fight side by side in every war there has been sense that time; The American Civil War, World War One, World War Two and The Vietnam War are shown, the first act ends with them in Vietnam decimating a village that was believed to be a hide out for Vietcong, with Victor, killing the rest of their unit after their commanding officer orders them both to stop killing the villagers, they are then put to a firing squad, they both joke about how they'll survive it and how they'll get a laugh out of seeing the faces of the people doing the shooting.



This is the first 15 minutes of the film, its ment to represent a mix of the story “Origin” which tells of Wolverine's childhood and how he ends up with out his family, and some mashed together half mentions that are made by both Wolverine and Victor Creed in passing over the years in the comics. The problem with this is, you can't take a story like Origin, which was a very well written story with a rich cast that all had meaning, cut out half of the cast, change character's names, change the ending, and mash it all down to 7 and a half minutes, its impossible, you can't put somewhere near 300 pages of story into that little of screen time and change it that much, the changes are mostly in the concept of James' paternity, its never really stated if Thomas Logan, the man Thomas Creed is based on, really is James' father, though he is drawn to look exactly like a grown up Wolverine, only taller, and Thomas' son is never actually called Victor, he's simply called “Dog”, that is the only name he answers too, James does kill Thomas after he kills his father, but James' mother does not call her son a monster, she instead cradles Thomas' dead body and then kills herself. Dog is left with a three line scar across his face from James when he killed Thomas, this is simular to the scar sometimes drawn on the face of Victor Creed, who Dog eventually grows up to look like, though its never stated that Dog is infact Victor. After the kills James does escape and goes on to be a logger in the Canadian wilderness instead of fighting in war after war after war until the 1970s, but he leaves with the character of Rose, a redheaded girl who is his tutor and best friend, and eventually becomes his love interest, she's also ment to represent the reason why Wolverine is attracted to the character of Jean Grey in both the X-Men comics, and all the other media as well, I have no idea why she was left out of the film, personally I felt if they wanted to make this more of a “character driven movie” as they stated instead of a “standard comic book movie”, they should have made it about them and how that life ended tragically with Dog returning and killing Rose, causing James to run off into the woods alone to become a wildman or sorts with Dog chasing him, which would be a great segway into another film where they did the whole Weapon X program, where you see how James becomes Wolverine and gains the adamantium skeleton and does all the black ops stuff before his memory is scrambled.



Instead of that, the film splits completely from what we know of the history in the comics and kind of makes up its own story with minimal bits of the comic's history tossed about randomly to fill in the plotholes in this hacked together story. Act Two picks up after they've been shot for disobeying orders in Vietnam, James and Victor are in a cell when they're visited by William Stryker, who some of you might recall as the main villain in X-men 2, he tells them of how he's putting together a team of people just like them, mutants (with attitude!) and he could really use their help. The two smirk at each other, and agree to join his team of mutants (with attitude!) which is called “Team X”. The team consist of James and Victor, John Wraith; a Teleporter, Wade Wilson (deadpool), who should have a healing factor simular to James and Victor, but instead has gained the mutant power of being able to use a sword really good while not shutting up, Agent Zero, who is an asian man with the mutant power to shoot guns really good, instead of being a canadian man with the power to absorb kinetic energy and afew other neat powers like he was ment to be, with the characters of Fred “The Blob” Dukes a character who can absorb and channel any form of energy he is hit with into strength or speed, however the build up of energy leaves him looking morbidly overweight, Blob is the movie replacement of Mastodon, a character who served as the teams “muscle” before his death, and finally Chris “Bolt” Bradley, who can control electrical things with just a thought, he is the movie replacement to Silver Fox, who though in the film, is not officially a member of the team itself, instead she fills the role that Rose would have played had they went the Origin route with the film as I mentioned earlier, in the original material, Dukes and Bradley were never members of Team X, infact, Dukes has always been played as a villain, and until half way through the film is made to appear kind of tall and lanky. Bradley was a last minute script change addition when the writers realized their original casted character, Barnell “Beak” Bohusk, was an anthropomorphic bird-man, not able to control electrical things. If this mix up should have been taken as the film's first nail in the coffin I'm unsure, but I wouldn't be against anyone else stating that fact.



Act Two follows Team X around, as you see them doing all sorts of super secret Black Ops work for the United States Government, though which branch is never actually stated in the film, though assuming they haven't changed it from the comics its a branch of the CIA. The centerpiece of the second act is the team acquiring an asteroid that looks to be made of a silver like metal for Stryker, who seems intent on getting it. The scene is pretty neat as far as action scenes go, though its really just ment to introduce you to each character and show off their powers. I'll admit with the exception of Agent Zero and Wade Wilson's made up abilities and Duke's being skinny they did get the others pretty much right, finally getting Victor Creed's movements which are similar to that of a large wild feline correct, something no other version of the character on film of tv has been able to do, instead going with the sheer size and mental instability of Creed, both of which also are part of the character's personality as well, which I found to be a good touch. After the second act finishes with them in the village where the asteroid that Stryker was looking for is, it shows them terrorizing the village, the act ends with James, now for some unexplained reason being called “Logan”, stops Victor from killing someone who has information on where the villagers hid the Asteroid, he looks around while still holding Victor's hand back from killing the man and decides he's had enough of what they were doing, he then quits the team and leaves them in the jungle.



Act Three begins some time later, James is living in the pacific north west, logging and living with a school teacher, an Indian named Kayla Silver Fox, who is ment to represent the Team X member Silver Fox, who was once in love with Wolverine, its this part of the story where you see how James takes the name Wolverine, its from an old Indian story Silver Fox tells him, which I kind of like better then the real story of how he got the name, being compared to the actual animal. You see James being happy, living a nice solitary life, though he's plagued by nightmares, he wakes up screaming most nights, even popping his claws out and shredding bedsheets. Silver Fox seems to be unscared by these things and infact she encourages him to talk bout what torments him. Next you cut to a carnival in the southern united states, where you see Chris Bradley working as a side show act, apparently this is what he did after eventually following James' lead and leaving Team X. He makes an alright living, and spends his night alone in his trailer, which is completely full of electronic things, which he keeps powered just as a way of using his powers, he hears a knock on the door, he answers it, and its Victor. Bradley knows why he's there, and snarks “I always figured it would be Wade or Zero..” implying he knows that Victor is there to kill him, which he does. Next we jump back to James, who's working at his job as a logger, when he stops and notices two scents he remembers, William Stryker and Agent Zero, who show up to tell James of Bradley's death, and tell him that Victor killed him, and that they believe Victor is going after all of their former team mates, they ask James to come back with them and fight back against Victor, but he refuses. Stryker pleads with him to return, but he refuses, driving off, leaving them behind as he goes back to his work. Hours later he stops dead and starts to sniff the air, he recognizes the scents in the air, he knows that Victor is near by, as is Silver Fox, who is on her way to pick him up, James realizes what this means and runs off into the woods following their scents. You see a short scene where Victor comes out of the woods, cuts the front of Silver Fox's car all to bits and then you see James in the woods as he finds what appears to me her bloody murdered body.



This leads James to track down Victor, who is sitting at a local bar, in a sense waiting for him to find him. This leads to the big fight scene between the two characters, because, well there has to be atleast one. In typical action fight scene fashion with the brutality and the trash talking, Victor, in true villain style says how they both live for the violence and how they aren't that different, you know the standard issue trash talk, nothing all that new, some great moves, but thats about it, in the end Victor says “you can't beat me” and buries James under some logs, then stomping down on James' bone claws breaking them. James next wakes up in hospital operating room as they're about to give time of death, he wakes up in a fury and starts to yell about how he needs to find Victor. The camera pans to the right and you see William Stryker standing there, as he states that he can help James become strong enough to defeat Victor, who Stryker believe has gone completely insane. After a boring and contrived argument, James agrees to go with Stryker, who takes him back to his lab and dubs James “Weapon X” and explains that they're taking part in a program of the same name, he then explains that the asteroid they found earlier in the film allowed them to make a metal called Adamantium, which is stronger then anything on the planet, and then explains that he believes with James' healing ability they believe the metal will bond to his skeleton if pumped into his body.... this is the point of the movie I started to finally realize just how little these writers knew of the characters that they were writing about, and started to wish for the end to come, but it got worse.



Stryker asks James what name he'd like on his new dog tags, James just says “have them say Wolverine.”, and thus the character is named. Next you see the tossed together attempt at explaining how Wolverine's metal skeleton came to be, he almost dies in the tank, but survives and pops out of the tank all naked and roaring with his new metal claws out. I was kind of hoping they'd do some of the actual Weapon X story, and maybe we'd see the classic Weapon X shot of Wolverine wearing that info helmet and stuff thats so iconicly linked to the story of Weapon X and Wolverine himself, you know to maybe save this gamma sized bomb even if just alittle bit by means of giving a little fan pander scene or two, but no, that didn't happen and this bomb couldn't be saved. Oh well...



Next you see Victor, in a high school tracking down a young boy who happens to be Scott Summers, the mutant known as Cyclops, the eye beam shooting leader of The X-Men, he chases Scott down and tranquilizes him, he then radios Stryker saying he's gotten the boy, revealing that the whole thing to get James back into the group was a rouse by both men. Next you see James in Las Vegas where he meets up with now retired John Wraith, who tells him that Team X broke apart not long after he left, he then tells him what they were doing after James left, they went from special ops, to rounding up, and in some cases killing, mutants “They made us hunt and kill our own kind..” Wraith says, he then says that Victor never really recovered from James leaving, and grew more and more unstable, and eventually caused everyone to leave except Agent Zero and Wade Wilson. Wraith then says he doesn't know where they were holding the mutants they were capturing, but he said that Fred Dukes knew, because he was transferred there for a short time, he then states that “retirement wasn't easy on Fred.. he's different”, this is when we first see Fred Dukes as he's known in the comics, very tall and morbidly fat, but fast and strong as anyone. After a pretty funny boxing match in which James calls him “Bub” which Dukes misreads as “Blob” a name he hates being called, Dukes goes into a frenzy and after seeing no matter how hard he hits James, he can't put him down, and a final headbutt with his new metal skull, Dukes tells James where to find the only person to ever escape the holding location, a man named Gambit, and says he will need to help them get inside, given that all Dukes did was supervise transports, with blacked out windows he had no idea where the actual location was.



James and Wraith set off to New Orleans, where they find Remy Lebeau, the man better known as Gambit. Who apparently was able to escape from this holding location because he won his freedom in a card game with the guards. I remember yelling outloud to myself “Gambit's power isn't to be good at poker, thats not a damn power at all”, I guess if I was going to get anything out of this film that was of any worth I'd have to make it myself, You actually meet Gambit in a poker room in New Orleans, where he's playing cards with some guy thats a world poker champion, I can't remember his name cuz well, I could care less about world poker champions, James sits down at the table and after a deep theoretical anti hero to anti hero talk, James explains that he's there, Remy believing he's there to take him back attacks him, apparently not only has he gained the mutant power to play poker really well, but he can also control cards and make them fly in slow motion at people, oh and also his charging things to energy to make them explode powers are there, this ofcourse means they superhero-fu fight now. While this is happening, you see Wraith outside the poker hall in the alley waiting for James, out of the shadows comes Victor who after Wraith holds him off pretty well, is killed by Victor literally holding out his hand where Wraith materializes, which anyone that knows their comic book science nows, that will kill a person, but, just for added effect, and i'd assume so he's not walking around with a dead body on his arm, Victor rips his hand out of Wraith's body, which now slumps to the ground.



James soon gets knocked through a wall into the same alley, and while he's trying to explain to Remy that he needs his help getting inside the location where all the mutants are held, remember that, that was the whole point of this scene right? Just as he's gotten him to believe him, Remy looks up to see Victor, he then believes its a set up again, until he seems James fighting him off, after James and Remy fight off Victor, Remy agrees to take him to the location where all the mutants are being held. The next scene is this kind of stupid wedged in buddy picture scene that falls just shy of a “whats the matter, the fall will probably kill ya..” to fully rip off just about every hallmark from that genre. After going over their plan, where James infiltrates the building, and Remy lands his plane then meets him inside, James then jumps out of Remy's plane, which he apparently won in a poker game, skipping on the water till he hits the shoreline outside the compound, and guess what? SURPRISE!!! Its famed nuclear meltdown site Three Mile Island! Because you know, where else are you going to play Maniac Manson with mutants other then a nuclear reactor thats been dormant sense it had a meltdown. I'm at this point wondering why a super top secret uber black ops holding location doesn't have good enough security to not only notice a small leer jet coming in toward it, and landing on its grounds, but also why it can't detect a lone person literally walking up to his side gate and walking right in almost completely unnoticed, you'd think there would be security or something right? Guess no one thought of that.



The last act, as i'm sure you can guess is the whole big climatic fight, James finds out that Silver Fox is alive, and she was keeping him in check for Stryker until he felt he needed him again, you have another big fight with Victor, and you find out that Silver Fox is only helping Stryker because he's got her young sister, an unnamed mutant who has one of the powers of “The White Queen” Emma Frost (and is billed as her apparently), you find out why Stryker's been playing mutant pokemon (gotta catch'um all!), its to build the perfect mutant. And that mutant is made out of Wade Wilson, the only member of Team X you haven't seen sense the first part of the movie, but now his mouth is sealed shut, this leads to the sarcastic yet horribly timed statement “I guess someone finally shut you up Wade...” (ugh!), also I'm not aware of how the full length sword that comes out of Wade's arm is even possible, I mean its a full size sword, how could it actually fit up his arm? It would need to fit the whole length and that would mean there isn't a bend in it, but he can clearly bend his arm... Thankfully this horrible shlockfest of a movie is almost over, I can't take much more of this, not even Fast and The Furious was this big of a stankbomb. As this fight happens you find out that Stryker's implanted Wade with all of the powers of all the mutants they've come across through the entire film, James' healing, Victor's agility, Wraith's teleportation, Wade's apparent skill to use a sword good, and the eye beams of Scott Summers, who they captured earlier, they don't really show anyone else's powers in the fight. Half way through the fight they end up on time of the big smoke stack on top of Three Mile Island, James falls in, but is grabbed by Victor, who's apparently showed up out of no where, and delivers that horribly bad line that I knew was coming “No one kills you but me..... brother.” I cringed at this, I really did. Following this, they team up and fight the supermutant that used to be Wade Wilson, apparently metal claws can deflect eye beams that are powerful enough to cut through a building as they do earlier in the film, thats some amazing metal, seriously. They end the fight by cutting off Wade's head, and apparently the future plans for Marvel Studios to make that movie about Wade they been talking about for years, oh well, that was 10 years of talk down the drain. As the building is falling around them, Victor looks at James and says “this changes nothing between us, brother.” and runs off.



Next you see Silver Fox freeing the mutants held here, including her sister, who may or may not be a young Emma Frost, among the children that are escaping, comic book fans will recognize Banshee, Quicksilver, Storm, Mastermind, and afew others, non-comic book fans will recognize no one, because they are not comic book fans and wouldn't know who any of those people are. Next you see Stryker, who's frantically packing things so get out of the compound because he knows that James is coming for him, he loads a gun with bullets that are the same metal thats in Wolverine's skeleton, and when told they won't kill him, Stryker says “Its ok, I have a magic bullet, and all I need to do is shoot him in the head and he'll forget everything he's ever known” how this was proven I've got no idea, its never explained. James finally catches up with Stryker outside near the way out of the compound, they have another villain to hero monologue, as you cut between this and the kids getting away, which leads them to the same place where James and Stryker are apparently, this leads to Silver Fox being mortally shot, and James shot down trying to get to her, two shots to the head, and apparently he loses his memory. I still don't know how that works, but i'm kind of wishing I could lose my memory at this point honestly. The children run off after Silver Fox is shot, and end up outside the grounds where Charles Xavier, also known as professor Charles Xavier, found of the X-Men saves them, unknown to anyone else, the movie then cuts back to Gambit coming to get Wolverine, claiming they need to leave before the police get there, Wolverine looks at him and yells “who am I? I don't remember who I am”, Gambit says “your name is logan, and you're a good man..”, they start to run away, Wolverine sees Silver Fox's body, and goes over to her, claiming a vague remembering of the face, but can't recall anything of her, and thats where the film ends.



Now, as I'm sure you can tell that I'm not really a big fan of this film, and I guess maybe my knowledge of comics got in the way, I don't really know, but I can say this, if you are a comic book fan, or were a comic book fan at any time, you'll probably hate the film, even though the action scenes are pretty cool, even the one where Wolverine kills Zero, which was kind of a bland unneeded to be mentioned part of the film, but I guess if you aren't a comic book fan, you could enjoy the film, but otherwise, I'd avoid it, like I said at the start, reinvention is fine, but this just changes everyone so much that its almost as if you're watching a bad attempt at a direct to video action film, and not one of those good ones either, like a seriously bad one. So I guess watch at your own risk, if you're up for watching this.



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BC