Thursday, April 30, 2009

X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Character's Breakdown





X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a movie that is highly anticipated to anyone who likes comic books, who likes action, who likes X-Men or who likes Hugh Jackman. This movie focuses on the origins of Wolverine (hence the title), where he got his claws, how old he really is (in the first X-Men movie, Jean Grey said he could be more than a 100 years old already) and why does he has all this rage in him. Wolverine or Logan, his real name has long and painful history that is cleverly written to be in this movie, which makes non fan of the movie understand what the whole story is about. Hugh Jackman performance is the movie is amazing. He really bulked up a lot of muscle in the movie to become Wolverine, and he really tap in his inner rage to become that angry wild wolverine that we all love so much. It makes us all want to reach into our inner rage and go berserk. Jackman knows how to put all of the emotions that Wolverine has to go through (rage, sadness, disappointment, betrayal, love) into his character. How tough Jackman’s body is? Well, in the first part of the movie, he was running butt naked. I stress the butt part, well because we can see his naked butt running out of the laboratory and jumping into the waterfall that goes into the sea. Hmm, I wonder in future screenings they would have to cut out this part, but it would spoil the action scene a bit.



Live Schreiber portrays as Victor Creed, also known as Sabertooth, but this name was not mention at all in the movie. Wow, that is all I can say. He does a great job playing Victor Creed, a person who is of great importance to Wolverine. They go back, way back together. He has similar powers to Logan which is super senses (increased sensitivity of all 5 senses), super healing, has sharp fangs and he has claws. Wolverine claws grow out from his knuckles while Victor’s claw grows like a regular fingernail but it curves a bit like a cat’s claw. Victor is much stronger than Logan, runs much faster (he runs like a cat, going down all four legs/limbs/feet). I love how they bring this character back to the screen, but one question kept popping in my mind. Sabertooth had long blond hair in the first movie, but in this movie he has this stylish shortly cropped hair and a well groom facial hair. Take off the claws and he might as well be another stylish dude walking down the runway in New York. I guess to make him more believable in the real world. I prefer Scrhreiber to play as Sabertooth rather than the blond wrestler Tyler Mane who played Sabertooth in the first movie. He look better too. This movie tells you the relationship between Wolverine and Sabertooth, I am not sure if it’s written purely for this movie or for the X-Men universe.

William Stryker was played by Danny Huston, a ruthless army officer who wants to gather all the mutants and combined their power into one soldier using the Weapon X program. He is very ruthless and will do everything necessary to do what ever he wants. Stryker does a great job, of being nice and evil all at the same time. He hates mutants but he loves their powers to do whatever job that he needs. If you watched X-Men 2 you will find the reason why he become this ruthless man. Just keep an eye, or two on his son, which also appeared in X2 and X-Men Origins. The clue? His son has green eyes on one side and blue eyes on the other side. I am on the fence on the who played the better character of Stryker whether its Danny Huston or Brian Cox as the 40 yr old stryker in X2.

Scroll down to the end of the post if you do not want to read my rambling on the other characters

Okay, Wolverine, Sabertooh and Stryker are the major characters of this film, lets take a look of the other characters.

Will i Am, one the member’s of Black Eye Peas, makes his first appearance in a major film as Jason Wraith, a character with a teleportation ability similar to Nightcrawler, but with out the smoke. He works with Logan in the Weapon X program. Not much to say but he is a supportive character with supportive powers,

Lynn Collins plays the character Kayla Silverfox, which is Logan’s love interest in the movie. She is a Native Canadian Blackfoot (in other words Red Indian of Canada) with the power of calming other people mind. Actually what her power really is, is mind control but she has to touch them in order for her to control their mind. Her character was changed dramatically from the comic book, in the comic book she has an artificial super healing ability, meaning she can heal as fast as Wolverine and Sabertooth, but I guess that won’t work in the story line in X-Men origins.


Kevin Durand plays as The Blob, in the movie he was muscular and fit but as the story progresses he became extremely obese. Although he gain tons of weight, his power which is portrayed as super human strength and durability in the movie is still viable. In the comics he has another power which is creating his own gravity, meaning once he sits down, no one and nothing can move him.

Dominic Monaghan plays as Bolt, a mutant who can control electricity (hence the code name). He does not actually produce or shoot out electricity but he seem can to control it using his mind. A passive form of it you might say.

Taylor Kitsch plays as Remy LeBeau or better known as Gambit. He is from Louisiana, a state in the US where there are people with strong French backgrounds. Most of them don’t speak French but they still retain there name and some of the traditions. He has the power to kinetically charged objects to make them explodes. He is one the character that is highlighted in the movie, because he is one the character that most of us anticipated. I love how the his is shown in the movie, how each card glows from the edges before it explodes. He has a staff that he can use to transfer his kinetic charge into other objects.

Daniel Henney plays David North or also known as Agent Zero. In this movie he portrayed as an excellent marksman (meaning he is very good with guns) and superhuman agility. The actions he did in the movie was fantastic. I thought I recognized this actor before and I did. He is a Korean heartthrob who acted in many Korean drama’s such as “My name is Kim San Soon and Hello Franseska”. Henney is the son of a Korean mother and a British father. He is an American born and raised in American, hence the perfect American accent. However his looks and charisma lands him on many modeling jobs in South Korea. Daniel has the face of a Korean actor that has done tons of plastic surgery (South Korea has one of the highest plastic surgery operations in the world). Big eyes, sharp nose and chiseled face. While other people had to go under the knife, his features come naturally.
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Next we have, Ryan Renolds who plays Wade Wilson or better known as Dead Pool. He is like the perfect person to play Dead Pool, because Dead Pool himself is character who loves crack jokes and sarcasm every time he opens his mouth. He has an excellent fighter with his sword and incredible reflexes. Definitely an enjoyment to watch even though his on screen appearance is cut short.

Tim Pocock plays as Scott Summers, the wimpy teenager version of Cyclops. He has a minor role in the film but he gets to be appears in the posters. Hmm so typical of the X-Men movies, just like how Colossus gets to be in the posters of the movie but he has no speaking part.

Tahyna Tozzi plays as Emma, Kayla’s sister. This is not Emma Frost, since she is related to Kayla Silverfox her last name would be Silverfox as well. Although she shares the similar powers as Emma frost, which is to transform her body into diamonds, she shows no signs of telepathic powers. In the comics her telepathy is her main source of powers, while her diamonized body is her secondary mutation, which was induced artificially. This is another minor character that over hyped by the PR of the movie.

I love this movie even though they strayed away a bit from the comics, but the movie makers are trying to make this as realistic as possible. The story line is great, meaning that even non fans could understand what had happened and fans who point out all the details of the movie. I give this a perfect score, for the story line, the incredible special effect, and the acting. A movie not to be missed.

1 comment:

Ad said...

ad layan cetak rompak...siap ada tali2 gayut belakang pelakon dan siap aksi2 yg spesel effect tu graphic komputer yg x siap..

tp xper,janji leh tgk hugh jackman!!!