[TV Series Review] Supernatural Season 1

Posted by Louis O'Hara / at 5/09/2009 / / 0 comments

I've seen every episode of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Bones, Chuck, Veronica Mars, Smallville, True Blood, Heroes and Lost that's currently avaliable to buy or watch on television, so naturaly... I needed a new television series to burn through, and so I picked the next on my long list of show's to watch: Supernatural.

Let's start with a simple explanation of the series, just so you know what kind of show you're dealing with. (Though if the title didn't give you some indication, you're either retarded or just very, very slow.)

Supernatural is the story of two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester. When the two were children, one night their mother put them to bed, only for a disturbance with their baby moniter to cause their mother concern. So she get's up and checks on the younger brother, Sam, in his crib... only to find a dark figure standing over her. She's then telekineticly lifted onto the ceiling, screaming out in pain, which awakens the father. He goes running up stairs to see his wife stuck to the ceiling with her stomach carved open and watches her set alight, as Dean runs in. Their father (John Winchester, because I hate typing "Their Father" or "Dad") gives Sam to Dean and gets the two of them out of the house, as their mothers body promptly explodes into a flurry of flames.

Something like 20 years later, Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki) is living happily in college with his girlfriend Jessica when he finds his brother, Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) standing in his room. Dean tells Sam the their father has gone missing on one of his "Hunting Trip's" and so the two of them set out to find him. They don't, but Sam tell's Dean that he lives a normal life now and has no intrest in leaving it. That is until he return home and finds Jessica trapped on the ceiling and being burned to a crisp. Sam escapes just in time, but can't save Jessica. Sam joins up with Dean and the two of them go on the look for their father, solving cases of Hauntings, Monster Attacks and Demonic Possesion along the way. 

I was always quite hesitant to watch Supernatural, partially because I saw an episode of something that I thought was Supernatural a long time ago (It wasn't.) that I didn't particulary enjoy, and also because for some reason, it just didn't sound all that appealing. Not to mention that I hated Jensen Ackles in Smallville and I don't think Jared Padalecki has ever done anything half decent before this. (Or since, really.) But now that I've watched it, I can honestly say that I am now kicking myself for not catching this show sooner. Ackles plays one of the coolest and likeable characters I've seen on television in a long time, and while I'm still not so fond of Sam, he's perfectly acceptable as his role in the series.  Oh and it's produced by McG, so you know it's going to have great special effect's at the very least.

The actual show deals with the history behind the two brothers, why it was that Sam left his brother and father, the search for their father John Winchester (Played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, or The Comedian as you may know him from Watchmen. And man, I love this guy. He's got a natural charisma that shines ever so brightly, I'd liken him to the greatness of Giles, Hugh Jackman in Van Helsing and Lionel Luther from Smallvile.) and their indivigual cases, taking on all sorts of "Supernatural" baddies. While I'll admit that the show doesn't always deliver when it comes to the villians of certain episodes (A particular episode in Season 1 with cursed ground and the "Wild Life" attempting to kill a town's inhabitants was pretty... meh.) but other episodes have me litteraly quivering with fear. (If you have a fear of dead things like the girl from The Ring, then I have no doubt you'll be shitting yourself when it comes to the Bloody Mary episode. Horrifyingly awesome.) 

Even if you're not interested in Horror, most episodes contain quite a bit of Action (With the two brother's weapons of choice being Sawn Off Shotguns. I mean come on, who doesn't look bad ass with a pair of Sawn Off Shotguns?) and the character development makes for a great story on it's own. There's also a lot of humour, mostly from Dean, through out the series, give the show a little bit of everything. If you're not a big fan of the Supernatural, well, even then I'd suggest giving the show a try because it might just be quirky enough for you to enjoy, and if you are a fan, then you're in for a treat with this show as it most always delivers the goods. Supernatural earns itself a 9/10 from me, but then, I love Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel more than life itself, so if you're not as big a fan of show's with this sort of theme as me, you'll probaly find it to be more of 7/10. Still, totally worth checking out the first series if you've got the cash for the boxset.

[News] Deadpool Spin Off?

Posted by Louis O'Hara / at 5/06/2009 / / 0 comments

Most people will probaly know by now that Deadpool (or Wade Wilson) made an appearence in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the "Merc with the Mouth" was portrayed by Ryan Reynolds, which is why many fans suspected that perhaps a Deadpool spin-off was in the works.

Well, all of the people that sat through Wolverine bitching and moaning about how their favourite mercenery didn't get enough time on screen can now rejoice! Or... can they? I'm all for getting pysched up about spin off's and sequels, but despite the fact that there's new's that a Deadpool film is "In Development" and has been "Confirmed", I'm hoping you don't all get your hopes up too much.

Why do I say that? For one of two reasons:

1) It's being developed by FOX

2) Not all films are able to find their way out of being In Development.

My first point is that it's by Fox, the company that, in the words of fanboys everywhere "Butchered" the character in Wolverine, so I wouldn't get my hopes up too high that this new film will be exactly what you want. Need I remind you all of the Elektra film? Or perhaps, Catwoman? Yeah, I didn't think so. While there being news that it's in the works is good, Fox doesn't exactly have a track record of delivering the good's when it comes to the final product.

My second point is that not all Super Hero films are destined to be released, and if they are, then it's not always particulary soon. Take for example the Justice League film, which not only looks to be stuck in developmental hell, it also doesn't look like it'll have an exactly star filled cast. Or the Wonder Woman film that looked like it could have been a hit when Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse.) was given the chance to write the screenplay, and we all know that if anyone's going to do a "Girl Power" film right, it's Whedon. But still, we've barley heard anything about it in a long time!

My point is that if films like Wonder Woman, arguably A LOT more main stream than Deadpool (I wouldn't actually even say it's an arguable point, to be honest.), aren't likley to be released or done well any time soon, it's not exactly certain that a Deadpool film will see the light of day for a long, long time. If the film does get picked up and they start making it, there's some variables that could help it to either become a HIT or MISS though. The biggest of those being Ryan Reynolds himself, a self-proclaimed Deadpool fanboy. But hey, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Review] Dragonball Evolution

Posted by Louis O'Hara / at 5/04/2009 / / 1 comments

I want those 90 minitues of my life back. You may or may not remember an old cartoon show that used to air on Cartoon Network back in the late 90's and 00's, (Heh.)  that went by the name of Dragonball Z, or DBZ for short. I know as a child, I was completely obsessed with this series and used to battle it out with my cousins every day after school so that I could watch the show at my nan's house. So, with it being such a big part of my childhood I decided that I had to see this movie, no matter how terrible it was going to be. But man, I was not expecting it to be this bad. 

The movie itself isn't actually based on DBZ, rather the series the preceeded it: Dragonball. A show about the early adventures of Goku and his friends searching to find the mystical "Dragonballs" in order to be granted a wish. The series itself was much more lighthearted fun than the show that I watched growing up, Dragonball Z, with Dragonball featuring less 20 episode long battles, and more jokes with the occasional episode or two long fight scene. This is the movies first mistake, which is that they decided to start with Dragonball, perhaps because they thought it would do well and they'd get the chance for a sequel. Oh you silly producers, when will you learn?

Dragonball: Evolution (which, by the way, I am really struggling to find what evolution has to do with anything in this movie.) trys to aim the film at an older audience, which is probaly the smartest way to go if you think about it, I mean, us kids that watched it when we were younger have grown up now, right? WRONG. Believe me, we may have grown up, but god damn, that doesn't mean that we won't enjoy it if you stay true to the source material! If this film hadn't tried so hard to be an ALL OUT ACTION THRILL RIDE, and instead stuck to being a lighthearted comedy with action, it may have had a chance of not sucking balls beyond belief. 

Just before the actual film, we get an introduction that tells us about the Dragonball's, an evil alien named Piccolo and another bad guy named Oozaru. Apparently Piccolo was trapped inside a jar (I shit you not) and now has somehow escaped. We don't know how, and we never learn either. Oh, and he wants the Dragonball's too... well, we never learn that either. Huh.

So anyway, the film starts out with a training montage so cheesy, The Karate Kid himself would cringe. We're introduced to our hero, GOKU! and his grandfather Gohan, who's never refered to by name. Or if he is, I didn't hear it. Now here's our first problem, Justin Chatwin cannot act. I'm sorry, I went into this film with low expectations and I try to look at the positives and not blow up the negatives, but my god they couldn't have picked a less likeable person to play Goku. Well, I guess they could've picked Shia LaBouf, but let's not go there. I've got plenty of time to list why I loathe him in another blog post somewhere down the line. Throughout the film, Chatwin gives us a completely stone performance that would impress even Keanu Reeves. He's not the happy chappy Goku was in the cartoon, he's a little prick with a smirk that makes you want to punch him. And by the way, wasn't Goku like... 10-13 when he was in Dragonball? I get that they have to up the age to find an actor for the film, but if they weren't going to keep him young then why not go all out and get a half decent actor to play the 18 year old Goku?

Grandpa Gohan, for what it's worth, is the definition of a steretypical SENSEI! Honestly, all he needed was the stereotypical needle beard and mustache and you wouldn't be able to tell him apart from every other Japanese film. In the opening scene, Goku and Gohan spar and then Gohan gives him a Dragonball. Hey, cool, it's sticking to the story for the first time! Awesome. And then Goku goes to school. And it's all down hill from this point onwards. We're introduced to a couple of school bullies that Goku refuses to fight because Gohan told him not too (I would start a cliche count, but honestly, I think we'd lost count pretty quickly.) 

Then Goku goes into class and starts perving on the asian girl on the other side of the room, and they go all out on this bit. Seriously, the room fades into a field of flowers and Goku start's imagining her eating strawberries in a seductive manner. What the fuck? It's like they want me to cringe. Anyway, he gets woken by his teacher who asks him what the eclips means, to which Goku replies "THAT'S WHEN THE ALIENS RETURN!" Way to go kid, and you wonder why you're not more popular with the ladies? I'm a freakin' loser too, but atleast I work to keep that a secret from people that don't know me! It's common sense! So anywho, Goku goes out into the hall and Chi-Chi (Oh yeah, they did it. They brought Chi-Chi into it like this. I swear she lived with her dad who's like, a giant or something. Fair enough, you want to modernise the film I guess.) is trying to open her locker, but her keycard isn't working. (Keycards for lockers? Why? BECAUSE IT'S THE FUTURE! ...I think.) so when the hall clears, Goku uses his ability to... wait for it... control the AIR using his KI and blasts open all of the locker doors. Yeah.

Chi-Chi get's all suprised and she's all like "WHOA, YOU KNOW HOW TO USE KI TOO!?", because apparently the ability to shoot bursts of air is common knowledge in this world. Even in the cartoon, they made it abundently clear that you need to be some kind of SUPER MARTIAL ARTIST to use it. And then in a moment of complete dickness, Goku attempts to hit on her and fails miserably, but for some reason she likes him and tells him to come to her party tonight. Why does she like him you ask? Well, one simple reason my sweet, innocent reader... PLOT DEVELOPMENT~! That's right - If you can't think of a good reason for something to happen in your movie, it's as simple as doing it just for the sake of progress! Good god. Anyway, Goku goes home (it's his 18th or 19th birthday, btw) and gets ready for the party, even slicking his hair back and chewing on a toothpick, though in an attempt at humour the hair flicks back up, BOING noise and all. (Okay, dressing up like Scarface isn't cool now... what makes them think we'll think it's cool in the FUTURE?) 

Goku goes to the party and decides now he's 18, he can do what he wants. Yep, he comes rebellious for no reason at all! Whoop! He get's in a fight with the school bullies and promptly kicks their asses just because, to which Chi-Chi, who I think is supposed to be their friend, doesn't give a god damn and instead takes him away so they can "talk." They don't do much talking though, and pretty soon Goku manages to "Sence" that his Grandfather is in trouble. (Oh, that's right, they didn't even give us the courtesy of him noticing a fire from his grandfathers or something, he just SENCES IT. He's cool like that.) Oh, yeah, whilst this has been happening, Piccolo and his piece of ass (Hereby refered to as Random Asian Woman, because I have no idea who she's supposed to be.) turn up at Gohans and beat the fuck out of him, with Piccolo finally just bringing the house down on the old man.

Now this is the saddest part of all. They hired James Masters (Spike from Buffy or Brainiac from Smallville if you're not old school enough for Buffy) to play Piccolo, and to be fair I imagine if he didn't look so ridiculous and had gotten some decent screen time, and maybe a decent script, Masters could have made this role the highlight of the film. Unfortunetly, he says about 5 lines through out the entire film and spends the rest of it STARING MENACINGLY. Oh, my sweet Spike, what have they done to you?

Anyway, Goku returns to his house and finds Gohan near dead, and lives long enough to tell Goku to go find "Master Roshi". Funny thing is, I don't think Gohan even mentions Piccolo, so how Goku knows it was him I have no idea. We get a terrible, terrible "NOOOOOOO!" scene that is made even worse thanks to Justin Chatwin, who's going on my list of people I want to punch in the face. Next day, Goku buries his Granpa and returns to his home, to pick up some things for his journey when some lady barges into his house. He goes to see who it is and she starts going all Guns-a-blazing for no apparent reason, asking who he is AFTER he's disarmed her. Smart. The girl reveals that she's Bulma and that she's looking for her dad's stolen 5 Star Dragonball and has built a device that finds Dragonballs. Goku tells her that his is a four star Dragonball and she's all like "LOL SORRY!".

Bulma is played by Emmy Rossum and is probaly the only thing about this entire movie that doesn't suck. And for once, it's not just because she's packaged into a tight leather ensamble. She plays the typical bad girl that is nothing like the character from the cartoon, but I suppose neither is the rest of the film, so I'll let it slide thanks to the fact that Rossum is a breath of fresh air in this film. She's gorgeous for starters and does well in the role of a bad girl, but she has her "cute" moments which seem to be a throw back to the real character, not to mention she's the only one that get's close to humour in the entire film. And she's packing serious heat, so kudos for that. 

Bulma and Goku make a deal to help one another find the Dragonballs if Bulma helps Goku find Roshi, so they set off to the city and Bulma does some kind of scan for Roshi which turns up with nothing (rendering most of this scene pointless) when suddenly her DRAGONBALL RADAR (DBE? Fuck that for a name. It's the Dragonball Radar as far as I remember.) starts going mental and she finds out there's one near by. Goku says something about sencing "him", which I assumed was Piccolo, but I think he actually meant Master Roshi thinking about it. Way to make that clear, stupid film. They go over and meet Roshi, who turns out be some fucking MENTAL old man who does a silly little dance that probaly would have been funny in the cartoon, but in reality just looks silly and I think I even saw the actor grimmance whilst doing it. Roshi realises that Goku was trained by Gohan and they all become friends and leave with Roshi and his Dragonball to go and "train".

Chow Yun Fat who plays Master Roshi is just... Ugh. Anger. He was just plain annoying through out the entire film, I really feel sorry for the guy, I bet he'll spend the rest of his life trying to forget this role. He attempts to be a funny old man, but instead just comes off as irritating through out, though he does lend himself to the only scene in the entire film that got a bit of a laugh out of me. (He gets on a bike with Bulma and holds onto her ass, which she responds to by holding a gun to his head and cracking some line about keeping his hands.) 

There's a small pointless scene here where they meet Chi-Chi at a training spot where she tells Goku that she's going to be in a big fight tournament soon and that he should enlist, to which he basically says "Sorry, better things to do." Way to go slick, didn't you spend the first half of this film pining over the girl? Seriously, what the hell just happened? Anyway, they get back on the road and suddenly they fall down a massive hole in the ground, with some Asian guy with blonde hair who I hated from the moment I heard him speak (Seriously, the delivery was that bad. This was the guys like... second piece of screen acting ever according to wiki, and it really shows.) offering to throw them a rope and get them out, if they pay him. Bulma tries to sweet talk him, but it doesn't work for some reason. Anyway, they spend the night in the cave and Roshi re-tells the story of Piccolo and Oozaru until suddenly the Dragonball Radar starts going mental and they decide to tunnel underground to find the Dragonball that's apparently under there. What a shitty machine, you're telling me they spent all day in that cave and it just NOW picks up the signal? What the hell!

So Master Roshi magically jumps out of the cave (...rendering the scene earlier pointless, again.) and tells the dick with the rope to give him the drill that he's handily carrying with him. They go down into the cave and the guy, who turns out be Yamcha from the cartoon (Funny, I seem to remember liking Yamcha. I think this film hates my childhood.) starts hitting on Bulma again before they break into the next room of the cave, where they find... AN UNDERGROUND VOLCANO!? What the... fuck! What the hell!? Why would there be a Volcano underground? Better yet, why would it be so near the surface? Hell, better yet, why did they just tunnel underground... yet there's a sky above? Man, I failed geography and even I know this doesn't make any sence. 

While this all happens, we cut to Piccolo who's all pissed off that they have more Dragonball's than him, so he takes some of his own blood and makes... Mutants? I'm sorry, but I swear that this film just stole an idea from the original POWER RANGERS TV series. What the actual hell. Anyway, Goku fights with the Mutants and it turns out they regenerate unless you throw them into lava. Pretty handy that Volcano's here I guess, right!? So it turns out that the Dragonball is across the river of LAVA (Which we find out after Yamcha fails at being funny when some steam burns his ass. I cringed at the attempt. Really, I did.) Goku starts stockpiling bodies in the river of LAVA to make a bridge, that he then runs across and picks up the Dragonball, only to get into a fight with Random Asian Woman. He kicks her ass in about two seconds, which pretty much renders her existence mute as far as this film is concerned, and then he he leaves with the Dragonball. Oh, and says that they must go to some temple which Random Asian Woman overhears. Good move there, fella's.

They head to the temple and we get a quick scene where Bulma and Yamcha talk about how all of the people here don't know what's going to happen if they don't stop Piccolo (Oh yeah, did I mention how the temple just HAPPENS to be the same place as the fighting tournament Chi-Chi is at? AINT THAT HANDY! PLOT DEVELOPMENT AT WORK~!) and then, something amazing happens. Bulma says Yamcha isn't so bad once you get to know him and he then goes in for a kiss... and she does too? What the actual fuck! Well they pulled that romantic side story out of their ass! The best part is how random is actually is, about 10 minitues ago they hated one another, now they're suddenly in love. I face palmed. I kid you not, it was the epitmy of a face palm moment. 

Anyway, while this happens Roshi tells Goku he needs to learn the Kamehameha (Oh yeah, now we're talking, the SUPER POWER BLAST from the cartoon! ...Right?) which apparently is actually a burst of air. WHAT. Yeah, you heard it, it's a blast of air. So Goku starts training whilst Roshi goes to meet his old masters (they have a short dialouge where we learn that Roshi apparently was a non-believer and left this group of monk type people. Anyone ever see that film Bulletproof Monk? That was an awesome mindless action film.) and they agree to work on making another magical jar to store Piccolo in. Oh yeah, and we had a brief bit of actual character development where Chi-Chi and Goku talk, but the film doesn't seem to think character development is important, so why the hell should I! Seriously, the core of any good film is the characters and how they grow and develop through out the movie or series of movies, take for example Ripley from the Aliens series, her character grew harder and stronger and eventually a little insnae as the films progressed, this film apparently decided that the development took too much time away from lame jokes and seriously shitty attempts at drama.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, a little earlier we got a short scene with Chi-Chi in a fight against Random Asian Woman (that somehow, someway, Goku and co. don't recognise at all) in the tournament, and the Random Asian Woman takes some of her blood before forefitting the fight. So now, late in the night, it turns out that she stole the blood so that she could TRANSFORM INTO HER~! ...What? This film is almost as bad as Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, except MK wins thanks to the fact it was released in 1997, had terrible graphics and is a fun nostalgic shitty action movie, in the same way as most Kung Fu and Arnie films are a funny kind of terrible. You see back before 2000, action films were allowed to be shitty for the simple fact that back then, a one man army like Arnie taking on a terrorist faction was still kinda new and was expected of most blockbusters, so people enjoyed a lot of these films for what they were. Nowadays, if an action film doesn't atleast have some kick ass CGI or insanley over the top script (Hello Crank, I'm looking at you. I hate Crank.) it doesn't stand a chance in the box office.

So yeah, Random Asian Woman transforms into Chi-Chi and steals the Dragonballs (she also fights Chi-Chi and Goku interupts, but he get's his ass kicked when he knocks out the wrong Chi-Chi. Which leads to Roshi healing him with a Kamehameha. Wait, WHAT!? It heals people!? So how does that help in a fight!? This makes no sense!) and then gives them to Piccolo, who starts to summon the ancient Dragon Shenlong so that he can wish for... what? I still don't know. I can only assume it's something evil. How do Goku and co. know that he's not wishing for world peace, or maybe a pony? Way to teach kids not to judge a book by it's cover, film. So yeah, Piccolo starts summoning the Dragon when Goku and pals turn up and get involved, with Goku spouting some shit about stopping Oozaru and Piccolo, when Piccolo drops the bombshell that Oozaru IS Goku! DUN DUN DUN. The eclipse starts, and Goku transforms into Oozaru. Yeah, I was completely lost at this point. I remember it happening in the cartoon, but I remember it making a lot more sense. Man, when the cartoon version makes more sence than the film, they really should've realised they had serious script problems.

So suddenly Piccolo can control Goku now that Goku is transformed into Oozaru (Which, by the way, Oozaru is a gaint ape. In the cartoon, I recall it being like the size of a big, big house, instead it's something like 8 feet tall in the film, but at this point I'm beyond expecting them to stick to source material. Piccolo tells Goku to go get the Dragonball, which Yamcha has. He and Bulma run off and Yamcha gives Bulma to Dragonball, apparently sacrificing himself to save her. Only thing is, Gokuzaru (which I'll be calling him now) turns up and all he does is punch him into a wall. Piccolo then gets attacked by Roshi, who tries to trap him in the MAGICAL JAR~, but of course it doesn't work because that would be a lame ending. Gokuzaru starts strangling Roshi and Roshi manages to convince the boy in him that he's a good person and can control the Giant Monkey inside him and... hey look, it worked! Yup, just like that folks, some kind words and you can control you're very own inner giant money too! Of course, it takes him too long and by the time he's Goku again, he's already strangled Roshi.

Here's the most ridiculous part though. Piccolo then decides that he'll just kill Goku with a giant energy blast (Why not do that at the very start and mug his body for Dragonballs? I'd make a fantastic evil villian, no fucking about, just murder and mayhem.) so in turn, Goku responds by using the Kamehameha, which, despite him only having learnt it a night before, not to mention Piccolo supposedly being this unstoppable force, despite all that, Goku wins. Yup, it's that easy apparently. Thus rendering, y'know, the whole journey pointless. Anyway, Goku summons the Dragon (I swear there was like a password in the cartoons, but okay, whatever.) and brings Master Roshi back to life and they all live happily ever after. Oh, and there's a quick scene where Piccolo turns out to be alive and is being nursed back to life by a woman he apparently spared earlier in the film (According to wikipedia.), leaving the film open for a sequel!

...AHAHAHA! Oh man. The thought of a sequel is just plain hilarious. So yeah, that's Dragonball. You may have seen trailers for it and thought, hey, maybe atleast the action will be good? Wrong. This film stinks, and when I say stinks, I mean stinks. The plot is utterly terrible and apart from Bulma none of the characters are even remotley likeable and you'll spend most of the film wishing they'd get off the screen. So what does that leave the film with, if the action is bad, the plot is crappy and the characters aren't interesting at all? CGI. That's all the film has going for it, CGI. And even that is pretty tame compared to some film.

From me, a massive fan of the Dragonball franchise when I was younger, this film get's a 3/10. Three out of Ten is actually a little much if I think about it, but Bulma managed to just about pull it past the 2 mark. This film is bad, really bad. Even if you loved the series growing up, please, as the song says, leave the memories alone.

[Review] X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Posted by Louis O'Hara / at 5/03/2009 / / 0 comments

In what I hope is the first of a long line of Origins films based of the popular Marvel comics franchise "X-Men", any fan of action, comic book or super hero movies is in for a treat with this film, the only thing I warn you about is that when you go to watch it, don't expect the next The Dark Knight, as a matter of fact, forget about Dark Knight. The Dark Knight, while a brilliant film should most defintley not be the bar by which all other comic book films should be trying to reach, for the simple reason that it's too good. The Dark Knight, apart from being the first comic book film to reach such a level of greatness, is also the first film to really shatter boundries when it comes to adapting a graphic novel to the big screen and as such, not every comic book film can be expected to live up to The Dark Knight's level of awesome. It's like going into every horror film expecting it to be as good as The Shining, or walking into an action film and being dissapointed when it doesn't turn out to be the next Die Hard.

Right, now we've got that out of the way, onto the review! We're going to be going in depth here, so if you haven't seen the film, then I'd stay away if you don't want spoilers. The film starts out by giving us a short scene detailing Logan's (or Jimmy as he's refered to here) childhood. Now, this scene was all fine and good, but what the hell was up with the SKELETON CLAWS~? I haven't read enough comics to know if that's where the claws really come from, but come on, didn't we already get a character the exact same in the animated series, X-Men Unlimited? Did they not remember how gash that power was? (Hell yes I watched X-Men Unlimited. Cartoon's will forever be quality!) But anyway, stupid skeleton claws aside, the intro scene is pretty cool, my only problem is that we never learn much about his family. Like, who the hell was that guy that looked just like Jackman that was looking after him? We'll never know. Oh, and young Sabretooth looked like a cunt, sorry to say.

Anyway, we move on through the scene and get some flashes of their lives, with Creed (Sabretooth) and Logan living through various wars, this is a pretty awesome little scene and I really liked the way they transistioned between scenes. We end the flashes with our heroes being hung to a cross and shot in a firing range, apparently because Creed went a bit mental and started ripping the shit out of some soldiers. If he's so badass, how they took him down and tied him up, I have no idea, but that's not the point. Anyway, scene ends, intro credits flash and BAM.

We're in a dark cell and a young William Stryker open's it up and asks if Creed and Logan want to join his little team. Now, Stryker was always going to be a hard character to recast after Brian Cox's fantastic performance as the older variation on the character, but I take my hat off (or, I would if I was wearing a hat. It's like 3am while I type this. Why would I be wearing a hat at 3am?) to Danny Huston for a good show. I'll admit, I'd rather they had gone the route of using CGI to make Cox younger, but Huston did a good job when you consider what he had to live up too. Even if he didn't really look much like Stryker. He needed a beard. Everyone looks better with a beard!

Next we're introduced to Strykers CRACK SQUAD OF ULTIMATE BADASSES. (Hello Aliens refrence. Ah well, with me writing it was only a matter of time before I snuck one in there.) And in this group we've got characters that those who read the X-Men comics may recognise, and some that you'll probaly know from the cartoons if not. And lemme tell you, they really picked some obscure characters for this variation of WEAPON X. (It's so badass, it needs to be capitalised. Clearly.) We've of course got Wolverine and Sabretooth, are two heroes, but along with them is the Deadpool, or Wade Wilson for that matter.

Now, there's been a lot of complaints around the net about how Deadpool was handled, and if you're a whiny little crybaby that know's far too much about the comic books (Hey, I can't blame you, if someone made a Buffy movie I'd probally spend months bitching about Buffy not having the right hair style for example >_>) then you're likley within your rights to complain, but I have to say guys, remember that as much as some may think he is, Deadpool is not a mainstream superhero. I'd wager that about 3/4 of the total people that watched this film either didn't know who he was, or didn't really care about how little time he had to be his usual wise-cracking self. Yes, I'll agree that Ryan Reynolds, a star in his own right (though not really much of a box office draw since 2004-5) made for an excellent Deadpool and if he get's his own film, it'll probaly be awesome, but you need to remember: this is a film about WOLVERINE. Not Deadpool. Just be happy he was featured, think of it as a slight preview of what could be.

Now that's out of the way, we'll move onto the rest of the cast of Weapon X. We've got The Blob, but he's not a fatty yet. Fair enough, I can buy that, even though I'm pretty certain his power was supposed to be that he was freakin' massive yet agile. Then we've got John Wraith (the black guy that can teleport, for those of you who don't want to wiki it) played by will.i.am, and let me just say, what the fuck is this guys name about? Seriously, that's possibly the stupid thing for a rapper to call himself. Is he retarded, or just plain stupid? Well, despite the silly name he makes the character of Wraith (who's comic book counterpart is called Kestel, I couldn't really find much info on him) a likeable guy. He's not getting a spin off anytime soon, but he played his part well. Speaking off spin offs, I read somewhere that Halle Berry wants a Storm Origins story. Oh, Halle. How silly you are. Last time they gave you a super hero film, you starred in CATWOMAN. The bright shining example of what I like to call "Cinematic Abortion."

 Moving on, the next guy on the list is Agent Zero, as he's named. Now, if comic book fans were going to complain about any character being mishandled, I'm suprised it's not this guy. He was relegated from ULTIMATE BADASS (can't you just hear a great booming voice say that every time I type that?) MERCENERY, to Strykers lacky. Oh well. Anyway, the chinese dude that played him did what he needed to, the character nor the actor really stood out, but it wasn't a huge role in terms of this film so meh, no biggie. Last of all, finishing the team is the ultimate killing machine... Domonic Monohogan? As in... CHARLIE FROM LOST? What the hell is everyones favourite Heroin addicted, washed up Rock Star doing with these guys? Apparently his ability is to control machines or electricity, I don't know, it's never really made very clear. Charlie is defintley a bright part of the early bits of the film, he's just got a certain charm that makes you want to like him, his character may feel really out of place, but he brings a welcome innocent charm into the mix. So yeah, that's our crack squad, and their first mission? Retrieve a paperweight from a diamond smuggler. I shit you not. Anyway, it's not as stupid as it sounds, we get some awesome action scenes as Deadpool shows of his sword skills and litteraly cuts the bullets in half, or deflects them into his opponents. (It goes against all the law's of physics, but god damn if it doesn't look freakin' awesome.) 

So, they get the paperweight which turns out to be a piece of meteroite and the team then get's sent to some jungle in the middle of nowhere to retrieve more of it, needless to say that towns people have no idea what they're talking about and end up getting needlessly slaughtered by Stryker's crew, especially Creed who has been taking more and more joy in murder as the film progresses. Logan, being our noble hero, stops Creed. "Halt my friend! For we are not killers! We, with our chins chiseled by Michael Angelo himself as the heroes of the piece!". Alright, he doesn't actually say that, but my way sounds funnier. Logan tells the group that he's out, and that he won't kill an innocent, which gets us the typical dramatic action moment that we've seen so many times before: "LOGANNNNNNNN!!!!!" Yeah, it's cliche, but god damn wouldn't you love to scream that out? 

We're then given the "X YEARS LATER" treatment and taken to the future (or uh, present, I guess.) Logan has settled into a regular life, married a smokin' hot school teacher (seriously, I'm expected to believe that there's a fit school teacher up in the middle of nowhere in some woods in Cananda? Then again, Trish Stratus was canadian and I think I speak for every guy reading when I say we'd like to do some dirty thing's to that lady.) and he got a job as a lumberjack. Why? BECAUSE HE'S A MAN~ HE'S SUCH A MANS MAN! (Kudos if you got the '96 WCW reference.) The two get into a bit of a tustle on the way home and Kayla (his wife) show's that she has some abilities of her own when she convinces some guy who's being an asshole for no reason, to move his car. Later that night, shortly before the two of them get busy (at which point I realise, holy crap, does this bird look exactly like Evangeline Lilly/Kate from Lost or what? It's insane. She's like a pretty version of her. She also plays Dawn in True Blood, which is an amazing TV series that everyone should watch.) she tells him a some native american legend in which we get the reference to "Wolverine". 

The next day, Stryker turns up and tells Logan that Creed has got AWOL and is killing his old team mates (which we saw a little bit earlier when he butchers Charlie. Poor Charlie, first they kill him in Lost and then they kill his character just for a lil' plot development.). Stryker asks Logan to come back with him but of course, Logan refuses. Pretty soon after that, we see Kayla driving down the road when suddenly Creed pulls a Hiro Nakamura and show's up outta nowhere and kidnaps Kayla, then carves her up something fierce in the woods, leaving her for Logan to find moments later. He uses his keen sence of smell to find her. Alright, so let's count, Wolverines super powers include... Healing, SKELETON CLAWS and... Super Smelling? Seriously, what the hell. Next, Logan get's all bent out of shape and let's loose a "NOOOOOOOOOO!" that would make Darth Vader himself quiver in fear before heading to the bar that Creed's sitting in and proceeding to get his ass handed to him. What happens next? Basically, Creed calls him a pussy, Logan cries a lil', Stryker turns up and says "HEY, WHY DON'T WE MAKE YOUR BONES METAL!". It's not as stupid as I make it sound, it's actually quite a good scene, it just sounds funny in writing.

So Logan goes along and get's the experiment done and after a short tense moment where Logan may be dead (Which would actually be worrying if he hadn't already appeared in 3 films set after this one) he wakes up and hears Stryker tell the doctors to erase Logan's memory. Needless to say, he get's a little angry and breaks out of the containment center. Which, by the way, I'm 99% certain that it wasn't in the middle of a tropical jungle in X-Men 2. I'm fairly certain it was somewhere cold, but hey, what do I know? Anyway, Logan wakes up in the middle of nowhere and get's taken in for the night by two kind old folk, the male of which gives him some advice about choices and they have a nice touchy feely moment. And then Agent Zero completely assasinates the two of them. Awesome. Wolverine hops on the motorcycle that belonged to the old people's son and launches an all out war on Zero and the Helicopter he tries to take him down in, a scene you've probaly seen about 20 times over already thanks to it being in every trailer. Zero get's taken out and Wolverine decide's he's out for blood and goes to Las Vegas to find The Not So Blob and John Wraith, to get info about Strykers wereabouts.

Logan arrives and we're introduced to The Blob again, only this time he's gained A LOT of weight. As in so much that it looks just plain silly. Also something I have to wonder, WHEN THE HELL IS THIS MOVIE SET!? Is it shortly before X-Men 1? By my count, It must be about 10 years odd due to the age of Cyclops (Who's in the movie for pretty much NO REASON but to have a cameo.) which means that half of the ages in the X-Men series must be very off. But whatever, I guess. Anyway, Mr. Blobby refuses to tell Logan where the new lab is, so Logan beats him in a boxing match to get the information, with Wraith wanting to come with him because... well, I can't really remember why. Redemption or something I think. Eitherway, the head to New Orleans to find Remy LeBau. Also known as GAMBIT. Hell yes. Gambit was always to absolute coolest X-Man going ever. What follows is a short scene in which Gambit is introduced in a fairly cool way (check out the card skills, that's just awesome) and for pretty much no reason gets into a bit of a tussle with Logan. Now Gambit, played by Taylor Kitsch who I've never really heard off before (then again, his filmography consists mostly of Snake on a Plane and The Covenent) does a decent job at Gambit, but unfortunetly, I don't think he was quite right for the role. Gambit always had a much deeper voice and a certain charm to him that Taylor lacked, of course, I may just still be a little bitter that Joshua Holloway (Sawyer from Lost) didn't get cast as Gambit. That probaly would have been too awesome to contain in one film though. Oh, and just before this seen, Creed captures Cyclops for Stryker. Again, I don't like Cyclops as a character and I didn't see any reason for him to be in the film.

So, Gambit and Logan fight, Logan get's thrown through a wall to the outside where he see's Creed kill Wraith and take some off his blood for... well, I don't really know. Wolverine gets the better off Creed this time now that he has metal claws instead of the SKELELTON CLAWS~, but the fight get's interuptted by Gambit. Gambit agree's to take Logan to the prison island where all of the MUTANT EXPERIMENTS! are taking place. Now, again, I'm 99% certain that this place was in the middle of like... the artic or something. What the hell. But whatever, Logan get's there and has a confrontation with Stryker, he's going to kill him for killing his wife... when it turns out she's alive? SWERVE~, that was a brilliant piece of drama that I really didn't see coming. In an awesome move, it turns out she was Strykers spy and that she faked her own death so that Logan would get the operation done. What a bitch. Pretty soon she reveals that Stryker has been capturing mutants and that her sister is one of them, and that she really did love Logan. Logan leaves because he no longer has a reason to kill Stryker, but Creed get's pissy about it. He then DEMANDS that he get the adamantium implanted in him, but Stryker tells Creed he'd never survive, which Creed interpruts as "You're not as strong as Wolverine". Ouch.

Speaking of Creed, it'd be a travesty to review this film without giving a shout out to Liev Schreiber for an absolutley fantastic performance as Sabretooth that completely blew Tyler Mane out of the water. (Poor guy, first he gets jobbed out through out his wrestling career, then his first big role get's completely redefined by another actor.) He gives us a character that's witty, intelligent and most importantly off all: Likeable. Not in the usual sort of way, but in that "He's a bad guy, but man is he cool." way that so few have managed to pull off well. (Key Examples: Heath Ledgers The Joker, Michael Madsen's Mr. Blonde, Ian McKellen's Magento, Al Pacino's Tony Montana, you get the picture) Back onto the film's plot, Creed decides to attack Kayla (who it turns out is actually the mutant SILVERFOX, hence her name: Kayla Silverfox) but Logan comes back and the two of them brawl once more, with Logan coming out on top this time (though he doesn't kill Creed, deciding not to give in to his "Animal Instincts", whatever the hell that means.) and decides to help free all of the mutants, because he's just a bang up guy like that. He free's most of them and we get a couple more cameos from characters in the series, the most prominent being Emma Frost, also known as White Queen in the comics and is the sister of Silverfox, apparently. Even though they have different last names. 

Stryker of course can't have this, and prematurley releases his ULTIMATE BADASS, also known as Weapon XI, also known as Deadpool, also known as Wade Wilson. How many aliases does this guy have? Anyway, what follows is the most epic fight in the entire film, even featuring Creed helping Logan (because "I'm the only one that get's to kill you" says Creed), and we also get a nice suprise in the form of a Patrick Stewart cameo! Professer X helps save the children and helicopters them to safety. Anyway, Logan decapitates Weapon XI and the fight ends, with Logan telling Creed that their relationship is over, only for Creed to tell him that they're brothers: their relationship will never be over. That's kinda gay, but whatever. Wolverine goes back to help Silverfox who got trapped helping to free the captured mutants, only for suddenly Stryker to turn up!

 Now this is the one thing I didn't like about the film. During the fight scene with Weapon XI, Stryker gets ahold of a gun and some "Adamantium Bullets" (which is the metal inside Wolverine) and proudly states that it won't kill Logan, but it'll kill his memories if he get's shot in the head with one. ...What? That makes so little sence, it's just... what? Seriously, that's the best they could come up with for why he loses his memory? Fine, whatever. Anyway, Stryker shoots Logan a few times in the head, only for a dying Silverfox to take control of him and instead of shooting him in the head, she tells him to "walk until you're feet bleed". What? Well, I guess they couldn't kill him seeing as he's in the 2nd film, but that's still a bit shit. So, Silverfox dies from blood loss or something, Stryker walks off and Logan wakes up, not remembering anything. We get a nice little scene with him and Silverfox where Gambit asks if he know's her, to which Logan replies "...No" and then the police turn up. Gambit says WE GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE MANNN, but Logan decides to go it alone because... well, because he's a LONE WOLF like that. Or a Lone Wolverine! You see what I did there? Genious. 

Also if you're willing to sit through the 5 minitues of credits, you'll also be privy to one of two extra scenes and a small pointless one just before the credits. The pointless one is just Stryker being found by the MP and told he's under arrest for suspison of the murder of some military general that he killed earlier in the film. The next two scenes, one of them includes Deadpool's hand breaking out through the ground and touching his head, which promptly says "ssh." in typical Deadpool style, breaking the fourth wall. And the next scene has Logan in a bar in Japan (I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I'm pretty sure at some point in his life he lives in Japan and does something over there, not sure what.) where a waitress asks if he's drinking to forget (who asks that?), only for Logan to reply "No... I'm drinking to remember.". That's a pretty gash ending if you ask me.

So, in conclusion, apart from some scene's that could have been stretched futher, some characters that weren't really nescessary or cast perfrectly and a really, really stupid explanation for Logan's memory loss, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a fantastic action movie and a enjoyable comic book film, yet there's still a little room for improvement. The acting is great, as I said there were some character's that I didn't feel were cast as well as they could have been, but the performances of Jackman, Liev and Danny Huston made up for any underwhelming performances from others. The action and special effects were fantastic, but I'd expect nothing less from an X-Men film in this day and age. And last of all, the plot, whilst there were a few let downs the script was great through out and made for a compelling storyline.

I'll give X-Men Origins: Wolverine a 7/10. It was a fantastic film with some room for improvement.