The Movie
Ask most people I know about the three most recent Star Wars movies and they'll tell you: Prequels are murder. And with three hit X-Men movies under his belt, Hugh Jackman has earned a lot of credibility, but also some high expectations. Unfortunately, the breakout success of his unmistakably-coiffed, shinily-taloned anti-hero has apparently given him, and everyone involved with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, delusions of grandeur.
This movie, which follows fast-healing mutant Wolvie's adventures from boyhood (circa 1845) to some years before the first X-Men (2000), takes its sweet time getting started, with some pretty lame dialogue, lapses in logic, outright silliness and more than a few clichés along the way. It's not awful, as some of the geeks have stated, and any cinematic X-fan owes it to himself to watch. I just wish that everyone, most notably the buff, enthusiastic star/producer Hugh, had held out for a tighter, snappier script.
Okay, time for me to put my claws away. Snikt here for Joe Lozito's take on X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
The Picture
Visually, Wolverine is a mixed bag. It's full of pricey digital effects... that too often look like digital effects. The 2.35:1 high-definition master surrenders an outstanding level of detail, texture, and subtleties of color, with distinctive palettes for the flashback portions. The credits state that it was shot on film, but a couple of shots in the New Orleans sequence display what appears to be video streaking, even as grain marks most of the movie. I noted definite ringing and video noise, and darker or misty/smoky scenes can be especially problematic, perhaps due in part to higher compression because of all the extras.
The Sound
A big star, a big budget, a big franchise: Should have been an automatic four-star rating, right? Unfortunately, there's a little too much restraint in this DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, particularly for a comic book movie. A tree falls in the forest, and I'm there to hear it, but it's more of a thud than a CRASH! There are airplane fly-bys and helicopters, plenty of fights and even D-Day itself, but nothing really thrills the way it should. The flaunting of superhuman powers is a license to go hog-wild in the sound design, as when Gambit's energy staff rocks the ground beneath our feet within the confines of an alley, but it's all pretty standard sonic fare, and that's just not good enough for Wolverine.
The Extras
"Ultimate X-Mode" gives viewers four different ways to watch the movie. X-Facts supplies pop-up text, which in this case is remarkably deep, informative and accurate. The Director's Chair is essentially a video commentary by Gavin Hood, while in X Connect he and Lauren Shuler Donner drop in to point out the links between Wolverine and the three previous X-films. And in the third picture-in-picture option, Pre-Visualizing Wolverine, mixed media illustrate how the team conceived the look of the film.
But as far as I'm concerned, "Live Lookup" is the good stuff: At any point in the movie--playing full-screen or in a smaller window--we can call up vital statistics on any actor, in a number of ways, right on the TV. Powered by the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/) and BD-Live, this smart feature lets us choose from "All Actors" or "Actors in Chapter," generating a row of mugshots depending upon which characters actually appear. General movie-filming info is provided too, and the data promises to be updated as it changes in the future (i.e. new roles added to a thespian's resumè). The overlay becomes translucent if we don't use it for a while, and switching it on or off is just a blue button away. We here at Big Picture Big Sound use imdb.com religiously, so to have it integrated into the Blu-ray experience is a game-changer.
Disc Two is a DVD containing a Digital Copy of the movie for iTunes and Windows Media.
Final Thoughts
The disappointing soundtrack is for me a metaphor for X-Men Origins: I wish everyone involved in the making of this movie, from the writing through post-production, had tried a little harder. These Blu-ray extras are off the charts however, with the most impressive implementation of BD-Live I have ever seen.
Product Details
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