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Marvel seems to own the first weekend of the Summer Movie Season. It all started in the long, long ago of 2002 when Spider-Man came in and swept up audiences and the box office alike. With few exceptions, Marvel has been the studio this decade we’ve relied on to jump start our summer and provide us with the spark to ignite the oncoming blockbusters. Why shouldn’t we? It wasn’t until Fanstastic Four that Marvel started to show its ugly side that’s carried into all of their subsequent films. Whereas Marvel would have had three great flicks to every one bad one, it now seems we’re getting three bad films to every one good one they give us. While I don’t agree, Iron Man was the last film they did that both sides of movie-goers (critics and audiences) enjoyed – but look at what they gave us over the whole time span. All of this brings us to their latest venture, X-Men Origins: Wolverine which isn’t as bad as the last film (few comic films are) but is still a cluttered mess of a film that’s sure to have the fanboy community calling for someone’s head.

Let’s start with the few positives that there are. Like Gambit. Admittedly, I think the character is overrated and here he’s really just showing up to please everyone who has whined for Gambit to be in the X-films. In one of the film’s key scenes, Gambit and Wolverine go head to head in a game of Texas Hold’em poker. I guess this scene was also meant to appeal to the legions of online poker nerds too, because the scene also features poker pro, Daniel Negreanu. It’s ironic Wolverine isn’t the best thing about his own movie and it’s even more ironic I’m giving praise to a character I’ve bashed to high heaven elsewhere. Taylor Kitsch is just perfect in the role, capturing everything fans have loved about the two-d Gambit and even adding a little bit of his own charm to the character. It’s a shame he’s used solely as a plot device because they could have done so much more with him and if Marvel chose to do a spin-off, I’d be on board. The other plus is Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson, and I’m focusing on Wade Wilson because his character goes to hell when they introduce Deadpool (more on that later). He’s given a handful of scenes, but he does a grand job of invigorating Wade Wilson. I hope, with a rewrite, that he continues to play the character and he’s given the proper justice.

To do that, they’d need better writing than this film provides. Actually, the first half of the film, while rushing through the actual “origin”, does a formulaic but decent job of showing how Logan settles down and channels some of the panels Frank Miller gave us from his Wolvie mini-series as well as the 90′s animated show that captivated every youngster with enough sense to twist the channel knob. In this section of the script, the movie is basically one of those “hit man leaves the business” stories that’s been done oh so many times before – but this time with mutants! It works, even if it has all been done before, because it’s having fun with itself. Sadly, any good will the film has is destroyed the moment John Wraith (will.i.am who, as much I loathe BEP, didn’t annoy me here) is reintroduced along with The Blob. To state it bluntly, the movie goes from being Death Wish: Wolverine to Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Characters are shoe-horned in for the sake of being in the film, and then killed just as quickly to hide the evidence. The biggest atrocity the script commits is the handling of Deadpool. Weapon XI, as he’s called here, is nothing more than a blatant rip off of Baraka from the Mortal Kombat games. Honestly, all he’s missing are the razor sharp teeth and someone to shout “ROUND ONE, FIGHT!”

Gavin Hood has proven he’s a competent director which leaves one scratching his head over what went wrong. The action scenes, save for two, are shot and/or edited poorly and if these are the finished effects, then I shudder to think what that leaked work print looked like. Final Fantasy IV on the DS (and DSi) has better animation than most of the big effects scenes in this movie which come off laughably bad. Something simple as Wolverine’s claws, which looked real in the others, come off as eye-rollingly fake. It’s understandable if a big sequence doesn’t appear too real, but when something so simple as six claws can’t be done you know the film’s in trouble. If that’s not enough, continuity never was a big priority in this universe, but characters in a film that’s based in the 1970′s, maybe 80′s, have plasma screen televisions? It’s shown the filmmakers didn’t care a bit when stuff like memory-wiping bullets come into the fold – but showing technology from today is amateur.

The other person making sure this movie never approaches the level of decent is Danny Huston. Brian Cox gave us a William Stryker who was cunning, villainous and an outright bastard. Huston appears to think Stryker is Jame Gumb and utters every line like he’s ten seconds away from kissing whoever is in the scene with him. What’s even more tragic is that will.i.am is doing a better job here than Huston. It makes one wonder if Danny got the same script everyone else did as he plasters the screen with his drivel. By contrast, Hugh Jackman seems to be the only one, aside from Taylor Kitsch and Ryan Reynolds, trying to make this film remotely good. He’s what we’ve come to expect of him in this role and is a great leading man. But even he, and all his mighty goodness, can’t overcome the crapola that surrounds him. A great lead can only do so much when the majority of his co-workers even tries.

The film’s purpose is simple: Tom Rothman needs to do the film world a favor and leave it for good. He’s taken a franchise Bryan Singer showed a lot of care and passion for and turned it into this generation’s Batman & Robin. He’s convinced us time and again that he has no clue as to what he’s doing and each subsequent film Fox releases under him gets progressively worse. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a waste of talent, time, and money. In these tough times, we need to be more choosy about what we see and my advice is this: save your money for an IMAX ticket to a certain science-fiction film coming out next week or the dystopian future film coming out little while after that.

But I’m serious, Mr. Rothman, you’ve made Fox a joke and should quit. Now.

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