Fascinating. That sums up what I felt like when I walked off the cinema. Full disclosure, I was not expecting much from the movie, in fact I expected it to be a dud. So with reduced expectations, that set me up for a real positive experience and the audience did get one. My worry going into the movie was that I had seen only one of the previous three XMen movies and I was not sure if I were missing a few pieces to the puzzle. Refreshingly, this was a prequel and it worked well for me and as I watched the movie, I thought no one needs to have watched the previous versions to understand this movie.
Its very nice to see the reports that audiences are hitting the theatres, despite the movie already being online for the past one month, I decided not to watch the movie online for 2 reasons, one I thought the audio quality wouldn’t be that good and I was not too much into this series.
Now to the movie itself, the creators of this movie have asked the audience a simple favor, don’t reason… just appreciate. The bloodline of the movie, is a select few “mutants” that have some supreme powers due to anomalies in their genes, these mutants while appear human, are not and they each have their own abnormality, and generally these abnormalities are some sort of supremely gifted ability. One mutant has the ability to fly and climb walls, while another has the ability to create a shackle, while one other mutant has giant metal claws and there is one with invisibility. Most of these mutants want to gel with normal humans, while some don’t, but for the most part they are being ignored and even mistreated. Some creative-minded humans want to use their special power for their own purpose.
Hugh Jackman plays the Wolverine/Logan, Liev Screiber plays Victor (Logan’s brother), Danny Huston (Stryker) is colonel, Lynn Collins (Logan’s girlfriend Kayla), Taylor Kitsch (Gambit) with one unique “energy generating” gift. The movie is centered on Logan, a brief interlude of how Logan teams up with his brother and their few battles along the way. Not everyone is fond of a mutant and they are at fault with the law, they are even jailed. Stryker, a colonel, who realizes the unique gifts of these mutants, is in the process of forming a special unit to combat evil forces entices Logan and Victor to join him in his endeavors. Logan and Victor join Stryker for their own purpose, one good and one to realize his real power. Logan soon falls out of line with Stryker and his ways of hurting people in the name of helping them, particularly when it costs lives, Logan walks out on Stryker but Victor stays on in the team.
Logan, carries on and leads a seemingly normal life with his girlfriend Kayla. But, even though he leaves Stryker, Stryker shows up in Logan’s life. Logan refuses to talk to Stryker, who warns that one-by-one his former team members are being killed and wiped out. Logan ignores Stryker and carries on his life, when its interrupted by Victor who is on a rampage to decimate Stryker’s former team. Victor is shown to end Kayla’a life, much to the ire of Logan. Logan, whose special mutant gift is to have natural claws pop-up from his knuckles, seethes in anger and finds Stryker. Stryker reveals that Victor had a falling out with him and that’s the reason for his anger. Logan teams up with Stryker to add some special metal to his body to make him indestructible. Logan cedes to Stryker’s research ideas with the hope of becoming powerful enough to eviscerate Victor.
Stryker has other plans and instructs his researchers to make Logan indestructible and erase his memory, so he loses his vengeful nature and stays under his command, Logan realizes Stryker’s intentions and escapes Stryker’s research island once he is made indestructible. Logan (now Wolverine) goes on a search of his other former team members with the hope of finding some clues and even warning them of Victor. Wolverine then learns about Gambit, who apparently knew where Styker’s island was and escaped from there. Wolverine was back on the hunt for Stryker as he had learned that Victor was in company with Stryker and they two were still working together. With the help of Gambit, Wolverine reaches the secret island where he confronts Stryker.
Stryker reveals that their research project was not Wolverine but the agent XI who is grown with all the singular gifts gathered from other agents and was decided to overpower even the indestructible Wolverine. Wolverine also learns that he was always monitored by Kayla, who operated as a spy, he is crushed to hear that and swears never ever to believe anyone in life again, Kayla reveals Stryker has her sister as captive and that’s why she worked for Stryker, but her love for Wolverine was true. Wolverine then goes on a rampage and how he confronts agent XI and Stryker forms the end of the story.
Since this is a prequel, they end the movie with the scene that would make sense for the original “X-Men” movie and that is “Wolverine” losing his memory.
This movie was well done and I think it really helped that my expectations were so so low after some of the whispers I had heard about this movie being an absolute dud. I ended up having a pretty good evening watching this movie, while its not a path breaking or even awe-inspiring flavor like ‘The Dark Knight’, its entertaining and worth your money. There are certain movies you have no business watching in a theatre, then there are some where you have to watch in a theatre if you decide to watch it, I would put this movie in that category. If you watch it, watch it in a cinema, its worth your money.
Good Movie, well done. Grade: B-.
Monday, May 04, 2009
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