The Couch Pirates

I wanted to get some ink up on this before the heat dies off. I am a relatively big fan of the X-Men, and a pretty huge Wolverine fan. So I am coming from a place of knowledge on the source material. Going into this film I was absolutely terrified that it would be unwatchable. From the trailers, it looked like they turned what happened to be a single character driven story into a team movie somehow. Think Batman and Robin to realize my fears here. I didn’t understand why they had to bring all these mutants in, Wolverine is the guy they put on covers to move paper. Sabertooth is an obvious inclusion, though they never call him such, and Deadpool was cast with a big name because of plans to launch his own movie. So those I could see but the cavalcade of other mutants seemed like a huge mistake. I was right but for the wrong reasons. Here is the roster:

1. Wolverine: A little obvious, as he is the main character. Hugh Jackman does a great job as usual and I think he is in almost every scene in the movie. They actually tell most of his origin, even the little bits they have dribbled out in scattered sources over the years. For some reason, the Wolverine CGI regressed with this movie. There are some scenes where his claws look absolutely god awful. One scene they looked drawn in and like the tracking is a couple of frames behind.
2. Sabertooth: He is only known as Victor Creed in the movie and they go ahead and out him as Wolverine’s brother from the beginning. There are so many confusing comic time lines in them being brothers. The prevailing story now is that they are NOT brothers. I like Schreiber a lot in this role. His claws still look too much like fingernails and not enough like actual claws.
3. Deadpool: Wade Wilson is really the third biggest character in the film. What they lost in translating his powers, they gained with Ryan Reynolds. He is mainly being himself in some scenes but for the most part he nails what Deadpool fans like about the character. There were some strained laughs, but I am pretty sure this was still a Hollywood film produced by FOX. All in all, this movie was really one really long trailer for a Deadpool movie.
4. Kayla Silverfox: Logan’s love interest, who turns out to be a pivotal plot device more than once. Her inclusion is not terrible but also ridiculously retconned from her comic role. They completely change her skill set. I guess they don’t like there being a thousand regenerators, but if you were making a movie about the Weapons Plus program that is something you are going to run into. And they give her pretty stupid family tie to another character in the movie.
5. Gambit: I pretty much hate Gambit. I liked him as a kid but as I got older I realized his character is an idiot. However, this movie probably does its best job translating Remy. It was great that he did not have a tedious Rogue storyline to bog him down, and Taylor “Riggins” Kitsch did a good job bringing the characters flair to life if not constantly keeping up his ridiculous accent. They changed his power set a bit, giving him some telekinetic control over his charged playing cards. I really don’t have a problem with this and could see it working with his comic continuity at any time.
6. John Wraith: Most people are under the impression, as was I, that this character was made up for the film. However, he was a small character introduced in the early 90’s and used on Team X and Weapon X, known as Kestrel. He is also used in the Ultimate Marvel universe but in a much different capacity. He is a teleporter and would be a good addition to the film, if wil.i.am was not the worst actor I have ever seen. He is truly terrible and ruins anything good that could have come out of this character. Keep him out of movies forever and let him make his cheap, synth rap music.
7. The Blob: There is a lot of good and bad with this character. I did not hate every scene he was in, but he just wasn’t the Blob. I mean, he is called Fred Dukes, but he is not the giant, flabby, proud mutant we all know and love. He starts off as a cut fighting machine, and then develops an eating disorder through time before he gets fat. I mean come on mf-ers, the Blob is huge and fat because that is part of his mutant ability, to the extent when he lost after House of M, he was not fat anymore. If you can’t use a character right, don’t use them.
8. Chris Bradley: If you don’t look this one up, you probably won’t recognize him. He is played by hobbity Dominic Monaghan. He is a mid-nineties character named Bolt, but he doesn’t go by that in the film. This role was rumored to be Beak, but they changed to another useless character for some reason. He uses his electricity control in the movie but never actually generates any bolts or anything.
9. Agent Zero: David North and Maverick also in comics. So his Agent Zero moniker is completely out of time line and his abilities are completely out of whack. He is super fast and agile in the movie; he absorbs kinetic energy in the source material, sigh. He was a good character for his role, they just should have stuck to power sets more.
10. Scott Summers: Cyclops plays a small and important role in the film. He is back where he was from X3, and hardly sees any screen time. Thankfully, his skill set is unchanged.
11. Emma: They actually do not refer to her as Emma Frost in the movie, but they do in the trailers. I wish they would have left her out completely. I love Emma Frost. She is my favorite female mutant. Probably, my favorite female comic character. They butchered everything about this character. No wonder she is pissed off and joins the Hellfire Club. There was no real story reason to include Emma FROST. They didn’t need a girl with diamond skin; that they pulled off terribly by the way. She is the most powerful telepath in the world, but she does not even have those abilities in this movie. Nothing against the girl they cast as her, but my very first impression from the trailers held up: she is not near hot enough to play Emma Frost. They really should have left this character alone, she just does not fit the square whole they tried to fit this diamond through.
12. Various Meaningless Cameos: Quicksilver, Storm, the Hudsons, Jason Stryker, Daniel Negreanu.

So none of these mutants actually constitute a team, expect for what is reminiscent of Team X in the beginning of the movie. It is mostly a Wolverine/Sabertooth/Stryker movie. Which makes most of these mutant’s inclusion very unnecessary. The special effects are almost universally atrocious. WOLVERINE’S CLAWS DON’T LOOK GOOD. Jesus, this is something they did right in the very first X-Men film. I think they pumped all the CGI budget into Deadpool, which made it only feel more like a precursor to his own movie. The story is fine and pretty much common fair for a comic book government-plan-against-mutants scenario. The acting is good besides the couple of terrible examples mentioned above. They had some very serious effects and story editing issues. But all in all it was full of action. I enjoyed watching the movie for those parts, but I felt dirty liking any of it because of all the other flaws. There are two after credits scenes, one with Wolverine in a bar in Japan and one with Deadpool. We got the Deadpool one, but the a-holes at the theatre started bringing the curtain down during it. Deadpool breaks the fourth wall in the scene, which I almost universally hate. FOX is already looking into a sequel set in Japan, let’s hope they can put a little more into Wolverine, special effects, and the actual source material (ie Iron Man, The Dark Knight).

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