Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

This Non-review will focus on (and contain some spoilers for):

• X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
• The Wolverine (2013)
• Logan (2017)

The first X-men films from 2000, 2003, and 2006, rapidly became Wolverine-centric. There was an X-men team doing things around Wolverine but he was definitely the focal point by the end of it all.

I heard there was supposed to be a whole line of origin films but it was eventually decided none of these would do so good as a Wolverine flick. Now we have three Wolverine movies that are fairly devoid of those pesky other X-men running around behind Wolvy, gumming up the plot. Hooray?

Except now we get a bunch of new characters we have to learn about… that is if they (gnomes) bother having any character development.

John Wraith (Will.i.am) in X-Men Origins: Wolverine seemed like a stand-in for Nightcrawler. I don’t know if it would make sense for the actual Nightcrawler to be there at this point in the timeline (Not that this film paid attention to continuity anyway), but Sabertooth needed someone to kill, I suppose.

I thought Liev Schreiber was pretty awesome as Sabertooth. I liked him being more than a dumb-dumb stooge like he was portrayed in the 2000 film played by Tyler Mane. Should there be an explanation as to why he became so dumb? It’s just one of many continuity issues. It’s not bad, per sé, just jarring when expecting consistency.

I actually liked Taylor Kitsch as Remy LeBeau (aka Gambit). His Cajun accent was subtle, I assume because he wasn’t very good at it but when compared to Channing Tatum’s over the top version, yikes! Tatum reminded me of Justin Wilson, that fella from the Louisiana Cookin’ show back in the day (Thursday). Why didn’t they have THAT guy play Gambit! He can perfectly measure salt in the palm of his hand; surely he can throw energized playing cards.

Granted, again, not much character development from Kitsch’s LeBeau but I thought he fit the part.

Kevin Durand as Blob was Interesting. Jackman gained a bunch of muscle for his part in this movie. Why didn’t Kevin become dangerously obese for the part of Blob? Clearly one of these actors is more devoted. I don’t care what part I get, I’d happily inhale 7 meatball subs a day. Heck, I’ll do it even if I don’t get the part!

They did have a brief mishap with a young Scott Summers. Probably setting up for what might have been a Cyclops origin film. Meh. I can’t think of a single interesting thing about Scott. I’m pretty uneducated about him though.

A young Emma Frost makes an appearance too. This jerked me around bad though when X-Men First Class came out in 2011 and featured an older Emma Frost. It was supposed to have occurred long before Origins: Wolverine. Why!?! Hugh Jackman was Wolverine in all these. The contradiction drives me crazy! Maybe it’s an alternate universe thing. That solves all our problems!

I don’t even want to talk about Deadpool. That THING should not have been Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds was perfect for the part of Deadpool, and maybe we owe director Gavin Hood a debt of gratitude for casting Reynolds in Origins, likely leading to him playing the Deadpool proper. Frankly, I’m amazed Ryan was allowed to take up the role again after this Scarlet Letter of a representation (none of which is the fault of Reynolds). That would be like Robert “Jeep” Benson being allowed to play Bane again in a much better Batman film.

But you know? If that THING had been presented as anything else, just some random monstrosity produced by the Weapon X program, I thought it provided a decent climax to the story. Having a sword fight on the top of a cooling tower is on my bucket list now. Oh! Sorry. Spoiler!

Oh, and that kindly old couple should not have died. It moved the story along, emphasized the ruthlessness of the bad guys and compassion of Logan but it still just pissed me off to no end. I think that’s the kicker. That event should have initiated a John Wick style revenge sequence but we didn’t get the satisfaction. Oo it made me so mad!

Next we come to The Wolverine. Was this a continuation from the last film? I’ll say that’s a definite maybe.

At least this one was disconnected enough from the others that the continuity problems were undetectable. Logan getting his memory back when he met Harada again was mighty convenient but hey, at least that point was dealt with.

The Silver Samurai was awesome but it would have been nice to see more of him. That snake woman was unsettling to me. I wanted to see less of her.

I might watch this again. I remember being in a weird headspace when I first saw it. I remember liking it alright though.

Some complained about the fight scenes being repetitive. Wolverine is a dude with long knives coming out of his hands. After five movies, none of which went beyond a PG-13 rating, I wonder at the variety in fight choreography that could be achieved without repeating a thing or two.

I know they were trying to get Wolvy into his own world a bit but it would have been cool to see a few more recognizable characters. This would have been a great setting for some backstory with Lady Deathstrike. Yeah I know she was killed, filled to the brim with liquid adamantium, and dropped to the bottom of a water-filled tank in X-2 (2003)  but less consequential comic villains have lived through worse circumstances. Or they could do some flashbacks. This was a fine film though.

 Finally, we come to Logan (2017). 

I recall this film being violent and that’s about it. It had Patrick Stewart as Xavier still, so I guess there’s some continuity.

It was a story and it wasn’t a bad story. I don’t know though. Given the choice between this and seeing Wolvy in his prime, fighting other mutants… I’d lean toward the latter. Logan is wearing a tattered gray suit throughout the film. I guess I’d like a little more comic book in my comic book movie.

I read the director James Mangold was pining for the R rating with Logan, (get this) NOT to unleash the feral nature of Wolverine but because the studio (gnomes) are less picky about the length of the slower dramatic scenes. He wouldn’t have to cut the film to fit an audience of kids with no attention-span and could take more time letting scenes play out more realistically.

Well, it sounds like Mangold might not know Wolverine’s audience too well because the number one complaint I’ve encountered is that this movie was too long and the pacing was very slow.

Even if I’m not watching films at twice the speed, I am seeing them in multiple sittings, so I can’t really comment on pacing… but yeah this seemed slow at times.

I can’t believe I didn’t realize Mr. Rice was played by Richard E. Grant! I’ve loved him ever since Hudson Hawk (1991). He plays an elderly Loki in the Disney+ show Loki (2021) so he’s all over Marvel. I’m sure I’ve probably mentioned this before but when he showed up in The Rise of Skywalker as Allegiant General Pryde, I soooooo badly wanted Sandra Bernhard right there with him as his wealthy thrill-seeking co-villain wife. Ah, that would have been so great!