PODCAST: Film Focus Episode 7 – Anticipation vs Payoff in Film

Howdy people of the internet, as some of you may have seen, not too long ago I started a film podcast entitled Film Focus! This week’s episode is a good few days late for a various reasons, but let’s just say I wanted to wait til Friday when I was meant to go to the cinema, but then I had to go to the hospital, so I’m only getting my stuff uploaded today. 😛

Anyway here’s the seventh episode:

As you can see from the title, this week’s top of conversation is on the anticipation of films versus the payoff, and I get into the pros and cons of each and also give my own accounts of experiencing both. This was a subject matter that I’ve wanted to talk about for a while and while it is a little subjective, I hope that it at least gets people thinking and talking about it.

As I said before in each episode I’ll cover a different topic and since I don’t have much in the way of listeners or promotion, I’m here to spread the word about my podcast. 🙂

You can find my main site on Soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/film_focus

Or if you’re on iTunes subscribe and rate me on there: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/film-focus/id1114233892?mt=2

So if you have some spare time on your hands and would like to listen to the ramblings of a passionate/strange man then please check it out, and share it with your friends if you can. Also you have any feedback or if you’d be interested in joining on future episodes be sure to let me know, until next time, laters! 😀

 

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Review – Man I Hate This Movie!

Hi people, followers and general internet people, time to review another film. Well it’s my 600th post today and since The Wolverine is coming out in the near-future, last week I decided to torture myself and re-watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine and you know what? It was just as bad I remember. If X-Men 3 was the film that made the X-Men film series need a reboot, then X-Men Origins: Wolverine reinforced that notion when it almost killed Wolverine and the X-Men film series.

The story in this film is a prequel to the X-Men film trilogy where the mutant Wolverine is the star. The film focuses on the origin of his character along with his relationship with his half-brother Victor Creed (aka Sabretooth) and also covers Wolverine’s early encounters with William Stryker, his time with Team X and the eventual point when Wolverine’s skeleton is fused with the metal known as adamantium.

Oh boy, where do I start with the problems with this story? There is an abundance of issues! Firstly let’s start with the continuity, or should I say, the lack of it! Several things don’t add up and just fuck up the X-Men film timeline like:

• The flashback sequences with Logan during and after his adamantium procedure in X-Men 2 were a lot more violent and looked like a traumatic experience, however in Wolverine the scene’s over in few seconds and has no weight, pain or impact to it.
• Also what the fuck happened to Sabretooth? How the hell did he go from this smart, kind of cool-looking bad guy to that retarded, dumb-ass fool in X-Men 1?
• I have to ask why the hell is Scott Summers in this film? When you put it in continuity with the future X-Men trilogy then that makes Summers totally in his late 40’s or something, he’s not that old!

And then of course if you include this film in the continuity with X-Men: First Class, then it just completely destroys several key aspects that took place in this film like Wolverine’s cameo in First Class, the appearance of Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier or the diamond girl who has similar powers to Emma Frost.

But putting all that stuff aside, the main story is crap and everything is normally over before you get a chance to take it in. This film had a great concept on paper, but was translated to film in the most uninteresting, inconsistent and stupid way. The direction by Gavin Hood isn’t good, it’s like he wasn’t sure what to do with all of the material he was working with, also whoever wrote the screenplay needs a good talking to, things are cliché and the dialogue is so hammy. Finding out about the origin of Logan/Wolverine should have been a great story, but here it plays out like a boring-ass soap opera with easily foreseeable plot points. Also the relationship between been Logan and Victor isn’t explored well enough for you to be invested in their bond, Logan’s love life is barely in the film long enough to matter and then there’s like ten other supporting cast people who don’t even matter. Though I’m not gonna lie, some of this film is hilarious. That is mainly due to the bad dialogue, you see me and my mates watched the trailers for this film several times before it came out in cinemas, so there’s certain lines of dialogue that I find funny because me and my mates quoted it so much haha.

When it comes to the characters I’m just gonna say this now… THERE ARE TOO MANY DAMN CHARACTERS! If X-Men 3 was too much a crowed film, the formula isn’t to follow in that film’s footsteps, but unfortunately Wolverine is full of characters, several of which are useless and unknown to casual audiences.

Firstly let’s start with Hugh Jackman as James Howlett/Logan/Wolverine, unfortunately Wolverine has been made into be this generic and boring person who looks badass but doesn’t have any depth to him. We don’t care about what he does because he doesn’t have a very interesting personality and his actions don’t have any consequences that matter. Though I have to say Jackman is the best part of the cast. Liev Schreiber as Victor Creed/Sabretooth makes for a much-needed improvement over the one in X-Men 1, though that doesn’t mean his character is good. Victor makes for a pretty crappy brother, the bond between him and Wolverine seems more causal than brotherly, and Victor is clearly a bad guy from the beginning. And then the last sort of relevant person is Danny Huston as William Stryker, Hudson makes for a decent Stryker but doesn’t have the same kind of screen presence or charm that Brian Cox does.

Now we move onto other, less interesting cast members. Lynn Collins as Kayla Silverfox was just so weak as Wolverine’s love interest, there’s no depth to her character and she’s very forgettable. And then there’s Taylor Kitsch as Gambit. I bloody forgot I’d even seen Kitsch in this film! In truth Kitsch isn’t that bad, but he’s not that memorable either. But hey at least Kitsch isn’t as bad as he was in Battleship. Also for some reason will.i.am is in the film as John Wraith, a teleporting mutant. He’s got no reason to be in the film, he’s pretty much there for exposition purposes and then gets killed off later on. Kevin Durand makes a mockery of The Blob, there was no merits about his interpretation of the character. Dominic Monaghan as Chris Bradley is wasted in this film, he’s barely there and the character could have been played by anyone. Daniel Henney as Agent Zero is one of the mutants gets a bit more screen time, but you don’t have any respect for the guy because he’s just a douche and a lackey.

And now we come to the final fuck up in the characters… Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson! Now don’t get me wrong, Ryan Reynolds isn’t bad as Wade Wilson, but that isn’t enough to save him from what he becomes… Weapon XI aka Deadpool (played by Scott Adkins). I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, “I will never call Weapon XI Deadpool!” I don’t know who’s smart idea it was to change Wade Wilson into that thing, but it was one of the stupidest ideas since Galactus was turned into a fucking cloud in Fantastic Four 2! Also if this is meant to be Deadpool, why the fuck does he look like frigging Baraka from Mortal Kombat??? Such foolishness!

Presentation-wise it is a pretty bad effort on both the visual and audio side of things. Visually the film isn’t all that fancy. The fights feel more like scuffles than actual full-on fights, the choreography is uninteresting and there is still FAR too much wire work! And then there’s the CGI, man it is disappointing (the weird alien CGI Patrick Stewart for example. Fail). The visual effects aren’t nearly as detailed as they should be… But the worst offender was Wolverine’s CG claws. What the hell man? Those claws looked so fake it wasn’t even funny, I dunno how but they got in right in 3 films beforehand and now they look shit like this? Such a fail! As for the soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams its pretty weak, there’s nothing overly memorable about it, there’s no key themes that stick out and I wasn’t attached or enjoying the score he’d done for the film. Williams is a decent composer, this is just not his best material.

In conclusion X-Men Origins: Wolverine is just an insult to me as a comic book fan, the filmmakers took perfectly good source material and dumbed it down, shit on it and changed things that needed no changing in the first place. Now I know I’ve seen and reviewed worse films than this, but this film gets hate from me because it hurt me as a fan of the source material! There is too much going on in this film, a lot of which isn’t all that interesting. Even Hugh Jackman couldn’t save this film from being the abomination we now know not to talk about.

Rating: 0/10! (Doesn’t deserve a number, all it deserves is death!)

So what did you lot think of X-Men Origins: Wolverine? Did it insult you as much as it did me? Or do you believe I was being to harsh on the film and you may be one of the small minority of people that enjoyed that “film”? Whatever your thoughts, drop them below and I’ll see ya on the next film review. P.S. Here’s praying that The Wolverine is good! PLEASE GOD PLEASE! 😛

 

Deadpool Movie May Address His Appearance in Wolverine

Man I never thought I’d hear any information about the Deadpool movie ever again since there’s been next to no information about it since X-Men: First Class was popular back 2011. But now Ryan Reynolds has surfaced and given us comic book fans something to think about, here’s the article from superherohype:

“20th Century Fox has been taking its sweet time making a movie starring Ryan Reynolds as Marvel Comics’ “Merc with a Mouth,” Deadpool, following his appearance in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but with a popular Marvel Now! comic and a video game on the way, one would think now would be the best time to move forward with the movie. There’s already a script written by Zombieland creators Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese and FX guy Tim Miller has been attached to direct the movie for some time as well, so what is happening with it?

In an Empire Podcast appearance by Reynolds to talk about his upcoming DreamWorks Animation film The Croods, Reynolds explained why it may be a long time before we see the movie they want to make:

“I love Deadpool and there is a script that’s in development. But it’s so, so far into the R-rated zone… it’s a nearly NC-17 world and I just don’t know if the studio would ever risk their reputation doing it. We’ve been developing it and we would never wanna do it unless you could it that R-rated way, so... You could do it for a pittance compared to the modern sort of epic scale superhero movies, but it’s about a guy who knows he’s in a movie and knows he’s in a comic book who is deeply mentally disturbed and hyper violent, and that’s tough to get by a studio.”

Probably the most interesting thing Reynolds tells them is that the movie might even address the odd version of Deadpool seen in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, something which angered many fans of the popular Marvel character.

“In the current iteration of the script, it doesn’t address Wolverine – though it does address Deadpool’s appearance in Wolverine. Deadpool was not happy with Deadpool in Wolverine. He has a sort of a WTF!? moment with that. The script is one rewrite away from Deadpool jumping across the desk at the studio executive and attacking him,” Reynolds told them. 

The planning for a Deadpool movie, which Empire surmises may need to generate a Kickstarter campaign to ever happen, even goes so far as them throwing around a few marketing ideas, as Reynolds said,  “I’ve always wanted to do the movie just if only because Deadpool would get to do his own movie trailer, so that’s a thing that we were dying to do and we would love to be a part of that.”“

It seems like this movie is still in the pre-production stages and is wanting to go ahead but there varying factors to take into consideration. It seems like the writers along with Reynolds want the spirit of the character to be intact and keep all of his funny and violence tendencies intact, however they’re wondering if 20th Century Fox would go ahead with an R/NC-17-rated film. I think the comic book fans and critics alike would flock to the cinema to see this. It would be like Dredd or Watchmen, something different, experimental and worth a try considering the current state of superhero films that don’t go that extra mile to give film audiences something different. I reckon 20th Century Fox should just go ahead with it, it’d be badass.

Now regarding the fact that Deadpool would address the version of himself in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I dunno how I’d feel about it. I guess it’d be funny to see him rip into his own performance in another film, but to address it means that it’d actually be linked together, that they were the same character and I dunno if I could accept that. I mean we all saw that disgrace that was in the first Wolverine film who looked more like a masked version of Baraka from Mortal Kombat than any version of Deadpool in existence. Well it’d be interesting to see how that works out but I would prefer that the versions of Deadpool be left separate. Anyways it sounds like things are on the right lines, however I would like to see the film get pushed up in the production line and actually start happening yo!