OK.. So I just got back from the movies, as I was lucky enough to snag a ticket to an advanced screening of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, so I figured I’d try my hand at a quick review.

In a word: Epic!

I’m not kidding when I say that this is probably the best movie I’ve seen all year. The start of the movie explains a question I’ve had about Wolverine since I watched the first X-Men movie – I can’t tell you what that question was or it would spoil it, but I will say that the movie starts off in a manner you might find a little reminiscent of the Watchmen (the only movie that may rival X-Men in awesomeness).

The first half hour or so is pretty light hearted, and funny as hell - Ryan Reynolds (Blade III) has a tendency to do that. The one-liners from the first major fight scene will be around for years to come. Once we get to the ‘present day’ stuff, the humor kinda flat-lines, but the action starts popping steroids, so no complaints here.

On the subject of that first fight scene – has anyone seen Equilibrium? Yeah… Imagine that with mutants. There are a lot of fight scenes in this movie and I mean a LOT, and they are all shot and animated exquisitly. The CGI is fantastic (with the exception of a few times they must have let a trainee at the wheel), the acting flawless, the storyline – there actually was one (new for an x-men flick), and it tied the movie up with the rest of them rather well.

I am not generally a fan of prequels, mainly because they frack everything up with the join, but I am pleased to say that this really wasn’t the case with Origins.

It is interesting to note that people have reported multiple ’secret’ endingsfor the movie, but I can’t really confirm this one way or another. It had a bit more footage about 30sec after the fade-to-black (not important, but amusing), and then another bit riiiiight at the end of the credits (made -no- sense. little ticked I waited 10min for it. sum1 explain the point  plz >.<).

All in all, the only thing I can fault it for is a few scenes where wolverine is playing with his shiny new toys but they look like the handiwork of a 12 year old, and the fact that I had to wait for 10min of credits to see sum1 getting plastered. I’d have rather come home straight away and have 10 more minutes to do that myself :p

Overall Rating: 9/10 – Go see it or I will send Alex to eat your babies. Here’s a quick Q&A to give you more reasons:

Q: Do I need to have seen the first 3 for this to make sense to me?

A: Nah. not really. It’s a prequel – it’s a whole movie just for explaining things

Q: I’m generally into sci-fi’s and fancy kung-fu fight scenes, but the first 3 movies just didn’t do it for me. Should I bother?

A: Hellz yeah. Other people in my group thought about as much of the first 3 movies as I do of peas… And I hate peas, but they loved Origins.

Oh, one last thing… I guess there was probably one other issue I had with the movie, but it’s not really their fault – and it’s that our local Cinema is crap. I went all the way down there (granted, onyl 500m, but still), paid $15AUD (sure, that’s about 12 cents to everyone else, but eh), and had to sit in a crappy seat next to some fabio-wanna-be who spent the whole movie trying to make moves on the little blond thing sitting next to him.

I much prefer watching movies on my LCD TV (or my mates fracking epic sized LCD TV), in my boxers, with a rum in 1 hand.. and another rum in the other. The idea of freezing my arse off in an crowded over-air-conditioned square box doesn’t seem like the grandest of ways to enjoy the cinematic masterpiece.

So far, the only alternative I’ve found is something like iReel, but they’re only available to people with better currencies than ours (lol, sorry – had to take a digg). Either way, my proxy (I have strange hobbies) tells me that their site may be a lazy geek’s heaven, but streaming Aeon Flux like this didn’t strike me as the wisest of ideas. Has anyone used streaming movie site-thingies like this (are they any good?) – and more importantly, do you know of any that operate in Oz or is this all part of our better-beaches tax? :p

Anyway, to sway dangerously back on topic – you all need to go see the movie tomorrow (or the day after, depending on where you fall on the International Date Line. kek) because it is filled with the aforementioned levels of epic. To all those nasty kettles pirates that decided to download the workprint with no CGI (yeah.. serves you right for clicking…) - da hell where you thinking? It’s a CGI movie made with CGI and honey, on CGI toast, topped with a thin layer of cinnamon CGI. Go pay to see the damn thing on the big screen, ya tight wads.

Need more convincing? Here’s the trailer:

~Ithiel

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