After weeks of bad press following an unanticipated work print leak and rampant speculation that the film was likely to be D.O.A., both financially and creatively, the best thing one can say about “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” is that it wasn’t as awful as expected. But positivity hits a brick wall after that concession.
In a genre that only seems to spark when filmmakers come at the material from a place of passion, Gavin Hood’s prequel to Fox’s “X-Men” franchise comes across like an anonymous, factory-assembled piece of corporate product with no personality and no thematic virtue.
What it lacks in quality it doesn’t exactly make up for in spectacle, and while it is more centered on character than story, it nevertheless skims the surface where that is concerned. A film that might have had something for everyone nearly offers nothing for no one.
Hugh Jackman dons the too-tight jeans and adamantium talons for the fourth time in nine years as James Logan, a hyper-healing mutant with a shady (and lengthy) past. Screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods borrow and manipulate Marvel’s “Origin” mini-series at will, especially in the early portions of the film, to give a vague point of entry that neither gives the audience a nuanced portrait of the character nor Jackman the proper material in which to invest himself.