We Rewatched X-Men: Origins And It's Totally Different Now
Think Deadpool and Wolverine are meeting for the first time this summer? Think again. Real heads remember when these Marvel-ous heroes met before, pre-MCU, in a way both Disney and Ryan Reynolds would probably prefer you forget. It's been a long time since "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," and we took a walk down memory lane so you don't have to.
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00:00What's up everybody, Griffey here.
00:02With Deadpool and Wolverine coming out this July, I thought this would be the perfect
00:05opportunity to ruin my weekend watching X-Men Origins Wolverine so we could discuss Wolverine
00:12and Deadpool's first on-screen rendezvous.
00:15You actually go outside in these things?
00:18What would you prefer, yellow spandex?
00:21So after three X-Men movies that just kept getting more and more painful to the point
00:25that by the time you get to X-Men Last Stand, we had given up, right?
00:29We were like, don't stand anymore, just die.
00:31As you watch your heroes taking their triumphant last stand, you just kind of hope that the
00:34theater would melt, right?
00:35That you would be ushered out on a wave of melting celluloid, right?
00:38We were so over the X-Men franchise.
00:40So Fox finds themselves trying to restart a new franchise with just Wolverine.
00:46If we can make a great Wolverine movie that fans will like, can become a franchise, and
00:52we can perpetuate this comic book monopoly that Fox had at the time.
00:58The problem is that it feels like Fox made every wrong decision along the way, right?
01:03What you see in this movie is a movie studio that is just trying to force the IP into a
01:09realm where they can still be in charge without any concept of what actually made Wolverine
01:14or the IP cool.
01:16It did lead, however, to Ryan Reynolds finally playing Deadpool, right?
01:20The character that fans and audiences online had been pining for him to get a chance to
01:25play for a long time, Ryan Reynolds, due to the writer's strike, actually had to write
01:29and rewrite a lot of the Deadpool dialogue on the fly.
01:33So in the middle of this absolute travesty that is Deadpool in this movie, you do get
01:39the chance to see Ryan Reynolds finally sink his teeth into and try to begin wrestling
01:43with the comic book character he was born to play.
01:47You whip out a couple of swords at your ex-girlfriend's wedding, they will never, ever forget it.
01:53We start the film and we see a beautiful young Wade Wilson, who's part of an assassin team, right?
01:57We get some of the wisecracking in the elevator.
01:59You start to see the foundations of a Deadpool on screen.
02:03It seems like this is going to work.
02:06And then Deadpool erupts out of the elevator, does some kind of weird Matrix ballet where
02:10he blocks all the bullets, ruthlessly kills a guy, and then essentially doesn't talk for
02:16the rest of the movie.
02:17The next time we see Deadpool, he is mangled and his face is sewn together and they have
02:21this kind of terrible CG that masks his mouth.
02:24When your character is lovingly known to comic book fandom as the Merc with the Mouth, the
02:29character that looks out of the page and talks to us, the character that gives us a wink
02:32and a nod, that as he's murdering and killing everyone, we can do that with a laugh and
02:37a joke and realize that these stories are not that serious.
02:40Our Merc with the Mouth is reduced to a sewn up hodgepodge of powers that have nothing
02:46to do with Deadpool.
02:48Now his swords come out of his hand like Wolverine, right?
02:51Now he has Cyclops' laser eyes, which he essentially never uses, and Raccoon eyes.
02:57I guess this lets us know that there's a lot of inner turmoil that Deadpool is unable to
03:01express to us.
03:02He still has Disco Bellbottoms, so at least there's that.
03:05There is almost no sadder thing I've ever seen in the history of comic book movies than
03:09Deadpool finally fighting Wolverine on screen, and not talking, and not commenting, and not
03:16giving us a laugh and a joke, a wink and a nod to how cool this moment should have been
03:20for us.
03:21Instead, he's just doing laser eyes and claw hands, and it's one of the saddest moments
03:26in the entire history, if not the lamest decision in the history of comic book movies.
03:32So this movie ends up looking a lot like Deadpool in this movie, right?
03:37Kind of a Frankenstein together hodgepodge of things we're supposed to like that actually
03:41form this horrifying visage, looking us back in the face, trying to murder our hearts and souls.
03:47Are you Remy Lebeau?
03:52Do I owe you money?
03:53The biggest sin number two of the movie?
03:56Gambit.
03:57Right?
03:58Gambit is so insanely bad in this movie.
04:01Gambit is the coolest Mr. Steal Your Girl who has ever existed in the history of comic
04:06books.
04:07I will not be taking arguments on that point.
04:09We see him as Riggins from Friday Night Lights.
04:12Not the casting we all wanted.
04:13We see him playing cards, and then all of a sudden, he's gone.
04:17When Gambit leaps back in with his giant stick and lands in that alley and announces himself
04:23to the fight, I don't think there has ever been a moment that has landed as more of a
04:27wet towel.
04:28It was so pathetic and bad, the name's Gambit, mon ami.
04:35Remember it.
04:40Gambit in X-Men 97?
04:42Just imagine the Gambit we saw in that show.
04:44The Gambit on Genosha.
04:45He makes sure that we all remember his name.
04:48That Rogue will never again question who the man was.
04:51Imagine that Gambit, and then think back to what Origins did to him.
04:56And it will really illustrate crystal clear in your mind the sin against this wonderful
05:00character.
05:01Fred Dukes?
05:02The creature that ate Fred Dukes.
05:04Hey, be nice, man.
05:05But even now, as much as I hated Deadpool and Gambit, it's kind of hard to make the
05:10case that Wolverine in a boxing match with the Blob who can't find a shirt that fits
05:16him is not the worst moment in comic book movie history.
05:21How about when he says, Bub, which is the iconic Wolverine line, did you call me Blob?
05:28And that's what starts our titular boxing match.
05:31This is our heavyweight.
05:32Did you call me Blob?
05:33What is happening?
05:34Why is this in the movie?
05:35Did you just call me Blob?
05:36No.
05:37I would challenge you, think of any moment that misses the mark more.
05:48Who enjoyed this moment?
05:50Who is it for?
05:51What does this scene do, except for specifically insult fans of this genre?
05:56X-Men Origins Wolverine's great superpower is reminding us of things we like and showing
06:02them how immediately uncool they can become.
06:08Here's another thing that really kind of stabs you in the heart.
06:11This movie opens exceptionally well.
06:14It's a very tense kind of horror movie opening, right?
06:16The body horror of the bone claws coming out the first time as he leaps and attacks.
06:21In fact, watching the two brothers enlist in the military multiple times under what
06:26must be many different aliases to continually fight in the Civil War, World War I, World
06:31War II, Vietnam, they're storming the beaches of Normandy, is actually the movie we should
06:37have watched, right?
06:38This should have been Highlander.
06:39They should have stolen the framework of what might be the best movie of all time, Highlander,
06:44and just done that.
06:45Why are we not watching these brothers go through life, dealing with their own acts
06:49and what they are, and using these conflicts to come back to each other?
06:54Is it terrible every time we watch Liev Schreiber get on his hands and feet and do that weird
06:59kind of carousel bouncy creature thing?
07:02Yes, it's horrible and it's bad and it hurts me.
07:05But when we watch him and Hugh Jackman talk in these cutting innuendos, these reminders
07:11of the past and what is lost, it actually resembles an amazing movie for a couple frames
07:17here and there.
07:18The fact that they had an amazing Wolverine and Hugh Jackman and an amazing Sabretooth
07:22and Liev Schreiber, and this is all they used it for, is really the great missed opportunity
07:29of the film, right?
07:30They had the idea of the story they needed, they just cut it short so they could fill
07:35the movie with bulls**t that we didn't want.
07:37She can influence people as long as she touches them, quite a useful tool in a seduction.
07:43It was never real, my friend.
07:46It was real for me.
07:48It's hard because I keep saying in my mind, what is actually the worst moment in this
07:52Wolverine origin movie?
07:54And it's hard to pick.
07:55We don't see a lot of dramatic give and take, there's not a lot of pull.
07:59Wolverine essentially just heals from everything, gets his scratchy claws, he doesn't save his
08:04girlfriend because he has to go to his logging job.
08:08That's one of those things, that's just bad screenwriting.
08:11There is no universe where we imagine that Wolverine, who has seen all of these things,
08:16is like, don't worry, the kindergarten kids will save her.
08:18How many kindergarten kids can defeat Sabretooth?
08:20Five?
08:21Six?
08:22No, Wolverine would be in that classroom.
08:24He would like Billy Madison be in that classroom, dodgeball ready, to make sure that Sabretooth
08:29pays if he comes messing around.
08:36I don't think she was a good teacher.
08:37I think that's what I'm saying.
08:38I think she was maybe a bad teacher, and maybe these kids are lucky that she was a traitor
08:42at the end, and she ran away.
08:44I don't care that she had a sister who was abducted, who may or may not be Emma Frost,
08:48and I don't care that Wolverine forgave her and helped free other mutants, because she's
08:53a bad teacher, and he's a bad guy, and why did this movie have to happen to me?
08:59In summation, X-Men Origins Wolverine is one of the most horrifyingly missed opportunities
09:06in the entire history of comic book cinema.
09:10That said, we can only hope that Deadpool and Wolverine this summer will right a lot
09:15of these wrongs.
09:16One of the fun things about those two characters together is that they are very similar, murderers
09:21who can heal really well.
09:22That's really what they are at their core, but Deadpool doing it with gallows humor while
09:26Wolverine is played ultimately serious.
09:29The interplay of those two should provide, and should have in this movie, provided a
09:33really fun look at the two worlds of comic, our very dark, serious morality tales, and
09:40the fun four-color mayhem that we've come to love.
09:43Deadpool found the redemption he needed.
09:45Deadpool is now an established and beloved comic book franchise with the right actor,
09:49and the right tone, and the right R rating.
09:52Deadpool has found his redemption already.
09:54You could argue that Wolverine, through the movie Logan, found his redemption too.
10:00While you could argue that Logan and Wade have both found their redemption cinematically,
10:05I think there will be something so sweet about reuniting this odd couple and doing
10:10one last journey with the both of them.
10:14So I hope you're excited for Deadpool and Wolverine in theaters this July 26th.
10:19I'll be there praying that it'll be a better ride than this movie.
10:22I'm gonna go find my adamantium forgetting bullet.