A Civil War-to-Vietnam montage of Logan and Victor fighting side by side offers a glimpse of the far more interesting movie that might have been. The review quickly identifies that squandered premise—two nearly indestructible men surviving generations of warfare—and uses it as a benchmark for everything that follows. That is an effective way to criticize X-Men Origins: Wolverine without pretending every idea in it was doomed from the start.
The central argument is that the movie fails less because of its broad concepts than because its plot repeatedly requires Logan to stop asking obvious questions. His willingness to trust Stryker, Victor’s unexplained behavior, Kayla’s fake death and the elaborate scheme leading to the adamantium procedure all receive detailed scrutiny. The breakdown of Kayla’s supposed murder is especially funny because it follows the deception to its practical conclusion: the twist seemingly depends on Logan finding her apparently dead and abandoning the situation before anyone examines the body. Beneath the jokes, there is a coherent criticism of a screenplay that prioritizes predetermined revelations over believable character behavior.
That criticism becomes sharper when the discussion connects the plot to information established in X2. The review argues that the prequel is effectively writing backward from the requirement that Logan voluntarily undergo the Weapon X procedure, forcing an unnecessarily convoluted chain of manipulation to get him there. This is one of the more substantive sections because it explains why the story feels contrived rather than merely cataloguing ridiculous scenes. Claims about comic continuity, discarded scripts, rewrites, studio interference and the writers’ strike are presented confidently, however, without much sourcing or qualification within the presentation.
The movie’s action and effects provide the review with its best comic material. The motorcycle-and-helicopter chase is dissected as an escalating collection of implausible decisions, while the artificial-looking claws, arbitrary mutant fights and convenient action beats reinforce the argument that the second half collapses into spectacle. The energetic delivery works particularly well here because the jokes emerge from specific staging and story choices rather than simply repeating that the movie is bad.
Liev Schreiber’s Victor becomes an entertaining exception to the broader criticism. Rather than dismissing Sabretooth along with the rest of the production, the review appreciates his exaggerated hostility toward Logan and the strange brotherly dynamic that has him tormenting Wolverine while also insisting nobody else gets to kill him. The discussion of Wade Wilson is similarly more nuanced than the familiar complaint about sewing Deadpool’s mouth shut. It acknowledges that Reynolds shows hints of the later character early on and argues that subsequent Deadpool films have reduced the lasting importance of this failed interpretation.
The retrospective angle ultimately gives the piece more personality than a conventional bad-movie takedown. Childhood nostalgia, changing familiarity with the X-Men and the franchise’s later attempts to overwrite or mock this installment all feed into an affectionate verdict: it remains terrible, but its failures have become entertaining rather than aggravating. That perspective occasionally encourages digressions—the lengthy sponsor interruption and some extended riffs slow the analysis—but the mixture of criticism, absurdist humor and genuine fondness makes the discussion consistently lively.
Pros
- The opening war montage is used effectively to illustrate the stronger story possibilities the movie leaves unexplored.
- Detailed examinations of Logan’s decisions and Kayla’s fake death expose specific weaknesses in the plot rather than relying on generic ridicule.
- The connection between X2 and the prequel’s need to make Logan volunteer for Weapon X provides a convincing explanation for some of the screenplay’s contrivances.
- Liev Schreiber’s Sabretooth and Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson receive more nuanced treatment than the movie’s reputation might suggest.
- Fast, irreverent humor makes an extended discussion of a notoriously flawed superhero film consistently entertaining.
Cons
- Behind-the-scenes and franchise-history claims about rewrites, studio decisions, scripts and continuity are often asserted without supporting context.
- The sponsor segment substantially interrupts the momentum of the early analysis.
- Frequent tangents and rapid-fire references occasionally overwhelm the more substantive screenplay criticism.
- Some criticism depends heavily on comedic exaggeration, making it harder to separate serious objections from deliberately absurd riffs.
Specific plot analysis and unabashed affection for cinematic nonsense turn a familiar superhero punching bag into a funny and surprisingly thoughtful retrospective. The presentation wanders and occasionally lets jokes outrun analysis, but its best sections convincingly explain why the movie can be both genuinely awful and immensely entertaining.
