Dumb Things To Do in a Wolverine Movie
Anlatt the Builder
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So I saw the movie this afternoon. The negative reviews I read didn't
lie. I found it boring and heavily cliche. The special effects were
okay, if you like explosions and people beating each other up (with
sharp thingies), but there was very little that evoked a sense of
wonder. (Wraith's teleporting was well done.)
The last third or so of the movie, however, relied heavily on
characters doing really dumb things in order to keep the plot going or
have unearned "emotional" scenes. I always wonder how many people in
the audience just ignore these things - "it's just a comic-book
movie!" - and how many expect the characters to not be complete
idiots. A sampling:
(1) Gambit escapes from the 3-Mile Island concentration camp (which he
calls "two years of hell"). Instead of going underground and/or
changing his name, he goes back to his old stomping grounds (New
Orleans), uses his real name, and answers "Are you Remy LaBeau?" with
"Do I owe you money?", then answering "yes" when Logan says
"no." (Remy, a hint: even people you owe money to will say "no" to
that question if they're trying to find you). Logan finds him in short
order based on information that Stryker and Creed would have had from
Day 1.
(2) Gambit is fleeing from Logan, who he is suspicious of, when Logan
is attacked by Creed, who Gambit hates, and is going to want to take
Gambit back to 3-Mile Island. Gambit does not run away. Nor does he
pick a side and help Logan take out Creed. Instead he jumps into the
middle of the fight and breaks it up! Twice, I think.
(3) Logan shows up at Stryker's lab, where he proceeds to have a long
talk with the guy instead of killing him before any security can show
up. (Well, that's fairly typical of comics, although usually it's the
villain with the motormouth.) Then, when he finds out that Kayla is
still alive and has betrayed him, he... wanders out of the room and
starts to head away from the complex.
Hey, Wolive, I know you're upset, but Stryker is still responsible for
many deaths, including Ma and Pa Kettle (I almost said "Kent," which
was my first thought when they appeared), tried to kill you and has no
reason not to try again, and is kidnapping young mutants and
performing medical experiements on them. If you had reason to kill him
before, you still do. You just going to leave the kids there?
(4) Creed and Logan fight. Logan wins, and is about to take Creed's
head off. But, seeing Kayla, he decides "I'm not an animal!" and...
lets Creed go.
Creed is a coldblooded superhuman serial killer who, minutes ago, was
trying to kill Logan. There are no superpolice coming to get him, no
way for him to be contained. You don't have to be an "animal," or
driven by vengeance, or even believe in capital punishment to decide
that the best thing to do is decapitate him while you can - you may
never have a chance again. It's simple self-defense and defense of
others. MAYBE there's another alternative, although I can't imagine
what it would be - but letting him go? Crazy.
(5) Stryker's big plan: shoot Wolverine with adamantium bullets. He
knows this won't kill him, but somehow, impossibly, he is absolutely
sure that it will give Wolvie exactly the right kind of amnesia. That
makes sense.
The bullets incapacitate Logan, at least for a while. Stryker stands
over his unmoving body, and is not in any rush to get away - in fact,
he goes after Kayla (also incapacitated) next. For some reason it
never occurs to him that now would be a vey good time to find
something sharp and cut the mutant's head off. No, stick with the
amnesia plan; that's best.
(6) Stryker is stupid enough to get close to Kayla, and she grabs his
leg. Although shot, she is still alive and strong enough to talk and
use her powers. She can get him to do anything, including shoot
himself, but she decides on something a highschool student would find
mean. ("Walk until your feet are bloody, then keep walking!"), because
she's "better than" him. Okay, fine. How about making him take her to
the hospital instead? (After he walks off, of course, she quietly
dies, satisfied with her cleverness.) Maybe she would have died on the
way - but, really, give it the old college try!
(7) Secretly, Prof. X is telepathically aware of what's going on in 3-
Mile Island. He uses his vast mental powers to play GPS for the
blindfolded Scott Summers so he can lead the kids out of the complex,
where the professor has a helicopter waiting. That's all he does. He
does nothing to stop Stryker; he does nothing to help Logan against
Creed or Deadpool. In fact, the list of things that Prof. X does not
bother to do would be longer than the whole rest of this post put
together. He was a mix of deus ex machina and ain't-it-cool guest
appearance (and strictly unnecessary); nobody spent a minute to think
about what Prof. X would REALLY do in a terrible situation like this.
(8) Gambit offers Logan a ride out in his plane. Logan turns him down,
saying he'll make his own way. Okay, we get it - you're a loner,
doomed to walk the world alone. But you also have amnesia, and this
guy with a plane is the only person you know of who has any idea who
you are. You can be as tragically alone as you want, but do you have
to be an idiot, too?
That's off the top of my head.