X-Men Origins: Wolverine – Revisiting a truly awful superhero flick

Last Updated on November 21, 2023

Fox’s X-Men universe has certainly run the board when it comes to continuity and quality. We’ve seen incredible cinematic outings like X-Men First Class, we’ve gotten fun action-comedy romps like Deadpool, and we’ve even seen one of the most inspired comic book adaptations in recent history with the always impactful, Logan.

It’s crazy to believe that the same studio that made Wolverine the most popular X-Men member is the same studio that nearly caused Hugh Jackman to walk away from the character forever. But luckily that’s not the case as we currently have a Deadpool x Wolverine crossover movie that looks to finally be putting Jackman in his iconic blue and yellow duds after over twenty years of teasing.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is the 2009 entry in the Fox universe that promised the moon but gave us… whatever this is. 

This movie was one of the many films affected by the 2007-2008 writers’ strike (oh yes, the one that happened this year wasn’t the first) which caused an already troubled production to go completely off the rails. It’s a movie that seemed so easy to get right, as the original Fox X-Men film handled the introduction to Wolverine with finesse and mastery. But through the mix of writers coming in and leaving the project, the addition of too many new characters, and of course some good old fashioned studio interference, the movie went from a promising Wolverine adventure that would bring the classic Paul Jenkins and Joe Quesada graphic novel to life, to becoming a bloated and utterly disappointing borderline disrespectful waste of IP potential. 

It also didn’t help that this entire movie was leaked on the internet weeks before it was supposed to be released and the initial reactions were not good. Man, the internet is insane.

So, strap yourselves in tight and light up your tastiest cigar- because we’re about to get claws deep in X-Men Origins Wolverine and see how it holds up in today’s world of comic book movies. All that and much more is coming up in today’s episode of Marvel Revisited.