The Irony Could Choke a Horse

In his weekly "Motion Captured" column, Drew McWeeny discusses the leak of 20th Century Fox's X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the subsequent review of it by a critic affiliated with Fox's media empire.

McWeeny is out for blood, calling for the firing of this critic for downloading Wolverine and writing about it. McWeeny gets on his high horse, writing, "Since [Hitflix.com] not only refused to review [Wolverine] but also to publish any reactions to it from anyone else, and since the same thing happened at Ain't It Cool and CHUD and at most of the other major geek sites, Fox is in an awkward position here. We all respected the law. We all chose to do the right thing.".

Wow. I'm amazed McWeeny can still type this drivel after patting himself on the back for so long and hard. His writing is infused with the flavor of sour grapes mixed with fear -- a bitter brew indeed. Sour grapes that someone else is getting the scoop. And fear of legal reprisal from Fox if McWeeny wrote about Wolverine. McWeeny sounds like an errant tattletale toddler screaming to Fox for the blood of this critic for getting away with what McWeeny wanted to do: "This is criminal. It's blatantly criminal, and it's the sort of behavior that would be punished if it was anyone else."

I'm amazed that McWeeny knows what "the right thing" is. Don't forget, McWeeny used to go by the name of Moriarty when he wrote for Ain't It Cool News -- a site that made its name from "scoops" just like the one McWeeny is so mad about now. The hypocrisy is astounding.

As for the film, I won't pretend that I didn't download it. I eat this kind of stuff up. I love seeing works in progress just as much as I love seeing fan edits as continuing to work with material to reshape it. The Wolverine wasn't too bad. It was far better than the last few Marvel-based movies I've seen though not perfect. It was no Iron Man, Spiderman 2, or X2 (but it was slightly better than X3).

Certainly, the rough cut of Wolverine is far from complete in its score, effects, ADR, etc. I think that the biggest difference is going to be the expansion of Ryan Reynolds's role (the same could be done for Taylor Kitsch -- I still think that Gambit is the lamest mutant ever). Reynolds shows up in the beginning of the film and appears again later (nearly unrecognizable) as Deadpool. Bumping up his screen time is going to help fill in some holes. However, there is more room for improvement.

Io9.com has a very good article, 10 Ways Wolverine Could Still Become A Decent Film. I agree whole-heartedly with the observations made by Charlie Jane Anders. Moreover, I appreciate that the writer doesn't make any bones that he saw the Wolverine rough cut or call for the head of anyone else who's seen it like some other bratty critics have done.