The Geek Beat: Great Expectations

Right on I could not have said it better myself. Your review too was right on. The movie is horrible what a wasted opportunity.

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Then by that same ending comment I'd like to add that those of us who actually enjoyed some of the films you feel disappointed by should also be able to enjoy them without having to apologize or explain why. I've lost count of times I was made to feel ashamed or embarrassed for liking a movie or not joining "The Hater Bandwagon". Maybe it's me? Perhaps I'm just easy to entertain. Whatever it is the fact remains that if I can walk into a movie and lose myself from the harsh realities of economic woes, pandemic flues, and proceed to laugh, gasp in wow, admire Hugh Jackman's poste...uhm you get it, then the movie succeeded in it's purpose. Our opinions are exactly that, our opinions and neither side should be insulted for such.

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I'm going to agree with Elysium on this - a movie goer should not have to apologize for having high expectations for a movie, but if you come out of that film and those expectations weren't reached is it really the director, actors, or studios fault? This isn't to say that filmmakers should be exempt from blame for making a horrid film but as an avid movie watcher, I take pride in trying to find the positive aspects, the high points that allow me to appreciate a film...now of course thats not always possible...and often much harder done than said, but it is much easier to find things to hate and criticize about a film than it is to defend it...Unfortunately the "Hater Bandwagon" is so prominent in the U.S. especially that it has become the norm for bloggers and movie critics to bash the crap out of films that don't really justify there criticisms well...and instead just summarize the plot of the film with a patronizing and demeaning tone - anyone can do that about any film...

Of course this is a generalization but I read this article this morning and felt it is the kind of review a film like Wolverine deserves:

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/In-Defense-Of-Wolverine-Beating-Back-The-Bad-Reviews-12969.html

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Right on.Couldn't agree more

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ER, you don't have to apologize for anything! You are who you are and that's why we like you. I read your original rant when it came in and related to it entirely. I'm old and an old school X-fan. My 1st issue was #132 off the stand w/the the baddest-ass final page. I was sold. That, like you, is my Wolverine. And I thank you for reminding me.

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Wow. Clicked through to the mentioned Maxim article. What an ass.

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This is a novel...

This is always a hard argument because reviewing a film really depends on well...the viewer. But let me ask you, Aren't movies that are made from cult favs or fan icons supposed to reach cult and fan viewers as well as general audiences?

This might seem ridiculous, but what if someone was to make a movie of your life. You are the Writer of "your life" your friends and family members (well not all, especially some of mine) are the fans, your "cult" following. And when you turn your life over to be made into this movie "they" decide, "well it's not right, it won't fit"..Now your pet Dalmation Sparky is a Cat named Tiger, because it will reach female audiences, you lover only has one arm now so we can get the sympathy nod, and instead of not going to college and working a normal job, you are the wild party student who gets drunk and runs around naked...all to draw in the crowd...

Now you might say whatever this is stupid.

But this seriously is what they are doing to movies that already have fan bases.
There is already a great idea and guess what? It works, it's selling million of comics or books or whatever already so i guess the "general" public must like it...

But noooo that is not good enough

And don't get me wrong i'm not picking everything apart ..look at spiderman 1 and 2, Iron man, Batman Begins and TDK. they are good movies...They made changes from the stories i knew growing up with, and they added a hollywood style and appealed to the "general" public and fans alike.
But they kept the stories, they made you feel the drama and had the scenes you saw in comics you wanted to see come to life....not one problem with them...yeah i could gripe about them a bit, but why they hit that perfect medium.

But now look at Xmen(to me all of them), Spiderman 3, Wolverine....
They decided here the stories were not entertaining enough (even though the X-men Venom and Wolverine are some of the Favorite Charecters of all hardcore and average fans alike)

Look at movies from your favorite books, oh i guess the story in the book wasn't good enough so lets change the ending or plot points to fit what we think they will like.

You can like what you like, and you hate what you hate...But when a movie is based of a Cultural piece of material such as a comic, or famous novel or tv show....How can you accept taking away the story that was written and adding something completely different...ok change the dates leave out some bs parts but come on the story is what brought the attention to make the movie in the first place!!!!

And the reason it is brought to the screen for people who know little or nothing about comics, books or T.V. is because they are so good they need to be shared.. So think about you are not even getting the real thing, your getting a dumbed down version of something Millions loved....Really do you want to pay for that....and yeah you can say it's entertaining, but so is getting a laser pointer and watching my dog chase it around the room...and it cost me less!

But as far as wolverine goes come on..the cgi was like i made it at home on my mac (actually that might have been better) and where was the drama or great action scenes half the fights were just lacking.....

If you can watch movies like Spiderman and The Matrix and Batman and say, hey there was alot of really good action and drama and the Hero's looked great and the Villains were smart and evil...how can you expect the next epic film to be less then that...when you raise the bar you with one the others have to be met...that's why I'm Paying a ticket price.

SPOILER!!!!!!!
The best way to prove that wolverine was lacking..... Striker is going to shoot wolverine in the head with a Adamantium bullet, the female scientist walks into the room and says , that won't kill him his brain will heal...and striker replies, well his memories won't....??????? umm Dosen't your brain house you memories, so damaged area would heal???ummm (and for you hardcore fans i know wolvie's memories are erased really so don't hit me for that I'm just saying it dosen't go together)

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I agree with your core argument, this movie didn't flounder because of any viewer's high expectations. Wolverine was messy. The movie, in my mind, failed because it was not well thought out and was not tightly constructed. In five years, no one will be loaning this DVD to their friends encouraging them to watch it's greatness.

Any themes that were supposed to glow inside the narrative were polluted by too many hands being involved tweaking every corner of the script. I'm frustrated with a 'comic book movie' being obsessed with Easter egg shout outs. Instead of creating a tight, well-paced story, the film jumps awkwardly to create absurd random moments that attempt to shamelessly appease the action hungry while milking the comic fanboys. Here's Gambit on The Island spontaneously. His presence is unmotivated and unnecessary. Did you miss him? This is the equivalent of me drinking at a party and randomly name dropping that I got high with Warren G in an attempt to boost my street credibility and make people like me more because of a random association with a celebrity. This would make me lame only because you had too high of expectations for me as a person of cool.

The people involved here weren't making their own film with their own ideas and intentions, they were trying to create a magic mix of everything they thought everyone wanted to see.

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I know the feeling. I just wonder how much money will be wasted on 1980s remakes; NONE of which I'll be going to see.

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Honestly, really and truly, this movie reminded me more of Elektra than any other comic book movie thus far. Sure there was action. But none of it was exceptionally well shot. The plot, what there was, seemed like a vehicle to take Wolvie from one fight to the next with the weapon X team members with no real motivation for why we should care about each fight. And the ending.... I guess it reminds me more of Elektra and Spider-man 2's ugly baby.

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I mean, Elektra and spider-man 3's ugly baby.

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The whole movie reeked of Fox messing with the original script. Who knows if the original story that David Benioff wrote was actually good, but I remember reading an interview with him about it and he mentioned being a huge Wolverine fan, reading every solo Wolverine comic since he was 10 years old, and I just cannot imagine that big of a fan writing too awful of a story. Sure, he did write Troy, so maybe some of the terrible dialogue is his, but I can't imagine him including all the extra unnecessary characters in it from the start.

And what they did to Deadpool....WHY?!?!?!

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excellent article! you hit the nail on the head with "We're damned if we have expectations, damned if we don't"

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