Times were hard before widespread internet use was common. If you wanted to know what was bad and what was good about the latest pop culture hits and flops, you had to go to the theater yourself and actually watch it. Thankfully with the rise of Wikipedia, guys like me don’t have to subject ourselves to movies we have preemptively deemed bad. Just set aside a few minutes, pop the title into the search bar, and in no time you’ll be able to talk about all the flaws in Batman v. Superman. Of course, we’ve all come across articles that leave much to be desired, and few things are as unsatisfactory clicking through a link in a well-sourced, expertly formatted article to one that’s a rambling mess. How does “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” stack up to Wikipedia’s best and worst?
Writing a plot summary for Wikipedia is a deceptively difficult task, and one that the online encyclopedia’s contributors take seriously. While the major plot beats need to be sufficiently detailed, it also needs to be concise. Go too far and your article will be marked with the dreaded “Long Plot” template, a note to anyone reading that your article “needs improvement.” In this regard, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” gives the reader one of the better plot summary experiences you could have. Despite not actually being that complex X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a bit packed with characters and, for lack of a better way to put it, things happening. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” manages to get to the core of the matter with an economy of language that, while maybe not on the level of Hemingway, reads easily and allows the reader to get the gist of the story without their eyes glazing over. By the time Gambit is introduced, the mind may start to wander, but that’s more the fault of X-Men Origins: Wolverine than it is of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.”
When we get to the Cast section, though, the article is not as concise as it might be. Of course, this is mainly a matter of taste, but the article goes a bit too far into trivia territory when it some could probably be reduced to a single sentence briefly describing the character. Do we really need to know that Liev Schreiber enjoyed Wolverine comics as a kid because of their “urban sensibility?” Does this really give any more insight to the character or the actor’s portrayal of Sabertooth beyond awarding him some kind of “nerd cred?” The cast section is almost twice as long as the plot summary, and while we can again partially pin this on the bloated nature of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the contributors to the article probably could have cut a detail or two from here, and therefore have less of a risk of boring readers before they reach the Production section. That’s where I lost interest with this review, anyway.
As for the veracity of these details, or whether anything important is omitted? Hell if I know, I’m not watching that movie, even if it is for Multiversity’s tenth anniversary.
Final Verdict: I’m glad I chose to read this instead of watching the damn thing.
