X-Men Origins: Wolverine….Hugh’s Laughing Now

The big Wolverine movie comes out at a time when I’ve just recently started to question a few things about Hugh Jackman. I’ve never really had a problem with the guy until now, and have rather enjoyed watching his rise to mega-stardom from small Aussie flicks like “Erskineville Kings”, to massive Hollywood money machines like the X-Men series.  Just lately though, I’ve been noticing a glossy sheen of “Hollywood Superstar” slowly coming over him. Every interview he gives is so effortlessly cool, he’s always so witty and charming, his hair perfectly set in place, and what’s most annoying, he’s always so damn cheerful and likable. Frankly, it gives me the creeps.

This endlessly affable behavior takes me back to an 1980’s to mid 1990’s Tom Cruise. It’s becoming hard to believe now, but if you take your mind back to before Tom jumped on Oprah’s couch and started acting wacky, he was untouchable; loved and adored by fans, treated like a golden boy by the media, and widely considered to be a genuinely nice guy by most. Thing is, he also shared that Hugh Jackman-esque gift of charming his interviewers and oozing that effortless charisma. It wasn’t until 5 or so years ago that the cracks began to appear. Cruise’s nice guy swagger started becoming forced, his charm transparent, and his behavior in public bridged on pure falseness.

Now, I’m not saying Hugh Jackman has become anything like Tom. I just worry that if he keeps up the “Mr Nice Guy” shtick for too long, it will make him seem too “showbiz”, too fake, and even worse: painfully uninteresting. I don’t know about you but I like my actors to have a bit of depth. Give me a surly, photographer-punching Sean Penn any day over a guy who wears nice suits and spits forth witty one-liners on the red carpet with ease.

Of course, having said all this, there is the possibility that Hugh Jackman simply IS an incredibly nice guy and his behavior is honest and forthright….but the cynic in me wonders if anyone can be so perfect, so jovial, so neat, so clean. His promotional rounds for his last few films have been really grating. From his handing out “Tim -Tam” biscuits on Oprah whilst promoting “Australia”, to his recent abseiling and flying fox stunts to promote Wolverine. Hugh just seems to be trying to hard please everyone. To be ultra-likable. I know I’m being a bit of a stick in the mud here, but I just want to see more levels to the guy, beyond the slick “Hollywood good guy” marketing machine he’s turning into.

One thing is pretty clear though, just like Tom Cruise, Hugh Jackman is definitely talented, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine merely confirms this. (yep, I’m going to actually discuss the movie now…finally!)

Let’s cut the crap: This Wolverine movie is pretty much on par with the first X-Men film. It doesn’t reach the dazzling heights of the Bryan Singer directed X2, but it does easily surpass the snoozefest that was X-Men:The Last Stand. This is a big budget, high-action popcorn film, and a damn good one. Anyone who says it doesn’t deliver on its promise of entertaining for a couple of hours needs to step away from their X-Men comics, get some fresh air outside of their mothers basement and stop complaining.

Wolverine has some great action sequences and I felt it had a decent, engaging story throughout. It’s a film that would probably suffer without Hugh leading the way. He’s had three movies to get into the skin of Logan, and he seems comfortable and confident in the role. In addition, he’s backed by a solid supporting cast featuring the likes of Liev Schreiber, an underrated actor whom I hope gets some more meaty roles after this, and Ryan Reynolds, whom I think has made some poor choices in the past, but who is quite a versatile actor if given the chance.

Wolverine is good fun. Let’s just hope Hugh has some deeper, more complex roles ahead of him and doesn’t let the “sexiest man alive” tag turn him into a plonker.