There was a whole lot of disappointment after X3 that despite cramming as many new characters into that film as possible, Gambit was nowhere to be found. That was especially sad considering a computer panel could be seen in X2 with Remy’s name on it, which seemed to hint that his inclusion into the fold was planned for a sequel. After X3 packed Beast and Angel into its ranks and hardly gave them screen time and dialog to do them justice, I suspect I’m not the only one who lost hope that we’d ever see Gambit in a movie.

So I must say, when I read the press release on Marvel.com I was quite surprised to find he’ll be a major player in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It never occurred to me that he could be added into Wolverine’s origin. Now we could complain and say Gambit doesn’t have any history with Wolverine prior to the X-Men (if he does, somebody let me know… much of my X-Men knowledge is confined to the Fox animated series from the ’90s). But I say hey, it’s a movie, the trilogy already changes some things about Wolvie’s origin, so if the characterization and acting is good, it seems to me like a good excuse as any to get that lovable Cajun on the big screen.

I don’t watch Friday Night Lights and I missed The Omen, so I’ve never seen Taylor Kitsch in action, but he certainly looks fantastic. Maybe a little young, but that makes since if it’s an origin picture.

Five more of Hugh Jackman’s supporting cast were reported on Marvel.com. With all these familiar characters, I certainly hope it won’t suffer X3 syndrome: too many characters and not enough time to develop them. Although X3 had something like 15 and it spent most of its time killing 3 of them, so I don’t think we have too much to worry about. I just didn’t expect to see so many familiar folks finally getting into the movie mold. It’s extremely cool, but only if Wolverine doesn’t get lost in the middle of all of them.

Two of these I completely expected: Stryker and Sabertooth. Or let me say that I at least hoped we’d see Sabertooth. There was a risk he’d be left out because the first X-Men film made the mistake of giving us the impression he and Wolverine had never met before. Hopefully this movie can flesh out that problem. Maybe he just looked a lot different in Wolverine’s past and so he doesn’t recognize him in the first film. I kinda hope he goes by Victor Creed and not Sabertooth– that might just be all the explanation we need. And Stryker was portrayed as such a huge part of Wolverine’s past in X2 that it would have been remiss not to include him. It’ll be a little sad not to see Brian Cox reprise his creepy role, but this is a younger version– this time he’ll be played by Danny Huston from 30 Days of Night, so he oughta be creepy enough…

Silver Fox and Deadpool get big-screen premieres in this movie as well. It’s a shame there’s no Lady Deathstrike, but she was written out of Wolvie’s past in X2 and killed about as fast as she was introduced. I wonder if he’ll have any kind of a romance– as cool as it would be to see a comic book movie without it, I’d be shocked. Wolvie and Silver Fox?? Could happen.

I’m excited to have more to look forward to than just more Wolverine. But Hugh Jackman has been spot-on every time. I have high, high hopes for this one.

I still wish they’d called it Weapon X. Oh well.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

Tags: comic book, Gambit, Hugh Jackman, Marvel, superhero, Taylor Kitsch, Wolverine, X-Men, X-Men Origins: Wolverine

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 1:35 pm and is filed under Capt Logan, Movies, comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.