Logan - Review Thread

The one part that was given away was in the trailer when it showed an old Xavier then Logan and Laura are looking at a patch of dirt all sad with Logan holding a shovel. That was telegraphed just a bit.

The X-Men franchise has been one of the most consistent in cinema since debuting in 2000, and aside from a few of the entries in the series, have received critical praise and plenty of box office receipts. Naturally, the studio decided to give the series' most polarizing character, Wolverine, his own standalone films. Those are actually the only entries in the series I have not seen, mostly because neither of the two are supposed to be any good, but nonetheless performed big at the box office and provided more opportunities for Hugh Jackman to play the venerable mutant with the snarling charm that made the actor a household name. Interestingly for the third standalone Wolverine film, Fox decided to follow Deadpool's lead and make this film, Logan, R-rated much to my surprise. I've often criticized studios for watering down films to PG-13, and yet it never occurred to me to make an R-rated film surrounding their most popular character from their most popular superhero franchise. Their gamble paid off swimmingly, with Logan garnering excellent critical reviews and a ton of box office profits while again providing a superhero element that Disney's Marvel universe can't mirror with an adult-centric portrayal of the titular character. That gamble in making the film R-rated also pays off in supplementing a film with violence and edgier thematic material that the franchise had yet to explore, and is much needed in bolstering a film that really does little else to stand out as an actual game changer in the genre.

Jackman returns to play Wolverine for the 9th time, this time in a different light as a washed-up, alcoholic, and deeply troubled version of the character. He's currently working as a limo driver while taking care of a senile and wanted Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) in a remote part of Mexico. In addition to his personal demons, Wolverine's physical attributes are also diminishing. He's unable to heal as quickly, his claws aren't retracting correctly, and years of hiding has taken away his sense of purpose. While this type of protagonist is far from new in the real of cinema, this is certainly a very different take on one of comic books' most global characters. It's like if the boozy Christopher Reeves in Superman III got a full movie. Professor X keeps mentioning that he's been communicating with a new mutant, which Logan dismisses as senile nonsense considering there have been no new mutants in several years. Despite attempts at keeping to himself, Logan finds himself caught up in a woman's desperate attempt to transport a little girl (Dafne Keen) to a safe haven. Of course, Logan finds that there is far more to this girl than meets the eye, and he is thrown into the fray attempting to keep her and Professor X safe from a shady group connected to Wolverine's past.

I'll start with what I really enjoyed about the film. The cast does an excellent job all around here. Jackman is always fantastic as Wolverine, and it's a real treat to see him allowed to finally portray the character in all his snarling, foul-mouthed, selfish glory here. He plays the role with a beaten down intensity, eager to drift away into nothing and forgo the glory days that made he and the other X-Men famous. Stewart is of course wonderful as well as Professor X, providing a calming and optimistic presence to combat Logan's angry cynicism. They have always had a unique relationship, and this film provides several laughs as the two trade barbs like two old friends that will bicker with one another until death. The rest of the cast does a fine job as well, and I was pleased that the film decides against cramming Logan with several cameos or characters and makes this truly a story about Logan and Professor Xavier.

Logan also leans on its R rating to great effect and delivers some fantastically staged action sequences where Wolverine and Co. are unleashed on grunts and dispatch them in numerous, gory ways. If you think there's only a few ways that Wolverine can gore and dismember people with his claws... well you'd probably be right, and yet director James Mangold keeps the frenzy coming at such a frenetic pace that it's hard to keep track of how many times an arm has been slashed off or a head or any other form of gleeful violence. Other standouts are the sequences where Professor X has attacks, and movement comes to a halt with a debilitating pulse that is only stopped once Logan administers an antidote. While these aren't on the level of say Quicksilver moving through frozen time like in the last two X-men entries, these are very tense scenes that are well executed and visually interesting.

The film's weakness lies in its ordinary plot, a real disappointment given the genre we're operating within. Logan essentially boils down to being get girl here, road trip there, encounter bad guys, continue along journey. It certainly works, but it's far from inventive and there's little shakeup that occurs to deviate from this basic plot outline. Sure, there are some fun action sequences in between, but the stakes here feel very small in comparison to other X-Men films and it left me wishing that the writers had undertaken a more daring plot. It just lacks creativity and scope, and for a comic book film that's just not good enough. The villains all feel pretty stock as well with an evil scientist who operates on mutants leading the charge (hmmm, this sure sounds like we've gone through this before...) of buff grunts who are of course no match at all for the mutants. And while Wolverine certainly does come face-to-face with an adversary who you could say is certainly worthy, again the stakes just don't feel up to snuff this time around. I also found the dynamic between Logan and X23 to be pretty stale. I would've been happy if they had gone the conventional route of pitting two opposites, a grumpy adult with a smart kid, to generate some laughs, but even on a standard beat level the film never musters up a whole lot between them. Sure, a lot of that is because she hardly speaks during the majority of the film, but their relationship is a nonchalant one and as a result diminished the attempt by the end of the film to make their emotional parting bigger than it was.

There are other bland expositional methods employed here, such as Logan finding the secret footage on a woman's cellphone detailing the going-ons at the secret facility that X23 came from. I'm nitpicking here, but this woman is on the run and yet... that video is edited, with voice over, and runs about 10 minutes long. Sorry to be, well, THAT GUY, but we're supposed to accept that? Glad she found the time to Premiere Pro it up in between being on the lam with certain death right behind her. In the end, it's just tacky exposition and poor writing that drives me crazy, and as with the majority of comic book films playing true to their over explaining roots, there's too much of it in this film. The film seems to be getting a lot of praise for depicting basic drama, and while I suppose that's all well and good for the comic book genre where interesting drama is generally in short supply, it's nothing that we haven't seen done better many times before it. The third act is also a letdown and suffers from a bit of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome syndrome with the introduction of the . The film just loses steam once they reach their destination, and we've seen all of these plot elements done better in First Class. Sure, it's there to represent this idea of hope and the future that Wolverine is no longer a part of, but the little time spent with these characters is bland. It's fun when they get into the action and unleash their powers, but even that is short lived.

My review certainly has a more negative viewpoint on Logan than I actually had watching the film, but that's just because these are the elements for me that keeps the film ordinary and under the high praise that it's received from critics. But I did like the film as a showcase for Jackman and Stewart for one last hurrah with their characters, and the film is certainly helped by embracing its R rating to dazzle with its action sequences in order to elevate the film over its disappointingly ordinary plot. It's certainly not on the level of First Class or Days of Future Past, but Logan leans on its strengths in casting, action, and grit to make it another worthy addition to the X-Men franchise and a proper sendoff for its most polarizing character.

7/10

And recorded voice over for it all?  I know it's a minor thing to nitpick, but that was a really tacky form of exposition that they resorted to.  The script for me just had very little creativity in general.

I think Logan was Hugh Jackman dusting off his claws one last time.

That's gotta be the only way he'll show up in Deadpool 2: as Hugh Jackman. It would be kind of a weird copout to say Logan is his last movie as Wolverine, and then appear as Wolverine in Deadpool 2 immediately afterwards.