Logan Review
R: Strong Brutal Violence and Language Throughout, and for Brief Nudity
20th Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment, TSG Entertainment
2 Hrs and 15 Minutes
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Dafne Keen, Patrick Stewart, Richard E. Grant, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant
REVIEW: Since 2000, Hugh Jackman has been the face of the X-Men film franchise. For 17 years Jackman has embodied those adamantium claws to his career as he appeared in every X-Men related film including Deadpool.
With all 6 X-Men films including brief cameos, 1 shitty solo film, and one solid solo film it is now the time to hang up those claws and move on with one last solo film for the fans that aged along with Jackman. Now fans must say one last goodbye to Jackman as 20th Century Fox gives us an R-rated Wolverine movie based on the popular Old Man Logan story arc that may not be The Last of Us film you think you were going to get.
In the near future, a weary Logan cares for an ailing Professor X in a hide out on the Mexican border. But Logan's attempts to hide from the world and his legacy are up-ended when a young mutant arrives, being pursued by dark forces.
THE GOOD: Right from the beginning the film opens with a brutal action scene that pretty much comes out right off the bat saying “Remember that PG13 shit we did since 2000? Fuck that PG13 shit, this is rated R Woverine bitch,” as Logan slice and dices a cholo gang. The best thing about Logan is the depiction of violence. It’s the violent side of Wolverine hat you always wanted to see since Origins. It’s as if director James Mangold played the M rated X-Men Origins: Wolverine video game (which is marginally better than the film) and used it as reference utilizing it to this movie. The film is dark, gritty, and incredibly violent arguably more so than Deadpool. People get shot, cut, hands chopped off and decapitated in such a brutally bloody manner that it just feels to glorious to watch. The action never ceases to deliver fantastic fatalities.
The film tells you that this takes place in the world where the X-Men exist but doesn’t take place in the world Bryan Singer built. It isn’t a post-apocalyptic world for America for its more of a post-apocalyptic world for mutants as it establishes them as a dying species. If you thought the future for mutants in Days of Future Past is depressing, Mangold’s Logan will have you second guessing yourself. The existence of the X-Men comics plays as a good addition to the story of the film. They use it as folklore to the history of mutants that people of the world knows about. It works to the advantage of the antagonist Donald Pierce (played exceptionally well by Boyd Holbrook) figuring out Logan and Xavier’s strengths and weaknesses.
What James Mangold brings to the table that thoroughly works is the build of character development. He treats every mutant in this film like a real characters other than a plot device that serves little to no purpose to the story. Every mutant here serves a purpose. One of the best performances in this film that I liked was Stephen Merchant as Caliban who is a great addition to this story. Mangold manages to create a full fleshed character with emotions and personality opposed to being an annoying joke Singer had the character to be in Apocalypse. The character relationships with each other are the central root of the film’s entertainment.
The connection between Logan and Charles Xavier makes the majority of the film’s emotion. Nothing is more depressing than seeing Charles Xavier with Alzheimer's. Dealing with a person with Alzheimer's is frustrating and requires patience. But when it's the most powerful mind in the world, it goes from frustrating to a huge hazard to life itself. When he has a seizure everyone in his vicinity has a mind trembling seizure as well. He is as much a danger as Jean Grey when she’s in full Phoenix force. Their relationship is special for all of us who grew up with these characters. In this film, Logan takes care of Xavier life if he’s his father which is the heart of their relationship as we know Xavier always treated Logan like a son. People always see that they’re more of friends than teacher and student, but here it’s more of a father and son dynamic and it works for the most part. Stewart plays Xavier as an old man that’s grumpy and fed up with nearly everyone to extent that he’s unafraid to use foul language.
I love this surge of little young actresses becoming complete badasses in TV and cinema nowadays. We have Millie Bobby Brown portraying Eleven in Stranger Things and now we have X-23 played by Dafne who is roughly around the same age as Brown. She’s the true badass of the film mainly due to the fact that she’s young and more flexible and faster than Logan. For the majority of the film, she’s mute but you are attached to her due to her silent innocence [and messed up backstory]. Granted she murders dozens of people in this film, you feel for her character and wish to see her and Logan reach their goal.
Hugh Jackman will always be Wolverine. No matter how silly any X-Men or Wolverine film there is, Jackman triumphs to be the best performer of these films. He portrays this character with such passion and conviction that it’s so hard to say goodbye to him. His performance here is great as we see Logan more of a flawed human than a powerful mutant. We know the complexity of this character and his personality. He spends this old aging life depressed, trying to live as quiet and normal as possible. He’s like an ego kid on the verge of suicide and it’s heartbreaking to see him in this condition. You see that he doesn’t want any part of any quarrels as he uses his claws as a last resort, but once X-23 comes along, he starts to ease up his attitude.
The film embodies this dark tone that rightfully fits this story. It is dark and gritty and played for serious effect. It begins to deviate itself from your standard comic book movie to become something new and unique. Not only it becomes the most grounded Wolverine film but also the most grounded X-Men films………Until it reaches to the middle of the second act.
THE BAD: Where Mangold’s The Wolverine was thoroughly solid with the exception of the last fifteen minutes of the film, Logan follows the same structure but instead of the last fifteen minutes where it begins to fall apart it’s the last forty-five. The last quarter of this film throws you way off track you’re unable to forgive it even when it tries to get itself back on. It goes from deviating from your average comic book movie that’s unique to being a Terminator film. Not any Terminator film, but Terminator Genisys. I personally like Terminator Genisys. because it is a Terminator film, but when you apply a Terminator element into a Wolverine movie, it just doesn’t work. Even if you check if this element exists in the X-Men universe you find out it’s the Bowling Green Massacre of X-Men add-ons for it’s nonexistent to the universe. It’s like that scene in You’re The Greatest Charlie Brown where Charlie Brown is about to win the race but he runs off track because he’s full of himself but instead of screaming "CHARLIE BROWN COME BACK," you’re screaming, “LOGAN COME BACK!”
Mangold comes so close to making a perfect Wolverine film that you’re rooting for it all the way but he drops the ball so hard by the 90-minute mark that like its title character, it’s unable to heal its own wounds. A lot of things happen the moment the film throws you off that involves drama that is geared towards the audience's emotions, but it fails at doing so because you’re still asking yourself “Wait, what just happened?” It plays like a climax scene but there isAfter that the film’s tone dramatically shifts from being a something dark and mature into something straight up silly. The last quarter just feels like a different movie that should be rated PG13. It goes from being Mad Max: Road Warrior to The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials really quickly. The screenplay written by Micheal Green, James Mangold, and Scott Frank all seems to give up at once by the third act begins where it just sets up one convenience after another. The entire third act is so underwhelmingly anticlimactic that the final action sequence plays so similar to the 2016 Sci-Fi Thriller Morgan while hitting every single one of its same beats of violence. The action sequence that throws you off plays more to a third act action sequence opposed to a second act one.
The only major flaw I can say about the first half of the film is the telling of Laura Kinney’s backstory which is told through an iPhone which is a new way of telling a character’s backstory. The issue with this is that the backstory is filmed, narrated, and EDITED through an iPhone which anyone who owns an iPhone knows you cannot do. As you hear the person’s narration through the footage, you see different clips spliced together as one.
The film does deliver on some fan service that everyone has been eager to see, but does it in such a disappointing matter. You finally get to see Wolverine go Berserker mode, but the film plays it so much similar to…
The film is rated R, but at the same time a lot of it’s R-rated material is unnecessary. There’s a scene where a teenage girl flashes her boobs to Logan who’s driving her and her friends to prom where you ask “is that completely necessary?” We know you’re rated R but you don’t have to shove it down our throats. Yes, nearly every character says fuck here and there but there are some characters that it just feels so wrong to hear it out of mainly Charles Xavier. Hearing Xavier curse is like hearing your Shakespearean dad curse for the first time. You just want to wash his mouth out with soap. Granted we heard Stewart cuss in several things before (name any Seth MacFarlane project here), but hearing old Charles Xavier curse just feels unnatural. It is shown that he just doesn’t give a shit anymore and it works, yet at the same time, it takes a while to get it used to. The R rating works for accounts of the language and violence, everything else, not so much.
LAST STATEMENT: For every momentum, Mangold builds with its story, action sequences, and characters, Logan drops the ball with a lackluster third quarter that results in the film to a disappointingly underwhelming sendoff to Hugh Jackman's portrayal of the iconic character that is Wolverine.
Rating: 2.5/5 | 53%
Super Scene: Laura Unchained
THERE ARE NO AFTER CREDIT SEQUENCES IF ANYONE WANTS TO KNOW!!!!
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| BLOOD OH GLORIOUS BLOOD | Unnecessary R Rated Material |
| X-23 | Underwhelming Conclusion |
| Use of X-Men Comics | Open Ended Questions |
| Connection Between Logan and Xavier | Terminator Type Third Act |
| Stephen Merchant as Caliban | The Last 45 Minutes |
| The First 90 Minutes | Drastic Tonal Shift |
| Boyd Holbrook | HOW CAN YOU EDIT EXPOSITION FROM AN IPHONE?? |
