Logan
Year: 2017
Directed By: James Mangold
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd
Holbrook and Stephen Merchant
Tagline: “In the near future, a weary Logan cares for an
ailing Professor X, somewhere on the Mexican border. However, Logan's attempts
to hide from the world, and his legacy, are upended when a young mutant
arrives, pursued by dark forces.” Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%
IMDb Rating: 8.2/10
This is the Wolverine movie the world needed. The movie I
needed. From the opening scene, they may as well have said, “This ain’t your
daddy’s Wolverine movie”. Fuck genre conventions, fuck standard PG-13 ratings
for superhero films, fuck tidy-looking heroes and exalt the anti-heroes, Logan
is the cream of the crop film Hugh Jackman and James Mangold wanted and needed
to make to be able to leave this character behind with no stone unturned and no
bit of movie effort left untouched and unscathed.
The first time you see Logan,
he’s muttering “fuck” under his breath. Not two minutes later he’s decapitating
some cholos and slicing their legs off. This for sure is the Wolverine movie
the world needed. It’s dark, it’s gritty, it’s violent, it’s heart-warming,
it’s cold, it’s heartfelt, it’s bloody, it’s sad, it’s depressing, it’s
genre-defying and genre-creating. It’s perfect. It rewrote what “superhero”
films should be. They should be based in reality with storylines and real emotions
with some underlying mythos. Not the formulaic Marvel films now that are all
PG-13 and colorful and cheerful. That’s just unrealistic and unrelatable. Logan
is the anti-superhero film. It’s not even my favorite X-Men movie, because it
doesn’t classify as an X-Men movie. If you want to get technical, it exists in
that universe but it’s an offshoot of the Old Man Logan comics and quite
frankly, I’m not even talking about that. I’m saying, Hugh Jackman wanted to
make one more Wolverine movie. May as well make it the best one yet. It took
many years, but we finally have the formula for what a Mutant/Superhero film
should be. And Logan is i-t it.
When Marvel writes in character
“flaws” it’s one thing. It’s one thing that gets exploited to make the
superheroes human. It’s still incredibly unrealistic and unrelatable, hence the
empty feeling you’re left with when you’re done watching those films. In Logan,
he’s getting poisoned by his adamantium skeleton, he still hates everyone and
loves no one until he’s forced to. Oh, and he’s suicidal too. Every character
has multiple human flaws and that only aides the film forward and allows you to
dive into the characters and they dive into each other.
There’s nothing I hate about this
film. From the casting to the story to the visuals and easter eggs, this is a
great movie for fans of the character and the X-Men comics. Couldn’t agree more
with Rotten Tomatoes this time around, “Hugh Jackman makes the most of his
final outing as Wolverine with a gritty, nuanced performance in a violent but
surprisingly thoughtful superhero action film that defies genre conventions.”
I’ll add on to that, makes the genre conventions what it should be. Fuck that,
making a genre. Call it FuckMarvelFuckDCLetsJustMakeAGreatMovie. That works. Could
work as a hashtag too. #FuckMarvelFuckDCLetsJustMakeAGreatMovie. What do you
mean I don’t know anything about social media?
In short, if you haven’t seen
Logan, I would highly recommend you do so. If you don’t want to see Logan, then
go fuck yourself, I have nothing to say to the likes of you. Other than the
things that have already been said, of course.
Review and General Shenanigans Written By: Steve “Sandwich” Hanisch
Review and General Shenanigans Written By: Steve “Sandwich” Hanisch
Last Word “I did something. Something
unspeakable. I've remembered what happened in Westchester. This is not the
first time I've hurt people. Until today, I didn't know. You wouldn't tell me.
So we just kept on running away from it. I think I finally understand you.” -
Charles Xavier, Logan (2017)
