Movie Review: Logan
Hugh Jackman's Wolverine farewell introduces a new possibility for the series' future.
The year is 2029, and our man Logan (Hugh Jackman)—the super-powered Wolverine—is running out of super. With his 200th birthday drawing near, Logan's self-healing hide doesn't auto-repair quite as well as it once did, and his drinking is out of control. These days, he's barely getting by as a Texas limo driver (just roll with that), returning back across the border each night to the abandoned Mexican industrial plant he calls home. There, assisted by a fellow mutant, the amiable albino Caliban (Stephen Merchant), he tends to the needs of his increasingly senile mentor, Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart), and tries not to contemplate the future, however much of it there may be.
James Mangold's Logan is the best of the three Wolverine movies, in part because it's the last. There's no more need for escape-hatch plot strategies here—this is it. Jackman and Stewart say that they're both moving on, which would seem to mean that their characters—barring some Peter-Cushing-style techno-gimmickry—won't be reappearing anywhere else in the X-Men franchise, either. Set free by the R rating that helped make last year's Deadpool such a globe-siphoning box office sensation, Logan has the usual beyond-PG movie trappings (a bare breast here, a "fuck'" or an "asshole" there); but it also has grownup concerns. There's plenty of butt-whomping, flesh-shredding action, and a lot of it's really first-rate; but in contemplating mortality and loyalty and connection, the picture also sounds a deep human note that might be what you'll remember most fondly when looking back on it.
Logan now lives in a post-mutant world, or so it seems—no new members of his species have been documented for 25 years. ("We weren't part of God's plan," he observes, in his trademark cheerless way.) But then he's approached by a Mexican woman named Gabriela (Elizabeth Rodriguez), who's accompanied by a strange little girl called Laura (Dafne Keen, an instant star). The child's given name is X-23, and she's part of a new generation of mutants that was cooked up by the sinister Transigen company at an illicit lab in Mexico City. Laura and some of her fellow junior mutants have broken out, and now she needs Logan's help to get to a mutant safe space in North Dakota, a place called Eden.
The kid is awfully winsome, and very Logan-like—note the retractable mini-claws, and that cute little snarl. But Logan isn't inclined to care about Laura or her super problems or much of anything else, frankly—he just wants a drink. He's soon prodded into action, however, by a cyber-enhanced Transigen enforcer named Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), who arrives on the scene with a squad of motorized goons on a mission to locate Laura for his own shadowy purposes. All kinds of top-drawer mayhem proceed to ensue.
The movie is nicely balanced between the X-Men's past and future. In fact, the old X-Men comics have become part of the mythology. (Logan doesn't believe there is a place called Eden—especially once he notices that it's featured in one of the comics Laura has been reading.) Logan and Xavier, clearly at the end of their days, lend the story an autumnal mood. But little Laura suggests that the mutant line is nowhere near dying out yet. Keen, who was 11 years old when the movie was shot, is the gymnastically inclined offspring of a noted Anglo-Spanish theatrical family. She paces Jackman through each of the film's several furious action scenes, leaping, slashing, bashing and generally inflicting pain and termination on whatever burly bad guys unwisely get in her way. It's a sensational movie debut.
The picture ends on a perfect pulp image that draws a line under the Jackman Wolverine movies, but also points a way toward something new. Rarely would a sequel be so highly advised.
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True. Poorly stated. Meant the characters as we originally knew them — i.e., as played by Jackman and Stewart. Happy Tautology Friday!
Stupid Seinfeld supposedly convinced Jackman to hang up the claws. He’s popular as the character (even if taller than he should be for it) and didn’t need to be totally ripped for every appearance. I know he’s getting up there in age for an ageless character, but he can keep the shirt on. He could keep playing Wolverine.
I’m thinking the X-Men franchise has run its course anyway. They can really only have McAvoy and company take over as long as the story doesn’t enter the time period past the 90’s, when Stewart was playing Professor X. (That is, if they want to keep continuity, which the franchise has never been fanatic about doing, I suppose.)
So, in conclusion, whatever.
Paging JJ Abrams.
It wouldn’t be a continuity breach per se to have different actors playing the characters during overlapping periods. But you’re right, it would be more than a little weird.
I just looked up the thing with Seinfeld and I didn’t see anything about Jackman taking his shirt off. There was something about Seinfeld telling him that “you have to leave something in the tank.” I think it makes sense for him to move on while he still feels some excitement with the character. And it looks like both Stewart and Jackman feel this one is “going out on top.” As an actor, you’re not in control of the material you get to work with, so it’s pretty cool if you can make a grand exit.
Do you have a link to the part about being bashful about taking his shirt off? (While we’re at it, I certainly hope Stewart isn’t quitting because he worries he can no longer sit in a wheelchair the way he used to!)
Hollywood has just about completely devolved into a CGI driven widget factory.
And the widgets get less creative and more familiar and boring all the time.
They don’t make real movies anymore! Like The Birth of a Nation!
I think they recently rebooted that one though.
Reefer Madness … a certified CGI-free classic.
I thought Patrick Stewart was killed by Famke Jansen in the second movie. How’s he back and even older?
or is that a spoiler and I need to watch to find out?
Time travel and altered history.
The awesome thing about this plot device is it allows you to do pretty much anything.
The X-Men franchise needs a reboot, preferably in partnership with Marvel, like Sony is doing with Spider-Man. Same goes for the Fantastic Four.
Seriously, what is the love for this movie? It’s 30 minutes too long and one long series of tropes and cliches. If I saw one more seen of a “past his prime” mutant lying in bed whining, I would have found a bed to lie down in and whine.
And here I though you were. Lying in bed and whining, that is.
Seriously; it’s a comic book movie. Tropes and cliches are going to be its core. We are massively unlikely to be treated to anything like the power of, say, THE LION IN WINTER (O’Toole, not Stewart). And that’s probably a good thing. Hollyweird does tropes and cliches pretty well. Hollyweird does NOT do powerful drama well. A misfired comic book movie is merely tiresome. A misfired Powerful Drama is usually cringworthy at best, and descends rapidly into freaking godawful.
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Logan now lives in a post-mutant world, or so it seems?no new members of his species have been documented for 25 years. (“We weren’t part of God’s plan,” he observes, in his trademark cheerless way.) But then he’s approached by a Mexican woman named Gabriela (Elizabeth Rodriguez), who’s accompanied by a strange little girl called Laura (Dafne Keen, an instant star). The child’s given name is X-23, and she’s part of a new generation of mutants that was cooked up by the sinister Transigen company at an illicit lab in Mexico City. ????? ?? ?? ????? ???? Laura and some of her fellow junior mutants have broken out, and now she needs Logan’s help to get to a mutant safe space in North Dakota, a place called Eden.
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I watched from Cinema Tuner and i must say that this movie was not that impressive as the other WOlverine movies i have seen! Great review btw. You can check it out for yourself.
Cheers
NinnaDiva recently posted: Logan (2017) Online Streaming
I think that Logan (2017) was not that good movie if we compare it to the other Wolverine movies out there, thanks for sharing this review.