Logan Movie Review

No Country for Old Mutants

A Film Review of Logan

Is this the Wolverine movie we all deserved, but not necessarily needed right now?  Yes and no.  After nine X-Men films (most of which featuring good old Logan as the main character) the audience has finally received a brutal, visceral and no holds barred depiction of the mutant designed to suffer all forms of physical deprivation while dolling it out at the same time.  Unfortunately, Hugh Jackman is now 48 years old and has decided to hang up the claws in an effort to bring closure to the character he so aptly breathed life into for so many years.  As such, Wolverine is now over the hill, Professor X’s wet nurse and simply waiting around to die; not the most flattering way to wrap up a legacy.  Although this film features some of the best performances among actors depicting comic book characters in live action, it is a shame we had to wait for Logan to turn into a grumpy old man in order to get at least some of the nuanced R-rated behavior always attributed to the character in the comic books.  Logan is a very good drama with pockets of intense action, but it has some issues as a cinematic adventure.

The movie wastes no time getting the audience used to the less campy feel of a Bryan Singer X-film due to the number of F-bombs dropped between Wolverine and Xavier within the first 15 minutes of runtime.   As the film progresses, any dialogue sequence that features foul language tends to tack on excessive, duplicate cursing when certainly one well uttered “*uck” would have been more than sufficient.  I understand the filmmakers finally got the go ahead for an R-rating (thank you Ryan Reynolds), and they want their money’s worth in pervasive language.  Any audience can appreciate that even mutants can grow into crotchety old men whose general embitterment about life, mortality and the fact things just aren’t what they used to be would inspire such colorful language.  However, when the frequency of the cursing approaches Wolf of Wall Street levels of absurdity, the harsh language becomes a distraction at best and silly at worst.  It felt artificial, forced and a bit out of character even for Wolverine.

The pacing in this film could also use a bit more energy.  In between some expertly captured and choreographed action sequences there are significant stretches of meandering exposition and dull plot setup that strings the audience along in an attempt to explain how these characters have gotten to this point in time.  It would have been nice to experience these moments as building suspense because the story ultimately turns into a cross country chase anyway.  What helps the overall flow even less is the fact that the back story is completely glazed over with obtuse generality such that the audience has absolutely zero detail how it has all boiled down to old man Logan and even older Xavier while the rest of the world has moved on somehow.  If the character building moments of anger and frustration in the first half of the film would have referenced some specific moments or characters from the past, we would be able to appreciate the present more clearly.  Unfortunately, these dramatic moments only really exist to emphasize the age and irrelevance of two of the most important X-Men.

The significance of various conflicts within this film is curiously prioritized.  Ultimately, the real conflict is the internal one Wolverine has struggled with in just about every X-film which is executed quite well through his interplay with Xavier and Laura.  However, the external conflict, the sole purpose for the existence of any action in this movie is confusing.  The corporate/government conglomerate, represented by bad guys Donald Pierce and the Reavers, is merely pursuing the retrieval of Laura (X-23) and they could care less for anything else Logan is involved with.  The coincidence of these characters crossing paths forces a shared fate, but the film establishes early on why Logan is Xavier’s personal care giver, the failure of which would be dire to say the least.  It also establishes that Logan and Xavier’s situation isn’t exactly a secret, which instantly transforms this much more dangerous source of conflict into a Macguffin so as to sell the audience on the more “prominent” plot of Logan having to save mutant children.  The presence and performance of Patrick Stewart as Xavier in and of itself is a huge selling point to this film, and I am thankful for it, but this subplot diminishes the conflict between Logan and Laura because, quite frankly, not as many lives are at stake regarding that relationship.

Right about now, you may believe that I despised this film, and while I cannot crown this as the king of all X-films, it redeems much of my nit-picking in the action department.  Thankfully, director James Mangold gets plenty of run from his R-rating in the ways we all wanted to see Wolverine truly let loose.  Combat is intense, the body count is high, plenty of appendages get sliced off, lots of wounds, scars, bleeding and bullets are highlighted and the camera never cuts away.  This is the aspect of a Wolverine centric film that is both welcomed and expected, but I was impressed with how the film also featured Laura (X-23) as an equivalent dispatcher of feral rage.  Seeing an 11-year-old girl jumping, flipping and eviscerating mercenaries like they were organ filled piñatas is an uncommon juxtaposition of violent imagery even for Hollywood.  It somehow works incredibly well despite leaving an awkward sensation within the viewer’s mind.  The confidence in the performance and physicality displayed by the young Dafne Keen stands up to the veteran charisma and demeanor of Hugh Jackman resulting in a satisfactory pairing of the oddest of couples.   

“Moving” = 27/33

“Picture” = 22/33

“Story” = 21/34

Overall MPS Rating:  70/100

Logan is not an adrenaline packed release of furious energy a warrior such as Wolverine was once capable of.  It is, however, much more interesting as a dramatic exploration of individuals with extraordinary abilities running into the wall of inevitable mortality.  These once, seemingly invincible X-Men are now vulnerable and weak and simply getting through the day is far more important than saving the world.  A budget of $97 million dollars is by no means a pittance, but when the film is meant to be a special effect/action adventure in this day’s economy, the production would appear to be an independent film.  Logan certainly feels like one from start to finish in all the right ways such as featuring performance over spectacle, but there’s still plenty of action to entertain those wanting to see some super-human effects.  I wish nothing but the best for the X-franchise moving forward, but it won’t be the same without Mr. Hugh Jackman.  20^th Century Fox would do well to not reboot within 5 years featuring a brand new Wolverine because in this reviewer’s opinion, there will only be one.