Logan Review – We Can Wrap Up the Superhero Genre Now

<p>For those of you who are precious about movies staying true to the comic books&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m here to tell you that you should stay away from <em>Logan&period; <&sol;em>More Western than superhero movie&comma; <em>Logan <&sol;em>has no qualms about doing its own thing away from the established storyline of the comics&period; In doing away with those stories&comma; co-writer and director James Mangold has free rein to do what he wants with these characters&period; We had hints of what Mangold could accomplish with his samurai riff on the character in <em>The Wolverine&period; <&sol;em>As much as I may enjoy that film&comma; Mangold seems to have taken off the training wheels and in doing so&comma; created the best send-off possible for the Wolverine himself&comma; Hugh Jackman&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Set in the year 2029&comma; Logan&comma; going by his original name James Howlett&comma; spends his days as a chauffeur&period; Beaten down and looking worse for wear&comma; Logan is attempting to save enough money to get himself and the fragile Charles Xavier &lpar;Patrick Stewart&rpar; a boat to live on the sea until their dying days&period; Time is running low with Xavier&&num;8217&semi;s dangerous seizures and Logan&&num;8217&semi;s adamantium bones poisoning him&period; Before long Logan is asked by a nurse named Gabriella to help take her and her daughter Laura to a place in North Dakota called Eden&period; Logan soon realizes he has no choice as the Transigen corporation comes searching for the nurse and little girl at their secret hideout in Mexico&period; Little does he know&comma; Logan is about to find out that this little girl&comma; also known as X-23 &lpar;Dafne Keen&rpar;&comma; is going to push them out into the open&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;120569" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-120569" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-120569" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;03&sol;06164245&sol;logan0001&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Logan&lowbar;1" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"637" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-120569" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Logan&comma; Twentieth Century Fox&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>There is a breath of fresh air almost immediately once the film starts&period; As I&&num;8217&semi;m sure you&&num;8217&semi;ve heard&comma; this film is violent&period; This film features severed heads and massive amounts of blood&period; Yeah&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s that kind of violent&period; But it manages to do all of that without feeling gratuitous&period; Mangold and his screenwriters give that violence purpose&period; We aren&&num;8217&semi;t just meant to be thrilled by the action&period; We&&num;8217&semi;re also meant to be horrified&period; With the R-rating you don&&num;8217&semi;t just get the swearing and minor glimpse of nudity&period; With the great creative team&comma; you also get meaning behind it too&period; With the violence having meaning attached to it&comma; the impact and emotional response is so much higher&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve never felt Wolverine&&num;8217&semi;s emotional consequences as heavily as I did here&period; That&&num;8217&semi;s not even the most transgressive thing in the film&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I&&num;8217&semi;ve never found myself particularly impressed by the way Marvel handles their film franchises&period; That&&num;8217&semi;s not to say X-Men has never been guilty of this&comma; but the Marvel movies didn&&num;8217&semi;t just feel overstuffed with useless information&comma; they stopped feeling like movies&period; Never have I sat through one of their films and thought they made a cohesive and complete film&period; Last year&&num;8217&semi;s <em>Doctor Strange<&sol;em> even felt the need to have scenes that had no purpose but to set-up future villains and plotlines&period; The Marvel movies aren&&num;8217&semi;t cinema&comma; they&&num;8217&semi;re an over-budgeted character-less TV show projected onto the big screen&period; What <em>Logan<&sol;em> has done is say screw continuity&comma; screw everything before it&&num;8230&semi; we&&num;8217&semi;re going to make a film that you could watch without seeing anything else and have it still feel complete and make perfect sense&period; This isn&&num;8217&semi;t just a superhero movie&period; This is a character study&period; This is art&period; This is proper storytelling&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;120571" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-120571" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-120571" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;03&sol;06164507&sol;logan-x-23-images-e1488836738412&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Logan&lowbar;2" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"504" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-120571" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Logan&comma; Twentieth Century Fox&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>All of this praise isn&&num;8217&semi;t complete without mentioning the tremendous cast&period; Mainstays Jackman and Stewart do career-best work as their iconic characters&period; The pain and disappointment in their faces during the opening act shares more than any line of dialogue throughout the film&period; Newcomer Dafne Keen is an absolute triumph as the child mutant&period; In such a physical role&comma; Keen doesn&&num;8217&semi;t just deliver a stunning performance but she does so with almost no dialogue&period; Villains played by Boyd Holbrook and Richard E Grant can be fairly one dimensional&comma; but Holbrook&&num;8217&semi;s portrayal as Transigen&&num;8217&semi;s head of security is one of humor and anger&period; And I don&&num;8217&semi;t want to forget about the surprising addition of Stephen Merchant as Caliban&period; Of course&comma; Merchant&&num;8217&semi;s sense of humor is not lost here&comma; but he&&num;8217&semi;s also able to mold into the dark tone that Mangold has created&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Tone is what really sells the whole picture&period; Mangold is quite familiar with the Western genre after directing his remake of <em>3&colon;10 to Yuma<&sol;em>&comma; the Johnny Cash biopic <em>Walk the Line<&sol;em>&comma; and his other noir-western <em>Cop Land<&sol;em>&period; Mangold has a significant scene here where two characters sit down and watch the 1953 western <em>Shane<&sol;em>&period; All these characters understand they are on their way to a form of redemption&period; Whether or not any of them will make it to the end to experience it is up in the air throughout the film&period; But this is what <em>Logan<&sol;em> is about&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s about telling a meaningful story&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s a thematic through-line and message to it all&period; Jackman and company don&&num;8217&semi;t want to go out with the biggest spectacle imaginable&comma; they want to make sure all of their hard work meant something&period; Time will tell which movies are the important ones&semi; the ones we continue to talk about years down the road&period; I can already tell you that we&&num;8217&semi;ll be talking about <em>Logan <&sol;em>for quite a long time&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;