Why So Blu?

The Legend of Old Man ‘Logan’ (Movie Review)

Logan is a film that really needs no elaborate setup to whet your appetite for.  If you’re not already, you should be practically dying to see this one.  The mere fact that this even got made with an R-rating is no doubt thanks to the brilliance and success of last year’s Deadpool.  Had it not been for that film, which proved in a world of failed Kick-Ass movies R-rated comic book films can indeed thrive, I’m quite sure Logan would have been slapped with that dread PG-13 rating.  Luckily for us that’s not the case in our present scenario.  So let the bloodshed ensue with glorious reveal and the F-bombs roll off tongues like spit flies when yelling because we’re gathered here to talk all things Logan.  Hell yeah!

Logan is obviously in reference to the real name of the Marvel Comics superhero Wolverine.  For all intent and purpose it’s the tenth installment in the X-Men film series and supposedly third and final film in the Wolverine solo adventures.  I say supposedly because this is intended to be Hugh Jackman’s final portrayal of the deadly character, a role he played for a whopping 17 years now.  He’s such a class act, but I digress for the moment as I want to keep the focus on the film itself for the time being.  Just know that it feels very “final.”

This superhero movie is directed by James Mangold, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Green and Scott Frank, from a story by David James Kelly and Mangold.  The flick takes inspiration from the graphic novel Old Man Logan by Mark Millar (hence my Kick-Ass reference up above as well as my review title) and Steve McNiven.  In a nutshell it follows a past-his-prime Logan undertaking a final “mutant” adventure in the post-apocalyptic future.  And supposedly this future I speak of is set 5 years after the events in Days of Future Past.  You confused yet?

Wait!  I forgot to talk about all the obligatory major players and big cast names involved here.  In addition to Jackman Patrick Stewart returns to the series co-starring as Charles Xavier with Richard E. Grant, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Dafne Keen, Eriq La Salle, Elise Neal and Elizabeth Rodriguez in supporting roles.  And like I said Logan is set some five years after the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2029, where a weary Logan cares for an ailing Professor X in a hide out on the Mexican border in Texas.  One could also say Logan has been in hiding these past five years, but still his legend precedes him.  However, he has also been real busy at his day/night job.  Yep that’s right he has been working his butt off as a limousine driver to save up money to buy a boat (I kid you not), but alas has come out of the shadows in protection of a certain young female mutant (Keen) with some extraordinary powers.

If you had to categorize Logan or differentiate it amongst all the other X-Men films that have come before I guess you can say it’s pretty much a western picture.  There are cues here and there kind of insulting your intelligence that it is such as western movies playing on a TV, the locations and of course the music, but at the end of that day it’s alright.  Logan is a western film I very much enjoy mostly in part to that hard R-rating that makes it ultra enjoyable to watch the Wolverine tear his opponents mercilessly apart like the animal his name suggests he is.  All the various F-bombs throughout were the icing on the cake.  This could not be done nor shown in the previous X-Men and Wolverine installments and it begs to reason, shouldn’t all the X-Men films have been rated R?  Hell yeah I believe!  While there are some good ones the hard R-rating could have made them even better in my opinion.  Could you imagine how brutal and ultimately more insane/intense that fight scene between Wolverine and Sabertooth could have been in that first outing?  Wow!  It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it now.

The real crux of the story here though is it’s time to pass the torch.  What I mean by that is not is Professor X dying, but so is Logan slowly.  The fictional metal alloy, Adamantium, that Wolverine skeleton is infused with giving him nearly invisible powers and recovery is the same material that’s killing his body too.  You see the irony there?  I bloody love it!  I mean I don’t love that our hero is dying, but I heart the fact that eventually everyone has their Kryptonite in life that will eventually kill them.  For some it’s smoking, cancer, HIV, etc., but rest assured we find out here that even Wolverine has an expiration date like all of us.  Now I did mention passing the torch in the beginning of this paragraph.  You see there’s this subject of a younger mutant girl.  Who is she?  Where did she come from?  Is she the only one of her kind?  Rest assured again all these questions you may have about here and more will be answered throughout the film’s 2 hour and 15-minute runtime.  I can guarantee that.

So like I was saying Logan is very much about out with the old and in with the new.  Thankfully the new, Laura (Dafne Keen), is worth the price of admission here.  I haven’t had that much fun watching a little girl kick ass since Kick-Ass.  Ha ha.  Like the Wolverine she’s very much modeled after her fighting style is like watching Yoda pounce on opponents if he had no lightsaber mercilessly beating them with his cane.  However, in this respect the girl has weapons.  I’m of course referring to the Weapon X program in the X-Men lore, but mostly her um…claws.  Yes ladies and gentlemen when I said modeled after Wolverine she has the trademark claws too, well sort of.  She also has a hidden surprise that even Mr. Logan doesn’t have, but no spoilers there.

The beauty of Logan for me may be it’s unrestricted R-rating, which gives it plenty of breathing room.  However, truth be told I’m also very much smitten by the straightforward, simple story.  It’s part a buddy road trip and part coming of age, for all three of the main characters: Professor X, Wolverine and the new young mutant, Laura.  I’ll be honest with you though that I am a big fan of Professor X’s albino caretaker (Stephen Merchant) here, but I’ll be the first to admit I’m completely unfamiliar with his character in the greater grand scheme of things.  Other nice surprises include how much I loved the various performances such as Boyd Holbrook as one of the chief antagonists and even ER’s Eriq La Salle in a small, but very effective role.  In addition to all of this there’s the comics too.  No I’m not talking the physical comic books themselves, but how they’re ingeniously woven into and applicable to the overall story arc here.

I guess if I had one complaint about Logan it’s that I didn’t love it as much as I wanted to.  I wanted a perfect 5 star score.  Ha ha.  It’s not a game changer in the world of superheroes.  I thought the filmmakers did a great job of pretty much hiding all the Act 3 surprises from you in the film’s theatrical trailers, but the conclusion didn’t make me cry.  I wanted to cry.  I mean Jesus that first trailer set to Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” is so damn perfect.  It makes you want to cry.  The ending here wasn’t climatic enough for me.  I can’t put my finger on it, but I just wasn’t completely satisfied with climax of things here, but maybe it’s because it was such a given.  At times it also felt like I was watching a dystopia Mel Gibson sort of Mad Max world, but I digress because to explain that would be to really spoil things here.

I think for what it’s worth there’s a lot to adore here in Logan.  For fans of hardcore Rated-R action, like myself, Logan is bloody, brutal and grizzly.  God bless Fox for that!  On the flip side, there’s a lot of heart and redemption to go around too.  That’s always a big plus.  But what it all boils down to is the overall sentiment that this felt like a bonafide X-Men movie.  It fit as a perfect bookend or a whole new chapter to something yet to come.  You’ll have to see how you feel about it.  And how about a round for Mr. Hugh Jackman who’s hanging up the yellow tights after nearly 20 years of portraying this heroic, violent beast of a character?  Not only was he able to flex his muscles one last time here, but he was also able to deliver a heartfelt, sincere performance and goes out on top with it all.  Who can ask for anything more than that?  Just an FYI though, much to my chagrin, there’s no after credits scene.  So it’s anybody’s guess as to where they’ll go from here.  Enjoy!

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