Logan (2017) review
Mar. 15th, 2017 07:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI scoffed too when they said Logan was the Wolverine movie ‘the fans’ have been waiting for – hasn’t Jackman dutifully said that before all the previous movies, which I’ve seen? Wolverine: Origins was a mistake and The Wolverine was dull, and I didn’t rewatch either before going to see this film. Yes, I saw the trailer, but I couldn’t believe that the film would live up to it, didn’t want to believe the star ratings for the reviews, although I knew I’d go to see it. But…it’s good. It’s easily the best Wolverine standalone film, it captures and references a lot of what made the character the breakout star of the movie franchise from when he was introduced, and makes the most of its 15 certificate, though I have no idea what timeline it fits in, mind!
SPOILERS: From the first fight on, my hopes were lifted. Logan is grey and not looking good. It’s 2029 – and I’m sure that it will look dated in a second, but they try to go for classic looks, outdoorsy settings and the futuristic tech and worldbuilding is gradually built up. Most mutants have been killed off and worse, none have been born for years. Logan is working as a chauffeur, helping to look after a slightly demented Charles Xavier with Stephen Merchant’s Caliban (a distinctive twist on the British butler role, if you like) across the border in Mexico (no wall. Cough.) But he’s also drinking and not healing properly.
Logan’s relationship with Charles is great value, there’s a whole new level of father-son dynamic to it. Stewart is having a ball, his Xavier informed a little by the younger one MacAvoy introduced and Stewart’s own actorly craft. It was shocking to hear Xavier swear like a sailor, but the grumpy old man with dementia is also a mutant whose seizures are dangerous. He and Jackman’s rapport and the weight of one secret and many years adds real edge to the relationship.
Logan’s tough life gets more complicated when a Mexican nurse seeks his help. There’s this girl, see, a mutant named Laura, whom powerful people are after. Logan refuses to help – heh, oh Logan no, you cannot resist helping kids.
The reveal that she has adamantium claws and fights ferally changes everything. Because in a twist that gave me Dark Angel feels, she’s his child, as the company that Alkali became used his DNA to create a supersoldier. She wasn’t the only one, and she wants to get to a safe place that Logan doesn’t believe exists, but as the bad guys are after her, Xavier and Logan, he has to take her on.
Amid all this weighty bittersweetness of a deteriorating Logan and the few holds barred violence – and it is shocking to see this little girl in the midst of bloody carnage – it is also hilarious that JAMES LOGAN HEWLETT has to play father to a Spanish-speaking girl brought up in a lab who has most of his attitude problems. Well, I thought it was. The lyrics of the Scissor Sisters’ Laura came to mind – probably inappropriately or too much on the nose: /Laura, can't you give me some time,/I got to give myself one more chance./To be the man that I know I am.’
She was such a sympathetic figure and I thought they cast Laura, really well. Good casting all around, Boyd Holbrook is fun as a henchman with a robot hand, Eriq La Salle turns up.
Things get even screwier as the reason the company was sick of the kids with their pesky souls that made them unwilling to be supersoldiers was because they created a new series without that problem, fully grown too. So grizzly old Logan has to face a sleeker version of himself, who in a genius twist, looks like Sabretooth of Wolverine: Origins days.
There’s even meta, because in this verse the X-men’s history was chronicled as a comic book that Laura cherishes and Logan rubbishes. I would need a rewatch, but I’m pretty sure Rogue was in one panel. There are references to the past films, even if, seriously, thinking about continuity will mess with your mind. X-Men gets referenced with the Stature of Liberty/Liberty motel, to Logan in a bar, although the way Xavier talks about how Logan came to him then is altered. There’s talk of Alkali, from X2, Logan becomes the protector of mutants against soldier types as in X2, in the woods as in X3 et cetera, et cetera. I read too much into some of Laura’s fellow engineered mutants have powers that are recognisable – I thought the kind of leader had Erik’s power, but no.
So we have an ageing Logan, self-medicating with booze for most of the film, dying of adamantium poisoning, in a horrible world, looking after Xavier until he loses him, the father of a child. It veers towards sentimentality at the end, but it had done enough to almost get away with it. I’d have liked more women (the evil scientist could have been one), because Laura’s caretaking nurse is killed, of course – and it barely scrapes past the Bechdel test, but it’s intelligent, sad, funny, violent. It mostly worked really well. Jackman knows what he’s doing with the character – he should do after all these years, but he hasn’t really had a good opportunity in the previous standalones. If this is the swansong for his take on the character, then it’s a worthy one.
SPOILERS: From the first fight on, my hopes were lifted. Logan is grey and not looking good. It’s 2029 – and I’m sure that it will look dated in a second, but they try to go for classic looks, outdoorsy settings and the futuristic tech and worldbuilding is gradually built up. Most mutants have been killed off and worse, none have been born for years. Logan is working as a chauffeur, helping to look after a slightly demented Charles Xavier with Stephen Merchant’s Caliban (a distinctive twist on the British butler role, if you like) across the border in Mexico (no wall. Cough.) But he’s also drinking and not healing properly.
Logan’s relationship with Charles is great value, there’s a whole new level of father-son dynamic to it. Stewart is having a ball, his Xavier informed a little by the younger one MacAvoy introduced and Stewart’s own actorly craft. It was shocking to hear Xavier swear like a sailor, but the grumpy old man with dementia is also a mutant whose seizures are dangerous. He and Jackman’s rapport and the weight of one secret and many years adds real edge to the relationship.
Logan’s tough life gets more complicated when a Mexican nurse seeks his help. There’s this girl, see, a mutant named Laura, whom powerful people are after. Logan refuses to help – heh, oh Logan no, you cannot resist helping kids.
The reveal that she has adamantium claws and fights ferally changes everything. Because in a twist that gave me Dark Angel feels, she’s his child, as the company that Alkali became used his DNA to create a supersoldier. She wasn’t the only one, and she wants to get to a safe place that Logan doesn’t believe exists, but as the bad guys are after her, Xavier and Logan, he has to take her on.
Amid all this weighty bittersweetness of a deteriorating Logan and the few holds barred violence – and it is shocking to see this little girl in the midst of bloody carnage – it is also hilarious that JAMES LOGAN HEWLETT has to play father to a Spanish-speaking girl brought up in a lab who has most of his attitude problems. Well, I thought it was. The lyrics of the Scissor Sisters’ Laura came to mind – probably inappropriately or too much on the nose: /Laura, can't you give me some time,/I got to give myself one more chance./To be the man that I know I am.’
She was such a sympathetic figure and I thought they cast Laura, really well. Good casting all around, Boyd Holbrook is fun as a henchman with a robot hand, Eriq La Salle turns up.
Things get even screwier as the reason the company was sick of the kids with their pesky souls that made them unwilling to be supersoldiers was because they created a new series without that problem, fully grown too. So grizzly old Logan has to face a sleeker version of himself, who in a genius twist, looks like Sabretooth of Wolverine: Origins days.
There’s even meta, because in this verse the X-men’s history was chronicled as a comic book that Laura cherishes and Logan rubbishes. I would need a rewatch, but I’m pretty sure Rogue was in one panel. There are references to the past films, even if, seriously, thinking about continuity will mess with your mind. X-Men gets referenced with the Stature of Liberty/Liberty motel, to Logan in a bar, although the way Xavier talks about how Logan came to him then is altered. There’s talk of Alkali, from X2, Logan becomes the protector of mutants against soldier types as in X2, in the woods as in X3 et cetera, et cetera. I read too much into some of Laura’s fellow engineered mutants have powers that are recognisable – I thought the kind of leader had Erik’s power, but no.
So we have an ageing Logan, self-medicating with booze for most of the film, dying of adamantium poisoning, in a horrible world, looking after Xavier until he loses him, the father of a child. It veers towards sentimentality at the end, but it had done enough to almost get away with it. I’d have liked more women (the evil scientist could have been one), because Laura’s caretaking nurse is killed, of course – and it barely scrapes past the Bechdel test, but it’s intelligent, sad, funny, violent. It mostly worked really well. Jackman knows what he’s doing with the character – he should do after all these years, but he hasn’t really had a good opportunity in the previous standalones. If this is the swansong for his take on the character, then it’s a worthy one.
