Review: LOGAN

LOGAN
(ACTION-THRILLER/SCI-FI)
★★★
Directed by James Mangold
Written by Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Boyd Holbrook, Richard E. Grant, Stephen Merchant, Dafne Keen, Eriq La Salle, Elise Neal, Quincy Fouse
Rated R for strong brutal violence and language throughout, and for brief nudity.
137 minutes
Verdict: Bloody, ugly, poignant and unique, Jackman's last hurrah as Wolverine goes all in with mixed results but an effective send-off nonetheless.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN LOGAN IF YOU ENJOYED:
THE WOLVERINE  (2013)
X-MEN: ORIGINS - WOLVERINE  (2009)
DEADPOOL  (2016)
X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST  (2014)
MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME  (1985)

There's a lot to LOGAN, a lot that it builds upon, a lot that it answers for, a lot that it wants to be, and a lot that it fails to be.  At least in one thing, however, and that being the most important thing, it sticks the landing as a proper send-off to Hugh Jackman's unparalleled 17-year, 9-film run as the X-Men's Wolverine.  It's markedly different from other X-Men movies, most obviously in the R rating, which fans have been clamoring for since Wolverine's first solo outing and which was finally given the go-ahead after the runaway success of the very R-rated DEADPOOL.  In some ways, it's clearly a post-DEADPOOL superhero film, but still more sophisticated.  Director James Mangold, returning from THE WOLVERINE, and Jackman, along with screenwriters Scott Frank (THE WOLVERINE and A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES among his credits) and Michael Green (GREEN LANTERN and the upcoming ALIEN: COVENANT and BLADE RUNNER 2049), have really gone all out and poured everything they have into Wolverine's send-off, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, but the result is definitely interesting and an unexpectedly arthouse-style of superhero movie.

Unlike most X-Men movies, which take place "in the not too distant future" (with the X-MEN: ORIGINS and the trilogy that begins with FIRST CLASS, which range from the 1960s to the 1980s), LOGAN takes place in the specified future year of 2029, and Logan, also known as James Howlett, but best known as the Wolverine, is not the man he once was.  Tired, aged and his supernatural ability for rapid healing greatly diminished, he now works as a chauffeur for rich folks and snotty hard-partying youth near the Texas southern border while living in an abandoned smelting plant in Mexico with the albino mutant Caliban (Stephen Merchant), who helps him care for the senile Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), aka Professor X, whose powerful telepathic abilities have been rendered potentially deadly by recurring seizures.  Depressed and suicidal, Logan is approached by a new sense of purpose in the form of an 11-year-old girl named Laura (Dafne Keen), who needs his help to get to a safe haven in South Dakota while pursued by vicious wranglers called Reavers, but it's a sense of purpose he's reluctant to accept.

LOGAN wears its cinematic influences (of which there are a few) out on its sleeve, most prominently George Stevens' 1953 western SHANE, as well as TAXI DRIVER and classic German expressionism and noir genre films, borrowing themes and visuals from these influences, but then frequently subverting them.  One I don't really know whether it's intentional like the others but to which LOGAN bears more than a passing resemblance to is MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME.  It's a little chaotic, and on multiple occasions sets up expectations only to avoid them, and the result is like a weird oversized art film.  The movie is surprisingly ugly, especially considering the western comparisons it makes for itself (and Mangold can make a beautiful western, as evidenced by his 3:10 TO YUMA remake), and many shots have that cheap and unnatural "telenovela" look.  It's scaled down significantly from THE WOLVERINE or other X-Men films, with nothing as big as the bullet train fight or the ill-conceived "Silver Samurai", but the reported budget isn't significantly lower.  It just doesn't look as expensive as it is, but it also has little intention of being like any other superhero movie.  It's not as much a western as it purports to be either.  It has some of that, but it's really just the biggest ingredient out of a widely varied mixing pot.
I've wanted to see an R-rated Wolverine movie for a long time, and now that we have one, the results are also mixed.  It is full-blown hard R, at the very least matching, if not outdoing, DEADPOOL in terms of violence and gore, with more than just blood added to the title character's usual slashing and stabbing, but a healthy emphasis on bodily damage, especially head-stabbing.  Honestly, it's kind of gross, and child characters get their fair share of horrific carnage, too.  Sometimes it's pretty fun, and sometimes it's a lot.  There's little room for supposing that maybe a few of those guys survived, like you could have in previous Wolverine movies.  The profanity quotient is wound up to typical R levels too, and while Wolverine's been allowed a few PG-13 uses of "fuck" here and there throughout the series, it's a little weird to suddenly have them in such abundance.
It's poignant, seeing the last hurrah of Jackman as Wolverine, probably the most closely tied actor to a major superhero character that there is, and this isn't lost on the filmmakers.  LOGAN is a defiant, moody, angry, sad and ferocious movie that stumbles along the way, but ultimately does justice for what it sets out to do.  Not only for Jackman, but also Stewart, who indicates this is his last go as Professor X, LOGAN is an epitaph for a series that made superhero movies what they are in the 21st century, and when the credits roll, you'd be hard-pressed not to feel the pangs of resolution.  The X-Men film franchise will continue in some form or another, but LOGAN marks the end of an era.

                                                                                                                                                                          20th Century Fox