I’ve finally seen Logan,
the third film in the least coherent trilogy of all time, only this time it’s
good, like really good. You’ve probably heard the hype by now and I’m here to
tell you that yes, it is pretty much all true, we finally get to see what a man
with blades coming out of his knuckles can do and it is gloriously brutal. Read
on to find out my SPOILER FREE thoughts.
Logan is set in a
what seems like a not too distant dystopian future, with the mutant now
struggling to make ends meet, driving a Limo and caring for an old and unstable
Professor X. That’s until a new mutant comes along, with a power set not to
dissimilar to his own, who he reluctantly decides to try help escort to the
Canadian border, far away from an evil company that is tracking her down.
This film is unlike any superhero film you’ve seen before
and it is very refreshing to see. I was excited not to know where this film was
going from scene to scene, ever wondering where the story may end, unlike
previous Wolverine and superhero films where you know he’s going to have to
fight the big bad at the end and save the day. You can tell that this film had
a lot of thought put into the story and character before adding all the flashy
elements, for the most part it plays like a Western where it just so happens
the characters inhabit superpowers. It’s shot very nicely, the production
design is beautiful and more importantly real and the characters feel very
flawed and human. Time has taken its toll on these larger than life characters
and grounded them in a way that makes them feel more relatable. The story still
falls into some obvious movie tropes but for the most part, this film is about
living and what it means to be human and these are the bits of the film that
really stand out, not just the brutal action scenes, but yes those are pretty
cool as well.
Yes, this Wolverine film
is R rated, or if you live in the UK like myself, it’s got a 15 certificate.
You won’t be bringing your kids to this one. As I stated at the start,
Wolverine using his claws is gloriously brutal, nothing gets covered up, you
get to see what would happen if somebody did have blades shooting out of their
knuckles and then punching people in the head and although I thought this may
grow old, it never did, the fight scenes are some of the best in the whole X-Men/Wolverine franchise and they are
little more than Wolverine or Laura (the young mutant) killing hordes of
mercenaries. It’s not just the violence that is upped in this film but the
language and darker story themes as well. The language takes a little getting
used to at first because we’ve only really heard Logan curse a few times in the
franchise, now he’s swearing a lot and it works for his character and the place
he is in. The one character I didn’t think it worked for was Professor X,
thankfully he doesn’t swear as much as the film goes on but near the start he
does quite a bit and it did feel a bit unnecessary, like James Mangold, the
director, was trying to make full use of the adult rating for the sake of
having it. Where the adult content works
best however is in favour of the themes of the story, nothing needs to be
sugar-coated here, this is about a character who is at the end of his tether
and has had enough of the world, things get dark for him physically and
mentally and it was nice to see a film handle this maturely.
This is Hugh Jackman’s final film as Wolverine and although
he will probably be recast in the next five years, it was nice to have this
film be a great send off to the actor and the character. It sucks that in his seventeen
years as Wolverine, his final film is the one he is truly allowed to sink his
claws into, pun intended. This is without a doubt one of the best performances
of Hugh Jackman’s career and easily his best performance as Wolverine. He has
put his stamp on this character, so much so that when people talk about
Wolverine, I rarely see the comic book version anymore (no matter how much I
want to see that costume in full glory on the big screen one day), I see Hugh
Jackman’s Wolverine. It was also nice that in this film we could be introduced
to another great performance from a 12-year-old actress, Dafne Keen, who is
destined to be a star.
Although this film is great I did have some problems with
it, the biggest being the emotional moments didn’t always hit with me. Maybe
that’s just me, maybe I need to watch it again but I felt that this was the
fault of the X-Men franchise/universe being non-coherent as a whole, I never
felt sad or worried that a character might get hurt or worse, the likelihood is
that we’ll probably see some version of them again in the future. There are
some great moments but I just don’t think that I was as emotionally invested as
the film wanted me to be at the time.
I now want to take a moment to talk about the future of
superhero films as R rated cinema in the future. It worked for this story and for
this character at this point in his life, that does not mean that we need to do
it for everyone. Spider-Man does not need to be R rated and neither does Batman
or a lot of big superhero characters, that is unless the story calls for it.
The worry is that some future superhero films will have adult content for the
sake of having characters swear and show brutal violence, even Logan doesn’t always get away with this
throughout the duration of the film. What this film shows is that filmmakers
and studios need to think about the story and character first and leave the
spectacle to last, and then only if the story calls for it. Marvel seem to be
getting the hang of this and for the most part, have been pretty good at
delivering good quality stories, but other areas of the superhero genre need to
get to grips with the fact that not every superhero film needs to be the same
or audiences are just going to get bored of them.
Logan is a refreshing
addition to the superhero genre that treats the story and character with care,
it sends Hugh Jackman out on a high in a way that we’ve never seen before in
the genre. Some of the more emotional moments lacked levity for me but for the
most part, it’s a great story and excellent film. I’m giving Logan a rating of 4/5.
What did you think of the film, a masterpiece or just
another comic book movie? Let me know in the comments below!
Thanks for reading!
SNIKT!
