Logan (Film Review)
Mar. 4th, 2017 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakNever having watched one of the Wolverine solo movies before, it was the trailer which made me watch this one, the trailer promising a) Charles Xavier as played by Patrick Stewart, b) Logan & young girl, which is the most appealing aspect of any incarnation of Wolverine, both in comics and on the screen, and c) road trip. Also, X-Men: Days of Future Past had actually made me a bit emotionally invested in the Logan-Charles relationship. So to the cinema I went, after doping myself with every cough and sneeze preventing chemical known to men, and lo, I did not regret it.
You can of course be nitpicky, starting with the overuse of Shane (we would have gotten the parallels the first time Charles and Laura watched, scriptwriters!), moving on to the language aspect (how come only Laura speaks Spanish - shouldn't all the kids from the Mexico-located lab of evil talk in Spanish? And no, "then we would have had the last ten minutes of the movie entirely in a language that's not English" is not an excuse anymore in this day and age) to the death question (yes, everyone except the kids dies, no matter their color, but couldn't the black family somehow survived anyway, given the white versus poc death ratio in previous movies?). It's not a movie without flaws. But honestly: the overall movie, to me, is good enough to handwave all of this.
Logan is , very obviously and self admittedly, a Western, the archetypical story of the guilty man of blood who tries to find redemption in the protection first of a few he cares about and then of a community while being aware he won't be able to be part of it. Now, given that the X-Men movies very much did leave Wolverine as part of a mutant community, circumstances had to change. So, in the very near future (2025, methinks, but I might have gotten the date wrong - they did name it in the beginning), there are hardly any more mutants left (we find out why in the course of the movie, and no, it's not because of Sentinels or the registration act), Logan, who has begun to age (Hugh Jackman finally able to show same), whose healing factor is slowing down and who is just plain worn out is living in hiding with a 90 something Charles Xavier and with Caliban (Stephen Merchant, making his character memorable and endearing in a movie where he could have been easily overlooked given whom it's focused on) in Mexico while having a chauffeur job on the US side of the border. There's something wrong with Charles beyond the ravages of old age and being on meds - one of the movie's two main villain helpfully tells us that after "the incident in Westchester" the US government classified his brain as a weapon of mass destruction, and the scene which reintroduces him to the audience also illustrates what happens if Logan doesn't get get him dosed with meds in time to prevent a seizure; it's a variation of the thing which both young and old Charles could do without effort, mentally holding people still in complete paralysis, only when 90 something Charles does it without meaning to, the result has... after effects.
More immediately threatening is the fact that the movie's big bad, an Evil Company (tm) which tried to raise mutant children as super soldiers, is after one such escaped child, who is, you guessed it, X-23 aka Laura (last name not mentioned in the movie, and yes, I know it from the comics), on the run with one of the nurses who manages to contact Our Heroes. Cue gory action scenes, escape and road trip for Logan, Laura and Charles while poor Caliban is captured by the forces of evil in pursuit. Laura, who for the majority of the movie is silent (not because she can't speak but because she doesn't want to), is played by a young actress who really sells both the child soldier ferociousness and the childish curiosity and want to play (she's not a mini adult). And also rises to one of the key scenes, late in the movie, when she has graduated to talking to Logan:
Laura (having observed Logan has nightmares): I have them, too. People hurt me.
Logan: Mine are different. *pause* I hurt people.
Laura: *takes this in, thinks* I've hurt people, too. *Pause* They were bad people.
Logan: Even so.
It's what makes Wolverine an antihero rather than a villain: the awareness that "they were bad people" doesn't mean killing should be handwaved.
Mind you, the movie does of course also go for the humor in its various grim situations; when Laura takes off at a gas station, it's a classic exasparated parent/child situation except for the part where Laura the lab rat could just slice the poor gas station owner in pieces because she doesn't yet know better if Logan doesn't catch up with her in time. Logan and Charles bickering is every adult forced to live at incredibly close quarters with Aged Parent And Their Whims, except that Charles insisting there's a new mutant and she and someone else are waiting for Logan at "the Liberty" actually isn't Charles going senile and believing himself to live at the time of the first X-Men movie (which is what Logan thinks it is, replying "the Statue of Liberty was a very long time ago, Charles") but Xavier actually having established telepathic contact with Laura (who at this point is staying at the Liberty motel together with Gabriella the nurse). (Sidenote: professional reviewers, while it's true everyone is swearing on a scale in this movie like they don't in previous 'X-Men movies, we did actually hear Charles Xavier say "fuck" before - young Charles does it in "X-Men: Days of Future Past".)
The "grizzled old mercenary starts to care for young child" trope might be well established but of course fits Wolverine in particular like a glove, and has the twist here that while Laura is a young girl and an innocent in the sense she hasn't asked for any of this, she's also already a trained killer, and what he can do for her isn't saving her from this but from being used by other people, helping her (and the other escaped mutant children) into an at least temporary safety where they can make their own choice. Because this is a Western, and one of the ending/new beginning type, it fits the narrative that both the guardians of the past die, i.e. first Charles Xavier, and then, in the end, Logan. Just before Charles dies, he's remembered what Logan has been shielding him from, i.e. exactly what happened in Westchester (it's mentioned in a news report earlier, btw, so it's not like the audience doesn't know if they've been paying attenton - over 200 hundred people, including eight mutants, died, presumably when Charles had one of his seizures), and if I have one personal complaint other than the general little nitpicks mentioned above, it's that I think letting him remember earlier would have given Patrick Stewart some fantastic angst to play. But that's me indulging fondness for both actor and character; the movie is called "Logan" not "Xavier", and it's unlikely a fully remembering Charles Xavier would have bickered the way he does and pushed Logan the way he does at various points, when Logan needed it. As it is, it makes the death sequence an emotional roller coaster, as Charles goes from being at peace (because they've just had the first peaceful enjoyable evening since eons thanks to the kind family who has taken our on the run heroes in) to deep pain and guilt at the memory to shock when he sees who his killer is.
Logan's own death, by contrast, comes at the very end when the big action is over and with the knowledge that he's managed to save the new generation of mutants (who also helped saving themselves, especially Laura). There is no tag scene (I waited), nor any other sequel bait after Laura and the other children leave his grave behind; if he wasn't in a money making franchise, I'd say this is truly a fitting and earned ending for the character. (As it is, I hope they wait for some years before inevitably resurrecting him in a non-Hugh-Jackman-form.) . It was a great last outing for Jackman and Wolverine alike. And choosing to make his two main relationships in the movie the ones with Charles and with Laura (i.e. an old and a new one) gave this particular viewer an emotional hook that now compels her to hope for fanfiction (both covering pre-movie and post movie), and hope young Dafne who plays Laura will keep acting and grow up to give us many more roles, because that was certainly an hell of a debut!
You can of course be nitpicky, starting with the overuse of Shane (we would have gotten the parallels the first time Charles and Laura watched, scriptwriters!), moving on to the language aspect (how come only Laura speaks Spanish - shouldn't all the kids from the Mexico-located lab of evil talk in Spanish? And no, "then we would have had the last ten minutes of the movie entirely in a language that's not English" is not an excuse anymore in this day and age) to the death question (yes, everyone except the kids dies, no matter their color, but couldn't the black family somehow survived anyway, given the white versus poc death ratio in previous movies?). It's not a movie without flaws. But honestly: the overall movie, to me, is good enough to handwave all of this.
Logan is , very obviously and self admittedly, a Western, the archetypical story of the guilty man of blood who tries to find redemption in the protection first of a few he cares about and then of a community while being aware he won't be able to be part of it. Now, given that the X-Men movies very much did leave Wolverine as part of a mutant community, circumstances had to change. So, in the very near future (2025, methinks, but I might have gotten the date wrong - they did name it in the beginning), there are hardly any more mutants left (we find out why in the course of the movie, and no, it's not because of Sentinels or the registration act), Logan, who has begun to age (Hugh Jackman finally able to show same), whose healing factor is slowing down and who is just plain worn out is living in hiding with a 90 something Charles Xavier and with Caliban (Stephen Merchant, making his character memorable and endearing in a movie where he could have been easily overlooked given whom it's focused on) in Mexico while having a chauffeur job on the US side of the border. There's something wrong with Charles beyond the ravages of old age and being on meds - one of the movie's two main villain helpfully tells us that after "the incident in Westchester" the US government classified his brain as a weapon of mass destruction, and the scene which reintroduces him to the audience also illustrates what happens if Logan doesn't get get him dosed with meds in time to prevent a seizure; it's a variation of the thing which both young and old Charles could do without effort, mentally holding people still in complete paralysis, only when 90 something Charles does it without meaning to, the result has... after effects.
More immediately threatening is the fact that the movie's big bad, an Evil Company (tm) which tried to raise mutant children as super soldiers, is after one such escaped child, who is, you guessed it, X-23 aka Laura (last name not mentioned in the movie, and yes, I know it from the comics), on the run with one of the nurses who manages to contact Our Heroes. Cue gory action scenes, escape and road trip for Logan, Laura and Charles while poor Caliban is captured by the forces of evil in pursuit. Laura, who for the majority of the movie is silent (not because she can't speak but because she doesn't want to), is played by a young actress who really sells both the child soldier ferociousness and the childish curiosity and want to play (she's not a mini adult). And also rises to one of the key scenes, late in the movie, when she has graduated to talking to Logan:
Laura (having observed Logan has nightmares): I have them, too. People hurt me.
Logan: Mine are different. *pause* I hurt people.
Laura: *takes this in, thinks* I've hurt people, too. *Pause* They were bad people.
Logan: Even so.
It's what makes Wolverine an antihero rather than a villain: the awareness that "they were bad people" doesn't mean killing should be handwaved.
Mind you, the movie does of course also go for the humor in its various grim situations; when Laura takes off at a gas station, it's a classic exasparated parent/child situation except for the part where Laura the lab rat could just slice the poor gas station owner in pieces because she doesn't yet know better if Logan doesn't catch up with her in time. Logan and Charles bickering is every adult forced to live at incredibly close quarters with Aged Parent And Their Whims, except that Charles insisting there's a new mutant and she and someone else are waiting for Logan at "the Liberty" actually isn't Charles going senile and believing himself to live at the time of the first X-Men movie (which is what Logan thinks it is, replying "the Statue of Liberty was a very long time ago, Charles") but Xavier actually having established telepathic contact with Laura (who at this point is staying at the Liberty motel together with Gabriella the nurse). (Sidenote: professional reviewers, while it's true everyone is swearing on a scale in this movie like they don't in previous 'X-Men movies, we did actually hear Charles Xavier say "fuck" before - young Charles does it in "X-Men: Days of Future Past".)
The "grizzled old mercenary starts to care for young child" trope might be well established but of course fits Wolverine in particular like a glove, and has the twist here that while Laura is a young girl and an innocent in the sense she hasn't asked for any of this, she's also already a trained killer, and what he can do for her isn't saving her from this but from being used by other people, helping her (and the other escaped mutant children) into an at least temporary safety where they can make their own choice. Because this is a Western, and one of the ending/new beginning type, it fits the narrative that both the guardians of the past die, i.e. first Charles Xavier, and then, in the end, Logan. Just before Charles dies, he's remembered what Logan has been shielding him from, i.e. exactly what happened in Westchester (it's mentioned in a news report earlier, btw, so it's not like the audience doesn't know if they've been paying attenton - over 200 hundred people, including eight mutants, died, presumably when Charles had one of his seizures), and if I have one personal complaint other than the general little nitpicks mentioned above, it's that I think letting him remember earlier would have given Patrick Stewart some fantastic angst to play. But that's me indulging fondness for both actor and character; the movie is called "Logan" not "Xavier", and it's unlikely a fully remembering Charles Xavier would have bickered the way he does and pushed Logan the way he does at various points, when Logan needed it. As it is, it makes the death sequence an emotional roller coaster, as Charles goes from being at peace (because they've just had the first peaceful enjoyable evening since eons thanks to the kind family who has taken our on the run heroes in) to deep pain and guilt at the memory to shock when he sees who his killer is.
Logan's own death, by contrast, comes at the very end when the big action is over and with the knowledge that he's managed to save the new generation of mutants (who also helped saving themselves, especially Laura). There is no tag scene (I waited), nor any other sequel bait after Laura and the other children leave his grave behind; if he wasn't in a money making franchise, I'd say this is truly a fitting and earned ending for the character. (As it is, I hope they wait for some years before inevitably resurrecting him in a non-Hugh-Jackman-form.) . It was a great last outing for Jackman and Wolverine alike. And choosing to make his two main relationships in the movie the ones with Charles and with Laura (i.e. an old and a new one) gave this particular viewer an emotional hook that now compels her to hope for fanfiction (both covering pre-movie and post movie), and hope young Dafne who plays Laura will keep acting and grow up to give us many more roles, because that was certainly an hell of a debut!
