A Few Thoughts On – Logan

Logan is the best Wolverine movie and the best X-men movie, in fact I would say it is up there with the Dark Knight in terms of quality.

Logan is a gritty, dark-ish, western styled story of the end of the Wolverine, as well as Hugh Jackman’s time in the role, and it is done extremely well. The film is helped by the higher age rating, which allows for swearing and more violence making this movie a true look at what a fight with Wolverine would look and sound like. While the higher age rating is great and does indeed help the movie, the story is nothing to scoff at. While simple for a superhero film as well as it not being a traditional superhero story (for the most part) it is well written and acted.

Most importantly the story is engaging, it turns Wolverine and Professor X into Logan and Charles making them feel like just normal people. The superpowers of them both are used, but only when they are required/pushed to. The character of Laura (X-23) is done well, and her young actress does a great job, but enough on her for now because spoilers. The action of the movie feels real (as real as metal claws can anyway) and gritty, it doesn’t feel over the top and it looks great.

The supporting cast also does a great job, Steven Merchant is great, as is the villainous crew. The standouts though is the small family of farmers that Logan and the gang come across. Not everything is great though, and to get into that and other things it is time for…..

Spoilers from here on!!

So, lets start with the only negative, X-24. While his introduction is great and quite sad considering Charles was pouring his heart out to a Wolverine clone who wasn’t listening or cared. It felt a little weird to have a clone just suddenly running around in this really grounded movie. It could be argued that it was symbolic that in his last film it was Logan Vs The Wolverine, and while true it still felt a little strange.

Now then back to the good…. kinda, so it is reveled at a point that Charles is having seizures and because of his powers it affects people around him. This then lead to one of his seizures killing the X-men, par Logan because of his healing factor. This was interesting but I think could have been shown for a better impact, but I know why it wasn’t in there. Budget and schedules would have to line up, so what they did was fine.

Laura was interesting to see, her being both created as a weapon and her coming from Logan’s DNA making him her father was great. Her character arc is a simple one, but that is all it needed to be. More on her later, know to move on to the deaths of the movie. After pouring out his heart to who he though was Logan, X-24 then kills him with a slow stab through the heart, it was a real shock. I mean I had a feeling going in that he would die, but I didn’t think it would be like this, it was a heart breaking moment but it worked.

I should mention that mutants have been slowly poisoned for years at the point of this movie takes place, making it that their powers are no longer or are barely working. there are ony a few mutants left and there are no more being born, the only new “mutants” are the ones that Richard E. Grants character creates.

And now we come to the Death of Logan, after killing the main villain in the middle of his speech X-24 sees the body of his boss and fights Logan, which results with the weakened Logan being impaled on a log. Laura shoots X-24 in the head with an adamantium  bullet, killing him. She then removes the branch Logan is impaled, but it isn’t enough he examines “so this is what it feels like” and he just dies. And so two characters who have been on the big screen from the year 2000 dies, no heroic sacrifices, they just die. And it is fantastic, it is done super well and makes you feel for these characters.

Then we come to the final moments of the film with Laura talking over the grave of Logan, giving a speech. After the speech before walking away, she takes the cross out of the ground and places it on its side making it look like an X, the camera remains on the grave for a few seconds and then cuts to credits. I think that this is the perfect ending shot to the 17 year portrayal to the character.

A fantastic movie, done with a lot of heart.

Well, till next time…..