Tag: Wolverine

Logan’s Fun

*Trailer was too ISIS-y for me. I dissent. 3 Year old girls should not be encouraged to leap around with metal claws, slicing necks. Nor can they physically do so. To think they could is too much of a stretch. – Deplorable Steve

Ok, so the third and final “Wolverine” movie, and how does it stack up?  Well, it’s a damn sight better than “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “The Wolverine,” not to mention the atrocious “X-Men Apocalypse.”  The best thing about it is how it takes place in a plausible future world where the last surviving X-men are struggling to take it day by day.  Logan and Professor X, played very well by Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, are off the grid and disinterested in the world until Xavier senses a young girl mutant who may be key to mankind’s and mutant-kind’s survival.  They also discover an organization that has used mutant experimentation for extremely nefarious ends, and only they (or really only Logan) can prevent a catastrophe.

Let me be clear about something: this is the greatest Wolverine movie of all time.  Jackman gives a persistently top-drawer performance as the burned-out but not yet down for the count Logan.  We feel his pain and his sadness at the way the world has turned out.  He and Stewart have great chemistry and seem more Shakespearian than Marvel-ian.  I also liked how the film combines elements of futurism, neo noir-ism, and especially the western, with “Shane” being explicitly referenced.  There is no CGI in this film, and it resembles “Unforgiven” more than it does the Marvel canon.

 These attributes, along with a clever gimmick that I won’t reveal involving the villain’s experiments, are enough to make Logan a good film.  But it misses greatness because it spends too much time pleasing the fans.  We don’t need the decapitations and heavy gore because they don’t further the story and remind us that it’s just a movie.  And we REALLY don’t need the teaser for a new “Deadpool” film before this one starts which made me think I’d paid to see the wrong movie.  The movie is also too long at 2 hours and 21 minutes. All in all, though, “Logan” is worth the admission price, as it gives us a better Wolverine story than we’ve seen before, as well as approximating a real movie rather than comic book crap.  I’d say if this looks like your kind of thing, go for it; it’s smart enough and done with gusto. -CoolAC