REVIEW: Logan (2017)

We live in the era of comic book movies no doubt. To me it All Began in 2002 the Monday morning following the weekend release of Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man”. I still remember turning on the TV and Matt Lauer from “The Today Show” announcing the headlines of the day and the top story was “Spider-Man” making over a hundred million dollars during the first three days of its release. I remember going “holy shit!” because at the time that shit was unheard of. I btw, was 1 of many that saw it opening weekend.

As I was in the car later on that morning listening to the radio to “The Howard Stern Show”, Stern was talking about the movie and he said some words that will prove to be prophetic, he said something to the effect of “You know now they’re going to make a ton of them and you know they’re going to probably ruin a bunch of them as well”. That has certainly been the case.

Before 2002 we got our superhero movies every now and again, of course we had our Supermans and Batmans, we had “Blade” in 1998 and in 2000 we had the first “X-Men” movie but it was that Monday morning that I felt the culture changed. Money Talks as they say and the rest walks.

One of the complaints of the comicbook genre is the culture of the fanbase. While a ton of 80s and 90s action movies were about self-improvement & overcoming obstacles through hard work and cheer will, in the comic book genre characters just become powerful just by being born or by having some silly freak accident. Even our fearless leader, Sensei Seagal, had to go through extensive physical therapy and training to get back into shape after been been gunned down and left in a coma for seven years only to comeback to defeat the bastards that killed his family and to also regain his Mojo to bang the hot Kelly Le Brock in the classic documentary “Hard to Kill”.

Audiences today love comic book characters for the very same reasons they love that communist bastard Bernie Sanders. They want to have a lot but they don’t want to work for nothing. Back in the 1980s, Rocky Balboa had to train in Siberia like a deranged motherfucker to defeat Ivan Drago and we loved him for it. But today audiences admire a Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, who was a complete loser who couldn’t talk to any girls until one day was bitten by a radioactive spider and the next morning he wakes up powerful and before you know it he’s hanging upside down in the rain making out with Kirsten Dunst and her pointy wet nipples. In the 80s and 90s we saw Rocky, Rambo & Commando and left those movies wanting to train, get a gym membership and buy a fucking dumbbell. Kids today leave movies wanting to get bitten by a fucking spider.

Okay now in all seriousness, in my opinion in every genre you get some good movies and some bad movies, comic book movies are no exception.

I always like the X-Men and Wolverine movies except the last X-Men movie which in my opinion was shit. The villain looked like the purple villain Ooze from the 90s show “Power Rangers” and Jennifer Lawrence look bored as shit, just collecting a paycheck not even wanting to get painted blue ( if you pay me millions I’ll even cover my face in horseshit, fuck it! ) , shitty story & the third act was mostly a CGI fuck fest.

I think over the years I have enjoyed the X-Men movies and the Wolverine movies for the actors that they cast in some of the roles. I’ve always enjoyed Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier, Ian McKellen as Magneto and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. I think these three actors have done some solid work over the years in their respective roles. After playing the character since to the year 2000, Jackman announced that he wanted to do a final Wolverine film and retire the role. He wanted that film to be based on the novel “Old Man Logan” and he wanted the movie to have an R rating.

He backed it up by taking a pay cut in order to ensure the studio would allow the producers and filmmaker to make an R-rated film.

Having seen the film I got to say that even for those that don’t necessarily care for comic book movies, this might be a film they might enjoy.

If you don’t know much about the X-Men movies or the Wolverine character, it’s okay because this film plays like a stand-alone story. I think those that don’t know that much about it will be just fine knowing the basics. I’m going to talk about the movie, I’ll try not to give too much away but still beware of spoilers.

The movie opens with a visibly older Logan AKA Wolverine sleeping in his car. Some asshole cholos are making the grave mistake of fucking with Wolverine’s car. Logan tried to diffuse the situation but as Charles Bronson taught us, fucking thugs are fucking stupid and you can’t reason with them, so after they retaliated against Logan, Wolverine had no choice but to lay the smackdown on these pissant pieces of shit. Right away we see why the film is rated R by the way Wolverine gets to slice and dice these pathetic pieces of trash. The year it’s 2029 and Logan owns a Chrysler and the way he makes a living is by working as an Uber type driver. So these fuckers were messing with his money. They had it coming.

Logan lives across the border in Mexico, and in his hide away he also secretly takes care of Charles Xavier who is now in his nineties and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. No new Mutants have been reported born in 25 years and the many of the remaining mutants have been killed. There is a lab in Mexico which is run by an agency that’s using DNA to create New Mutants and since they are children they’re raising them to be weapons of mass destruction. Once other advances were made, this program was deemed obsolete & ordered to be destroyed, meaning the children had to be killed. A lab employee by the name of Gabriela, freed the children and she was able to escape with one child named Laura. This girl actually turns out to have the same powers as Wolverine.

The woman and the girl are actually able to locate Wolverine as one might expect, the agency also is able to locate Wolverine and after a series of events professor Charles Xavier, the girl & Wolverine hit the road to find a reported sanctuary that might exist for the children that were able to escape from the lab and other mutants.

One of the things I like about this movie is that the action does not rely on CGI. This been 2017 of course, the blood is CGI as well as Wolverine’s claws but aside from that , the movie does not resemble previous X-Men movies in tone. The movie even has a little bit of a western feel to it & as a matter of fact, the movie “Shane” works itself into the plot. What really made this movie work for me were the performances by the three leads. The biggest compliment I think one can give a child actor is to not find him or her annoying. The girl here is played by newcomer Dafne Keen & IMO she does a good job. It also helps that for most of the picture she don’t speak.

But the real stars of the show here are Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart. Both men turn in awesome performances in this movie.

Both of these men play characters past their prime and the effects that has on the psyche of a man. Charles Xavier is in his 90s, going senile, no longer the most powerful mutant, relying on Logan to help him while Logan himself it’s not the mutant he once was. He doesn’t heal as quickly, he’s not as strong or powerful or as fast as he once was. A lot of times we remain the same inside but our bodies just not respond the way they used to, as the old saying goes “father time is undefeated”.
Both men have regrets and Jackman is able to capture in a subtle way, the weight of the life of violence he has lived.

Jackman has stated that this will be his last Wolverine film and in the comic book era, his interpretation of the character of Wolverine over the course of several films, is a standout. I think “Logan” is a terrific way to say goodbye to the character Jackman has made famous worldwide for the last 17 years. I think it’s a shame that we did not get a Wolverine film like this sooner but needless to say, better late than never.

I recommend this movie. If you’re a fan of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and a fan of the “Wolverine” & “X-Men” films I think you would enjoy it and for those of you who are not particularly keen on this type of genre, I think this is one that you might enjoy. Cool movie in my opinion.

– Mucho Macho