'LOGAN' SPOILER ALERT (HUGH JACKMAN’S FAREWELL)




Do you like X-Men? Which of the character do you like ? Wolverine? Professor X?  If you love that characters, Don’t  miss this film. Because it will be the last film of everlasting Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). (SO SAD 😭) 

After nearly two decades, the X-men franchise under 20th Century Fox stewardship has begun to feel too constrained by storytelling mechanics and full of characters that are warmed over. After you’ve seen the X-men crew go up against a powerful supervillain and face off against a city-or-world-destroying force , you begin to wonder whether this franchise still has new stories to tell. 

This is the third installment in what has become a stand-alone trilogy of Wolverine movies, Films that exist both within and separate from X-Men cinematic continuity. Much of the publicity for James Mangolds threequel, a follow-up to his well-liked The Wolverine, has centered on the films grounded anti hero tone, his-real world plot and the fact that it snagged an R-rating for graphic violence and profanity.  

That might have been considered more of a risk before Fox’s Deadpool earned $738 million worldwide last year. It’s big achievement, isn’t it ? So, there is a little reason to presume that the film won’t be embraced by fans of the X-Men movie series. 
💗 THANKS TO DEADPOOL CREATORS ! 💗

Honestly, based off of my previous experience with X-men movies I went into this film with the belief that I would be bored out of my mind. Happily this idea was destroyed within the first 5 minutes with the action packed opening…
  
SPOILER ALERT !

It’s set in 2029. Mutants are nearly extinct. No mutant has been natural born  since 2004 (25 years ago) and the only three natural mutants we are aware of that around are Logan, Caliban and Prof. Xavier. 

Wolverine makes a living as a limo driver, and south of the U.S/Mexico border. He's not the mutant he once was. Far from it. The alloy adamantium, which gave his skeleton and claws such strength, is poisoning him. He’s losing his eye sight, is healing slower and is constantly in pain (He's slowly dying 😭). And he's not the only one. For a variety of reasons, mutants everywhere are dying off and Charles Xavier / Professor X himself seems set to join them soon. Logan has Xavier stashed at an abandoned smelting plant across the border in Juarez, Mexico. He is spending retirement with his trusted friend, Caliban who’s a mutant tracker he can sense a mutant from miles away. Caliban is caring for the ailing Professor and Logan brings him medications that he purchases illegally in El Paso. Xavier is suffering from a form of dementia (it will break your heart to see these once great heroes at the end of their days) and, when he has one of his seizures, the powers of his mind that had served him so well in the past, cause tremors and considerable discomfort for those nearby. It's not a happy life for any of these men, but it is a quiet, anonymous and relatively peaceful one. That is, until Logan's past catches up to him once again.

Logan is surprised to encounter Laura, an 11-year-old mutant who needs Logan's help, but he wants no part of her problems. Gabriella, a nurse at a secret surgical clinic called Transigen, begs Logan to help Laura get to North Dakota, to a place called Eden, which is supposed to be a refuge for young mutants. Laura is being pursued by Transigen's evil surgical head, Zander Rice, and his ruthless head of security, Donald Pierce, who has with him a private army of cybernetic soldiers called the Reavers. Soon, Logan has no choice but to step up and protect Xavier and Laura. What follows is a road trip from hell, with Reavers in hot pursuit, Logan and Xavier both suffering physically and mentally and with some major revelations along the way.

The main strong poin of the film is Logan eventually growing to start to care about X-23, who is referred to as “Laura” his daughter. Their relationship suffers primaly from laura not speaking much, and the words she does say are primaly a Spanish language. Eventually she does talk but by then it’s a bit too late for us to really try to get attached to her character. They do have a strong father/daughter dynamic regardless of the lack of vocals and I’m sure they were going for the ‘traumatised girl gains confidences thanks to her father in order to speak’ angle, however she ended up being a bit bland because she simply wide eyed or interested in most things around her. I think the only character aspect she has is that she is interested in horses and likes flower pink sunglasses and potato chips.
So, you definitely wondering about how they actually kill off Logan ? (It’s the main thing all people wondering). He ends up using a vial to effectively supercharge his healing ability and wipe out a bunch of random guards to allow the child mutants time to escape. This messes up and the child mutants get captured only for Logan to appear and finally end things, Killing Dr. Rice and fighting X-24. He’s eventually thrown backwards and impled on a tree in what appears to be his side. He dies from his injury’s while acknowledging X-23 as his daughter, and she has a funeral for him using lines from a cowboy movie she watched with Prof X.

THE REVIEW

Where do I begin? 

Their Performance in this film are AMAZING.

Hugh Jackman does an amazing job and proves that “No One Else” can ever be Wolverine (This is by far Hugh Jackman’s best Performance as Wolverine btw).  He is miserable and broken in this film and to see him like this as the character, it is bittersweet especially because Hugh Jackman has been so attached to this rol. Unlike the previous entries, the film pack a punch with strong emotional grit and atmosphere that allows Hugh Jackman to exercise a more gritty performance than what he’s demonstrated in the past. Hugh Jackman nicely knocks the ball out of the park with a somber performance as the titular character, a performance that also marks his final portrayal in the role before retiring as the iconic hero. Hugh Jackman gives the best performance as the Wolverine and he doesn’t have to anchor this movie by himself this time. Credits must be given to Patrick Stewart who delivers an enjoyable yet emotional performance. He gives a blissful, if occasionally humorous portrayal as this signature role. Hugh and Patrick really do their best work with the characters they have played for seventeen years. They both have moments in the film that almost brought me to tears and also made me really think about life and how you can always improve regardless of your age. 

The standout of this movie though, is Dafne Keen who steps into the role of the mysterious young Laura born with same calwing-wielding gift as Wolverine. Cashing in only little dialogue beyond a series of scream and occasional Spanish spoken lines, her performance is displayed largely during the action sequences as we watch her slice and dice through the enemies in violent, but dazzling fashion. She also using her facial expressions more to convey her emotions and she rather impressively gives Jackman a run for his money when it comes to the action sequences.  While her performance stands strong, it is the subtly in which the character that makes her stand out. Thanks to their performance, They “FORCE” you to root and characters. 

The action sequences in the movies are raw and realistic, highly violent and gory (decapitations and severed limbs are in abundance); the car-jacking scene, with its sudden burst of violence is especially riveting, as is the first incredibly brutal encounter between the young mutant and her pursuers. The scenes are shot so seamlessly that it's difficult to tell where the stunt ends, and CGI begins. Also, there's none of the extreme-close-up-jerky-hand-held- camera-shots, rather there's a return to classic, straight-shooting action, perfectly integrated with the rest of movie. The shots in the film all look incredible. None of the violence is just for the heck of it, rather it is essential to move the story forward.

This movie had a great story and I was deeply engaged in it, but to say it was "enjoyable" just isn't the right way to describe the movie. Although there are moments of wry humor, and more than a few deeply touching scenes, this is a movie created around the heart and soul of a very tired Wolverine. It's more of a human story than a mutant story.  The biggest strength of this film, is its focus on the man, not the superhero. It's in the title of the film, named after James Howlett's human alter-ego: Logan, rather than Wolverine, his superhero alias. The previous X-Men films have been about showboating their superhero powers, it's what audiences expect going into a X-Men film, and I would argue most if not all superhero films. Here, we dive in Logan's reluctance to be a hero, a complexity he's been struggling with for a couple movies, and Mangold explores these personal themes, such as Logan's reluctance but also his feelings of guilt and isolation. It truly feels like Mangold cares for the source material and has poured his heart into every frame of picture

MINUS

Donald Pierce is one of villain in the film. He’s been following Logan’s activity but solely because he is searching for X-23. He mentions being a fan of Logan, but he’s not really threatening. He’s not really important to the story other than leading the group of grunts.
The second villain is Zander Rice. He comes across as a bit disturbing, in that he has some creepy sort of caring towards his creations. He’s also not intimidating in the slightest. They try desperately to make him intimidating, and he honestly should be as he’s great actor, but he just comes across as trying to justify himself to Wolverine when the two finally meet-only to be shot in the head and unceremoniously never seen or referred to again.

The main villain of the film is X-24 an ‘original’ creation for this film. If you have seen X-Men Origins Wolverine, Well its basically the same concept as Deadpool in that film. A mutant that apparently can possess the abilities of other mutants. However in this case he’s just a younger wolverine clone with different hair cut to Wolverine so we can tell them apart. 

When they driving and a vehicle swerves randomly causing family transporting a few horses to pull over, only for the horses to then escape and for Prof X to encourage Logan to pull over to help and they get asked to come to their house 😣 (You can probably tell that something bad is going happen to that family later in the movie).

Overall, The film has a good story telling, no boring parts, a nice setting with nice camera shots, good music, some really thrilling parts and there were moments I haven't anticipated at all. I don't think the movie is genre defining or anything insanely amazing, however I will note that t is a great film despite the bad aspects I have mentioned about it’s villains. I would recommend seeing this movie if you are a fan of Hugh Jackman or have been interested in the series, I think it is the best in the Wolverine trilogy although once again the villains are disappointing.

2 comments