ozma914: mustache Firefly (mustache)
( Mar. 12th, 2017 10:46 am)
First off, a warning: "Logan", while technically part of the X-Men franchise, is not what most people would consider a comic book movie, and is not, not, NOT for kids. Of course, there are plenty of movies based on comic books and graphic novels that can be enjoyed by both kids and adults. This, in what's probably a coming trend thanks to "Deadpool", is not one of them.



And that's about the only thing "Logan" has in common with "Deadpool". In fact, "Logan" sometimes seems a lot like "The Walking Dead": It's locale appears dystopian, upbeat moments are few and far between, and you get the sense that anyone--or everyone--could end up dead. Also, a lot of people tend to die with things stuck in their heads.

Logan is, of course, former X-Man Wolverine, played with intense weariness by Hugh Jackman and why the hell do people never get Oscar nominations in movies like this? The Academy Awards are pointless if Jackman and Patrick Stewart (as Charles Xavier) don't get nominations. It's 2029, and as far as he knows Logan, Charles, and their helper/babysitter Caliban are the only mutants left in the world. From their Mexican hiding place Charles keeps talking about communicating with someone, but his formidable brain is failing from a degenerative brain disease and he rarely makes sense at all.

It's a wonderful performance from all three of them, and when Jackman and Stewart share the screen it's--well--uncanny.



Logan is now a chauffeur, when he's not bargaining for medications to tamp down Charles' mind-seizures. It's hinted that those seizures, which send his telepathic abilities lethally out of control, may have killed some of the X-Men, while Caliban has his own guilty secret along those lines. As if that wasn't enough, Logan's healing powers are starting to desert him, and he's feeling very much his 200 or so years.

This was all covered in the first twenty minutes. Then the trio's "idyllic" life is interrupted by an eleven year old kid and the private army that wants her, dead or alive. They take Caliban hostage and send Logan, Charles, and little Laura on a Hope and Crosby type road trip, assuming Hope is a ninety year old degenerating telepath, Crosby an ailing alcoholic, and Dorothy Lamour a psycho kid mutant.

Yes, of course Laura's a mutant. And, although Logan spends most of the movie trying to avoid it, she both needs his help and shares a direct connection with him that's pretty obvious early on. Together they cut a swathe from Mexico to Canada, headed for a place Logan's certain is literally a comic book creation.

Okay, but is "Logan" any good?

Yeah. It's one of the best movies I've seen in years--maybe the best, in terms of story and acting. In addition to the actors, the movie should get an Oscar. It won't.

Stewart is emotional and heartbreaking. Jackman is intense in his final pass as Logan, a man who's deteriorating rapidly but still has promises to keep. He's the old Western gunslinger and the movie's a western, and just in case you don't get that, two of the actors actually sit and watch the movie "Shane", which gets a callback at the end. The casting is great overall, the action sequences sometimes a bit long but impressive, the (fairly limited) digital effects seamless, and the cinematography wonderful.



Special notice should go to Dafne Keene, in her first movie role as Laura. At first the kid is mute and mostly glares, something I figured just about any kid could manage. But then ... wow. She waxes eloquently in two languages, holds her own in action sequences and with impressive older actors, and towards the end has a few moments that are just heartrending. If she doesn't crash and burn early, Keene will be an acting force to be reckoned with. (Hey, I was right about that kid from "The Professional".)

You'll want to sit through the end credits (although there's no after-credit sequence), both to collect yourself and for the spot-on Johnny Cash song.

My rating:

Entertainment Value: 4 M&M's. I don't usually prefer such relentlessly dark movies, but wow.

Oscar Potential: 4 M&M's--the good brown ones. No, it won't get many nominations, which is just a sign of how out of touch the Hollywood ivory tower people are. It would be nice to be wrong.

            Time travel, yay! I love a great time travel movie. Heck, I love a bad time travel movie.

            Good news: X-Men: Days of Future Past is a great travel movie.

            The movie, which has a title so long it exhausts me to say it, is about mutants in our future who send one of their own back to our past to prevent a war that destroys our present. Can I just say X-Men? Assume I’m not talking about one of the previous ones.

            More specifically, a small group of characters from the comics have been surviving ongoing attacks from Sentinels by detecting when the mutant hunting robots are approaching, then psychically going back a few days in time to warn themselves to flee. In other words, they’ve been time traveling constantly, which can take quite a toll on a person.

            The solution, naturally, is to go back in time half a century or so and stop the murder that eventually leads to the government funding the Sentinel Program, and doesn’t the government always end up behind these things? Unfortunately, the person who committed that murder is one of their own: Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), and why has no one noticed that she runs around totally naked for half this movie? Oh, sure, she has weird blue skin that looks like rubber gloves, but still …

            Anyway, the only person who can survive a trip that far back is Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), whose mind heals as quickly as his unaging body does. Kitty Pryde (my favorite mutant from the comic books) is given specific instructions: Send Wolverine back to a moment where he’s in bed with a lover, so he’ll get up and treat the audience to full (if not frontal) nudity.

            I didn’t care all that much myself, but my eardrums popped from the simultaneous intake of air among all the females in the movie theater.

            And then we’re in the 70’s, where Wolverine realizes all the mutant powers in the world can’t protect him from polyester.

            I’m so glad we aren’t in the 70’s anymore.

            This is one of the best of the X-Men movies, and one of the best of the superhero movies, too. It’s true that you should be a fan of the comic books to get all the little winks, and this is one time when seeing the other movies is a prerequisite. On the other hand, the moviemakers have done a fantastic job of jumping back and forth in time without confusing the audience, and that’s an amazing accomplishment.

            The story’s great, the acting strong, the special effects (of course) mind blowing, and X-Men fans get at least a cameo from almost all of their favorites. Also, as with Star Trek, this story has the advantage of erasing almost all the canon that canon’d before this, giving them a clean slate for the next movie.

            I’m left with just one question: If Halle Berry once received a half-million bucks to drop her top in a movie, how much did Hugh Jackman get for baring his bottom?

 

Entertainment Value: 4 out of 4 M&M’s. That’s two wins out of two trips to the theater.

Oscar Potential: 4 M&M’s for something, even if it’s special effects
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