I Watch Films: Logan
(2nd new (to me) film of 2018)
Logan wants to evoke the idea of the Western; I'm not buying it. Yes, plenty of American countryside, yes cross-border shenanigans, yes they show us Shane and Professor X has a half-hearted stab at explaining one of the classic Westerns, and yes, gunplay. But in my uninformed opinion that's not enough to make it a Western.
It is a road-trip movie and a chase movie and an action movie, and those all interact with the ideas of the Western but that's not what it is. It is a superhero movie but a quite rare type; the one that actually ends the story.
Anyway, it's 2029, there's been no new mutants for years, Logan is driving a limo on and across the Mexican border to pay for Professor X's medicine. It seems that the Professor has lost control of his powers which, as the most powerful psychic in the world, is a problem. Unfortunately there is a new mutant, who has been experimented on and then escaped. Looking for help she finds Logan which pulls down the bad guys onto them, forcing them all to go on the run.
Logan grudgingly accepts his traditional-and-inevitable role as mentor and guardian, and takes it to the logical limit. The bad guys are pretty bad so we have very little sympathy as they're variously stabbed and slashed by Wolverine and his charge. There are many good action sequences though I feel none of the set pieces are really stand out. And there's a great moment when Logan is cornered and uses a [SPOILER].
The best X-Men film? Perhaps, though to get there it relies on us knowing and caring for younger and more sympathetic versions of Professor X and Logan. The best solo Wolverine picture, no doubt.
Watch This: For an excellent action movie that blends sacrifice, mistakes, frustration, disaster and bloody death and spreads them halfway across America.
Don't Watch This: If you don't like blood and stabbing, or if you don't like being reminded that if the anti-mutant forces stopped trying to simultaneously weaponise and genocide the mutants, sweary Professor X's seizures would prove their point.
Still the best Wolverine Moment: Is the start of The Wolverine where everyone else is in cages he's locked in a well in the Japanese Prisoner-of-War camp and you just know he's been up to something.
(If you liked this review you can support my writing via my Patreon which has my space opera serial Chronicles of the Deep Patrol. Or not. That's good too.)
Logan wants to evoke the idea of the Western; I'm not buying it. Yes, plenty of American countryside, yes cross-border shenanigans, yes they show us Shane and Professor X has a half-hearted stab at explaining one of the classic Westerns, and yes, gunplay. But in my uninformed opinion that's not enough to make it a Western.
It is a road-trip movie and a chase movie and an action movie, and those all interact with the ideas of the Western but that's not what it is. It is a superhero movie but a quite rare type; the one that actually ends the story.
Anyway, it's 2029, there's been no new mutants for years, Logan is driving a limo on and across the Mexican border to pay for Professor X's medicine. It seems that the Professor has lost control of his powers which, as the most powerful psychic in the world, is a problem. Unfortunately there is a new mutant, who has been experimented on and then escaped. Looking for help she finds Logan which pulls down the bad guys onto them, forcing them all to go on the run.
Logan grudgingly accepts his traditional-and-inevitable role as mentor and guardian, and takes it to the logical limit. The bad guys are pretty bad so we have very little sympathy as they're variously stabbed and slashed by Wolverine and his charge. There are many good action sequences though I feel none of the set pieces are really stand out. And there's a great moment when Logan is cornered and uses a [SPOILER].
The best X-Men film? Perhaps, though to get there it relies on us knowing and caring for younger and more sympathetic versions of Professor X and Logan. The best solo Wolverine picture, no doubt.
Watch This: For an excellent action movie that blends sacrifice, mistakes, frustration, disaster and bloody death and spreads them halfway across America.
Don't Watch This: If you don't like blood and stabbing, or if you don't like being reminded that if the anti-mutant forces stopped trying to simultaneously weaponise and genocide the mutants, sweary Professor X's seizures would prove their point.
Still the best Wolverine Moment: Is the start of The Wolverine where everyone else is in cages he's locked in a well in the Japanese Prisoner-of-War camp and you just know he's been up to something.
(If you liked this review you can support my writing via my Patreon which has my space opera serial Chronicles of the Deep Patrol. Or not. That's good too.)
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