I’m finding it really hard to come up with anything negative to say about this film. I mean, there’s a few nitpicks I could have and sure, I had my hesitations beforehand when I heard a few plot spoilers… But for the most part I have nothing bad to say about this film. Maybe it’s just the rush of seeing a hard R rated X-Men Wolverine film that it is clouding my judgement. I found more negatives in Deadpool and I loved Deadpool. So I don’t know, maybe it just is a perfect film. I think the comparison to Children of Men is also appropriate here. It doesn’t take long to see the similarities. And as it hit me, it took forever to try and remember the name of the actor in that.
I was pretty much blown away by this movie. I most likely will get into spoilers, so once again, if you plan on seeing this at the theater, and really you should, maybe stop reading this review.
This is a movie you go to the theater to see. Don’t wait until it comes to Netflix or whatever, go out and see this movie. Especially if you’re a fan of the Wolverine character or the previous X-Men movies… actually, scratch that. This is nothing like the previous films. For tone the closest this thing gets is maybe First Class. And yet Logan is still better. I’ll come out and say this is the best X-Men movie.
The fact this movie is still in the same universe as X-Men Origins should be illegal. It’s been years since I’ve seen that travesty, but since Logan was released, clips of it get shown during their reviews. How anyone thought that was a good idea, I have no clue.
I mean, just look at that stupid shit. Look at it!
Speaking of Wolverine’s claw blades, how does he still have them when he lost them in The Wolverine, the last solo film? Did they ever explain that? Was it reset during the events in Future Past? This issue has less to do with the Logan film and more to do with the plot holes and fucked up continuity of the rest of the films have. Sometimes it’s like watching the El Mariachi films in order. Like they’re sequels… kind of, yet they really aren’t. It’s frustrating that these films can’t follow their own continuity.
Enough on the shitty X-Men films, let’s talk about what really matters.
My movie going experience!
Really the only complaints I had while seeing this were about the people at my theater. I went to the theater that serves you food. Overpriced food that you’d be crazy to waste money on. I mean, $8 for popcorn? That’s fucking nuts. I mostly just nursed a $5 coke for 2 hours. Though smelling everyone else’s food will instantly make you wish you weren’t such a cheapskate.
Another issue I had was all the kids that came to see this. Maybe I’m a bit of hypocrite, seeing as I basically grew up on violent 80’s action movies. My theory on that being, if you show kids violent films, most likely they’ll grow up either wanting to make those horror effects or in the film making process. Or just have a love for films in general. And I see nothing wrong with that.
But on the other hand, when I was 8 I watched Candyman. Forever making me fear public bathrooms. But as an added bonus it allowed me to try my best to freak out my classmates.
As soon as I noticed the family of kids, I prayed they wouldn’t sit next to me and of course, in a packed theater they chose to sit right next to me. At least they didn’t have BO like the guy had when I went to see Split. I’d take bad BO over annoying kids and talking during dramatic moments any day. Yeah, you heard right, an X-Men film that might actually make you tear up. Imagine that. And cry for the right reason too. Not because you just watched a bastardization of something you love.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Let’s get down to it. This time for real.
At this point, everyone should know who the Wolverine character is. Hugh Jackman has been playing the role for 17 years. Like Robert Downey Jr. playing Iron Man, Hugh Jackman is Wolverine, no one else can really play that part. This isn’t Batman or Doctor Who where anyone could just step in to play that character. The best option was to give him one last hoorah.
And that isn’t a spoiler. Everyone has been saying this is the last time Hugh Jackman wants to play this character. God, I wonder what that could mean?!!
The year is 2029, mutants are all but gone. The world seems like it is on the brink of a Mad Max makeover. We learn later on that the mutant gene was eradicated by genetically altered crops, which basically goes in everything. They killed off the mutant gene and hunted down most of the mutants.
Now the X-Men are gone, Charles Xavier’s school is also no more. Life kind of sucks.
Logan is working as a limo driver, buying drugs to help take care of a 100 year old Charles Xavier with dementia. Of course being a powerful psychic mutant, having dementia can be catastrophic. Especially when Charles has his seizures. It isn’t outright said, only hinted at that he might have had a fit, killing the X-Men. Though I could be reading too much into that. I just know he caused something horrific a while back. And people died.
Logan tries to manage it with medicine, keeping him in a metal silo to help damper the effects of his psychic abilities. He also has Caliban, a character introduced in X-Men: Apocalypse. He’s a mutant that can find other mutants, he also burns in the sunlight.
Logan is doing about as well as Charles at this point. His healing ability isn’t working properly. Even one of his claw blades needs help to get unhinged at one point. His knuckles are leaking pus, and his body is covered in horrific scars. His all adamantium skeleton is slowly poisoning him. He even walks with a limp for most of the picture.
He was crotchety before in the previous films, but now he’s worn out and crotchety. I mean, he has to be like 300 years old at this point. Everyone says he sees Xavier as a father figure, when most likely he sees him as a son. He’s just a kid compared to Logan.
If you thought you’d have to wait to see Logan use his claws on someone, you literally have to wait 30 seconds into the movie. Logan is taking a grandpa nap in the back of his limo when a group of cholos show up and try jacking the limo’s hubcaps. The encounter doesn’t go well, resulting in Logan slicing them to ribbons. Limbs and heads fly like crazy. Starting off strong, saying yeah, we aren’t playing around. Hell, even the first line out of Logan’s mouth is “fuck”.
Their little unsustainable life these three have laid out for themselves gets tossed into the shit pile when a Mexican woman shows up with a little girl, asking for Logan’s help to take them across the Canadian border.
Being the crotchety old man he is, he refuses, telling them to fuck off. But she is offering to pay a few thousand to do the job. Wanting to take Charles on a boat so his fits won’t hurt anyone but him, he agrees to the job.
But when he gets there, the woman is dead and the young girl is missing.
He clearly got himself mixed up in something he doesn’t want any part of. He even got a visit from a mercenary type belonging to The Reavers. A band of ex-military with robotic appendages. That introduces us to who we think will be our main villain Pierce. They want the little girl. Why, we don’t know. Well, if you know anything about the little girl’s character in the comics or have seen the trailer, you already know why they want her and who she is.
Now enter Laura, the little girl apparently Charles has been psychically communicating with. Everyone just assumes it’s his dementia, but nope. He was actually talking to someone. A child mutant. The kind of mutant that doesn’t exist anymore.
She snuck her way into Logan’s trunk when he stopped by to take the job, finding the lady killed. Now Laura won’t leave until Logan takes her to Eden, a rumored safe haven for mutants up in Canada.
That’s when The Reavers show up. So many face stabs and limbs flying everywhere. You quickly learn Laura has blades like Logan. But only two for each hand and a special one on her foot. I waited for the inevitable scene where she kicks a guy in the balls only to have her blade come out. But it never happens. I mean, she does kick a guy in the balls but never with her blade. Unless I missed it when shit started going down.
The action in this is fast and brutal. Extremely visceral. Nothing is really all that stylized, I mean, there’s no scene where Logan rides a motorcycle and jumps it at a helicopter, slicing off the propellers like in Origins, but still. The closest we got in Logan to that was when they are driving away from The Reavers, attempting to crash through a chain link fence. Which doesn’t go as expected, getting the limo stuck in the process.
After killing what seemed to be half The Reavers, Logan and crew manage to escape.
Logan doesn’t know where he’s going, Charles wants him to go to Eden, the mutant safe haven. Instead they go to a casino.
Logan goes to get drunk to kill the pain away, when he comes back The Reavers are there waiting for him. Seems Caliban’s mutant powers came in handy.
Fortunately, Charles is having another one of his seizures, freezing everyone in the casino in place. Now this is actually one of the coolest scenes in the film. Logan fights through the psychic waves, stabbing the frozen Reavers as he passes them.
Now on the run again, they get ambushed by self-driving cargo trucks. At first I was a bit confused as to what just happened. It seemed like they were going after this family on the road next to them. Logan helps them with their horses and in return, they get invited to a hot meal.
We learn that corporations have bought up most of their land, all but their house, which they refuse to leave. They’re constantly getting harassed by goons hired by the company. But this time they messed with this family while Logan was around. He quickly makes them run off with their tails between their legs, but you haven’t seen the last of them.
Now here is where the review might get a bit spoiler heavy. And I might as well just dump a whole bunch of spoilers all at once.
After The Reavers get the shit killed out of them, things are switched up a bit and their lethal weapon is released. A young evil clone of Wolverine. The kids where being experimented on, created from mutant DNA, granting them powers, some which might even seem familiar to you. Laura is a clone of Logan. The people behind these experiments found that the kids are too hard to control. When they developed a perfectly obedient Wolverine clone, they no longer saw any potential for the kids, so they had them killed. The Mexican lady freed them, telling them they should all meet back up at Eden.
In a shocking move, Charles has a heart to heart with Logan, but this wasn’t Logan. It was evil clone. Charles gets stabbed in the chest. I thought maybe he’s go out in a blaze of glory, maybe trying to help fend off the bad guys long enough for Logan and Laura to escape. But nope. Blades in the chest, dying shortly after.
If Charles wasn’t enough, the evil clone also made quick work of the farmer’s family.
No longer wanting to be used by The Reavers, Caliban gets his hands on some grenades, blowing up their truck and himself.
That’s when the yokels show back up. But this time they mess with the evil wolverine clone. Let’s just say he didn’t let them off with just a warning.
Now back on the run again, Charles dead, Logan half way there himself, they finally find Eden and what do you know, it actually exists. The mutant kids are there waiting for them. So I forgot to mention that the X-Men are pretty popular in this time. Logan is pretty much a celebrity among the kids. They even shave him while he’s passed out to make him look more like himself.
Even one of the kids had a giant Wolverine toy. The same toy I always wanted growing up but cost too damn much.
Still sleeping off his battle with evil Wolverine, Logan wakes up to find the kids have already left for the woods, the shortcut into Canada.
But of course The Reavers have already found them, quickly hunting them down. There was this fat little boy in the group I kept wondering what his powers were, obviously it wasn’t running, seeing as he’s the first to get captured.
Logan takes this super juice to help him heal, something the kids stole as they were leaving the facility. The problem is, it doesn’t last long and kind of makes you crazy. Logan don’t care, it’s stabby time.
In kind of a disappointed move, it isn’t Logan who takes out Pierce, the head Reaver, but it is the kids who kill him. You’d think he’d be left for either Laura or Logan. But Logan has his hands full dealing with evil him. A battle Logan isn’t going to walk away from.
And I guess I’ll end the review here. I mean, I already told you pretty much the whole story. The trailer basically shows you the rest. I will say the ending does get pretty emotional, especially when Laura is crying. It really got me when she calls Logan daddy. It probably would have been more impactful if not for the assholes sitting next to me who kept talking, even whipping out their cellphones.
The fat guy in front of me shoving pizza down his throat was texting through the trailers, but as soon as the M&M guys came out and said hey, asshole, turn off your phone, he immediately did.
Just go out and see this damn movie. It’s fantastic. And! As of right now, it is the best thing I’ve seen this year.
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