In LOGAN you’ll get a wonderful handful of sequences from SHANE on a hotel room television screen as the quasi-Dementia ridden Charles Xavier reclines and Laura lays on the bed to watch the film with great interest and there was hope for the future.
Seriously. I just don’t know when I’ve seen a scene quite so easily beautiful as Charles Xavier watching SHANE and recalling where he first saw it – and that shit just made me love Patrick Stewart’s Xavier at a level I’ve never had before. Here, Patrick Stewart is putting it all up on that screen. This is masterful work on his part. Ok, so yes… I love Charles Xavier. As a character he’s been with me through so much of my life. Then I wind up in a wheelchair – and part of how I handled that, was my love of the dear Professor. Bless Patrick Stewart for giving us the wise Paternal figures of Picard and Xavier. I know Stewart isn’t nearly as fragile as he’s playing here, but like the feeling I had when I saw Ian McKellen in MR. HOLMES… the make up was so convincing when mixed with the performance, that just as the older figures in your own life transform their outward appearances – and you find yourself wanting to hear more stories. Ask the questions you’ve never asked. I think that’s at the core of this scene for me. The magic of sharing movies is so integral to my own Father Geek experience… so yeah, this played me. Hook, Line, Sinker –
LOGAN is the very best film to come out of the entire Fox Marvel thing. It’s so utterly refreshing that just thinking about it – whilst listening to John Williams’ THE COWBOYS score – I’m crying smiling. I love DEADPOOL and I like a lot of the X-films – and I’ve been spottier on stand-alone Wolverines… but this… This fucking movie man. This fucking movie. This shit. This is hold the lighter up ignited till your fingers char great.
I mean, this was pure power stance. But more. This was a Wolverine with no more fucks to give. Well, maybe a few last fucks – and bless the fuck out of the word fuck, it’s so fucking musical. Especially if you imagine fucking Sam Jackson’s epic voice ever fucking time. Xavier and Logan are at moments, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau (THE ODD COUPLE)… at others they’re fucking Tommy Lee Jones and William Fucking Devane (ROLLING THUNDER). Still at other points they’re John Wayne and Roscoe Lee Browne (THE COWBOYS).
LOGAN is that special fucking miracle – Man… If there was ever a full on X-MEN movie with this spice and energy – just fucking keep em coming forever.
This is a film that knows when you’re in an action scene, and then when you’re just telling the story of these characters that you’re supposed to care about. But recently, all the X-MEN films have been rushing to Armageddon after Armageddon, with no time to breathe between. Like that extended Mall sequence on the last X-MEN film – the film needed that. We needed to be reminded that these were teenagers.
In LOGAN, James Mangold has us with Logan and Professor X – two people that were never entirely comfortable being around. Chuck knows every horror that Logan has lived. Seen it, smelt it, tasted it. Sure Xavier helped Logan with his memory, but that just brought endless pain. He’s been ripped apart and put back together – and Xavier was put in a wheelchair by a friend/adversary – although originally it was his brother… but that’s talking pulp, not cinema. Neither one of these guys wanted to grow old with nothing but one another. It’s beautifully done.
Hugh Jackman just unloads in LOGAN – He was always too fucking tall and too fucking nice. You like to think you might have maybe see some semblance of BESERKER WOLVIE in one of these movies already, but fuck that. Royally. There’s carnage unfurled in this movie that was like the 4th of July! There is much to revel in.
What the film does best is create a legendary tapestry for LOGAN. In the same way that ROCKY BALBOA or RAMBO – where Stallone finally grabbed his legends by the short hairs and reinvented them against the ropes of life, LOGAN isn’t being cute anymore. He’s tired. Everyone he liked is gone. He hurts, constantly. His labored breathing, walking… raging. He’s the sort of fighter that has to force himself to his feet again, using his claws to pull him to his feet, fight impossible forces to get where he has to… allowing his pain to keep driving him forward.
This is beautiful stuff. You’ve never seen Jackman anywhere near this great in the role. Is this the end of Hugh Jackman as WOLVERINE? I’m not sure. This isn’t far off from being a DARK KNIGHT RETURNS type story for Logan. Jackman is playing the character older than he is – and he could make more X-MEN or WOLVERINE movies that lead into this – but frankly…
LOGAN is the fucking mike drop of the X-Men films. It isn’t about the end of anything, but a new beginning. Personally, I feel this is James Mangold’s absolute best film. Emotionally I’m connected to every character here.
Perhaps none, so much as Dafne Keen’s LAURA. She’s… just like my little sister. Savage, Bilingual and thoroughly fucking awesome! She’ll be one of your favorite characters upon film this year. If not, you’re probably one of those folks that thinks this girl was traumatized, but I guarantee – she was giggling and laughing at all the awesome she got to do here.
Boyd Holbrook’s Donald Pierce is dialed back ever so slightly, but what he’s a part of is just fucking evil. Evil in the way that corporate evil works. That reveal should raise every anger cell in your body to explode with fury. FUCK THESE PEOPLE – they all deserve to be carved up.
The pursuit of EDEN tickled the living shit out of me. But I love the echoes to Mark Rydell’s THE COWBOYS with John Wayne and Roscoe Lee Browne… Boyd Holbrook kind of reminds me of a slightly lighter weight Bruce Dern – but also the Coen Brother’s version of TRUE GRIT. Then again, it also has echoes of PALE RIDER and it definitely names SHANE as a shoulder patch for the film.
LOGAN might be the very best Comic Book Hero Film yet made. Because it wants to be a kind of UNFORGIVEN of the genre. The jaw-dropping fucking wow we’ve been waiting for. Warning though, the film is so fucking great, it will make you rage upon every X-film we’ve been given thus far. This is the real deal!
