LOGAN : Official Reviews (Spoiler Alert)

[jo]

This one is a 5 out of 5 stars review of LOGAN and the Blu-ray release --

www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/logan-movie-review-blu-ray-hugh-jackman-patrick-stewart-1073342.html

[jo]

This is a avery favorable UK review of both the movie, the Noir version, and the BluRay features.

www.entertainment-focus.com/film-section/film-reviews/dvd-blu-ray/logan-noir-blu-ray-review/

[jo]

A hitherto unpublished review, but what a tribute --


www.startribune.com/superhero-movies-grow-up-with-logan-the-brutal-finale-for-wolverine/415231824/

Superhero movies grow up with 'Logan,' the brutal finale for Wolverine
Bold approach breathes unexpected maturity into Marvel Comics formula.  | ★★★½ out of 4 stars
By Colin Covert Star Tribune March 2, 2017 — 8:21pm



20th Century Fox
Hugh Jackman has grown grizzled as Logan.


Hollywood’s superhero movies have fallen into a repetitive rut of sequels, reboots and sidebar adventures. The productions are pleasant enough but superficial. Without a trailblazing reinterpretation of the material, like Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, they don’t demand or reward a viewer’s attentive intelligence.


Which is why “Logan” is such a spectacularly good surprise. Combining shocking, R-rated action and somber themes, it’s the sort of grueling movie one watches with mouth gaping and face rapt. It moves the genre into difficult territory we haven’t encountered before. Entertaining as they are, Marvel movies aren’t expected to be this mature, this dark or this human. This is a bold, coherent story inspired by a comic book, not slavishly based on it.

The title sets the stage by avoiding an X-Men alias for a more-realistic given name. Hugh Jackman, whose powerful performances as Wolverine turned the mutant with retractable metal claws into a cult object, gives a deep reading of the character as he would be in 2029. Having lived almost 200 years as a physically fit monster immune to injury and pain, he has aged into grizzled vulnerability and mortality.


When he steps into view in the ankle-height opening sequence, he doesn’t strut with confidence, and the worn shoes establish a mood of deterioration. He’s not flying in a supersonic aircraft but driving around Las Vegas as a freelance chauffeur. Attacked by a street gang, he has little capacity to defend himself. After centuries of physical and emotional injury, Logan isn’t invulnerable anymore. He’s one of the exhausted, vulnerable walking wounded.
His time off the roads is devoted to caring for his mentor, Prof. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). The benevolent telepath is even more enfeebled. Unable at times to control his psychic powers, he has been declared a “weapon of mass destruction” by the government.

Executive orders that classify mutants as a security threat have sent seismic tremors through the community. The mutant population has fallen to near-invisibility as ever fewer new mutants are born and SWAT-style police squads capture those remaining wherever they hide. When we encounter them, Logan and the frail Xavier live hidden in a ruined desert annex with his psychic caretaker Caliban (Stephen Merchant, deftly trading his comic skills for sharp drama). They are planning — hoping, really — to buy an old yacht and sail away to safety before it’s too late.


The money they need for their getaway might be available from a woman who offers Logan a big payment to transport a mysterious young Mexican girl, Laura (Dafne Keen), to a distant destination. Speaking entirely in Spanish and almost unable to control her raging anger, she’s all but impossible for Logan to control. Meanwhile, raiding parties sent by Dr. Zander Rice (Richard E. Grant), an evil eugenic scientist with plans for the near-extinct mutants’ gene pool, stay in constant pursuit.

Logan puts his own escape plans on hold to defend Laura, thus playing the caretaker for a wheelchair-bound man in his 90s and an explosive young adolescent with bloodthirsty tendencies.

Following a near-miss at a psychologically dramatic approach to the character in 2013’s “The Wolverine,” director James Mangold scores a bull’s-eye with this follow-up. Both films are violent and bleak, but here the tone is precisely controlled. The somber new chapter offers deep character studies and high-impact action sequences. Logan’s fist sabers are not the only weapons that draw serious blood in carnage that is mind-bending without being mindless.


By keeping its focus on its central role, the film avoids the character chaos that heroic team movies often create. With the always magnetic Jackman in top form, Logan emerges as a prime example of how Americans hope to be. He’s a rugged individual, at times reluctant to commit to the needs of strangers but at heart a valiant, selfless and willing warrior against shared enemies. It is the sort of reluctant hero a dark and cynical cinematic universe needs.


The film’s conclusion carries an impressive level of emotional significance. It’s earned by a serious focus from the opening, with no light comedy cameo by Marvel maestro Stan Lee to undercut the sustained tension. With a spirit of melancholy farewell at the finale, this is clearly Jackman’s final turn as the character he created. There could hardly be a better send-off.

 
[e-mail]
Twitter: @colincovert
 

Hope AMPAS members develop the same appreciation of the movie when they view their " For Your Consideration" screeners!


Jo

[jo]

In a featured article on THE BLOCKBUSTER STRIKES BACK --

www.nouse.co.uk/2017/10/06/the-blockbuster-strikes-back/


Excerpts --

However, despite the persistence of Transformers’ dead-weight action and some disappointing box office flops for impressive films, 2017’s blockbusters might just have been the crop that returned to the days of not just making money, but giving an audience something to mull over on their way home. A good starting point might be the biggest money-maker of them all: comic-book movies.

In March, Logan was able to deliver, of all things, a beautifully made, unexpectedly moving paean to ageing and legacy; albeit in the guise of a film where Hugh Jackman sprouts adamantium claws from his knuckles. A hard ‘R’ rating attached to the film also potentially indicated that the studio had quite possibly prioritised making something with genuine heft and emotional impact instead of a more family and box office friendly film. Despite this brave gamble, Logan proved one of the most profitable and critically acclaimed films of the year.

Fast forward a few months and both Wonder Woman and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 both proved immensely entertaining, and an incredibly profitable successes. Though not quite achieving the emotional gut-punch of Logan, both films had a clear and unmistakable director’s vision behind them, flying in the face of committee-made decisions.

[jo]

This is an elegy worth every word! A tear almost fell while reading some of the most poignant parts!


georgetownvoice.com/2017/11/14/logan-death-of-the-superhero/

Logan : Death of the Superhero

By: Eman Rahman
11/14/2017

Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992) is one of my favorite films of all time, easily my favorite of the Western genre, because it recontextualized the Western film in a time when the Western film was already dying. Eastwood, having played numerous cowboys throughout his storied career, was now a grizzled former gunslinger living in the middle of nowhere, trying to care for his family and repent his bloody past. As Eastwood ostensibly represents the Western genre, this domesticated role reversal and his subsequent call back into action make Unforgiven a reflection on the Western, dramatically criticizing the typical Western use of violence that promotes false ideals of manhood and subjugating women and minorities. As such, it’s no wonder that 2017’s Logan, itself a reflection on the superhero genre, would take several cues from Unforgiven.

All big movie genres have life cycles: they’re born, they become popular, they exhaust themselves, and, if they’re important enough, they transform. The Western genre is an easily identifiable example of this, as its visible boom from the 1930s to the 1960s and ensuing decline towards the turn of the century are indicative of this trend. Likewise, Hugh Jackman’s tenure as Wolverine in the X-Men films bookends two important milestones in the superhero genre. X-Men (2000) was the start of the superhero craze that has come to dominate Hollywood for the last two decades, and 2017’s Logan represents a response to the public’s exhaustion with that dominance. Logan borrows quite a bit from the revisionist Western as a result—after all, the myth of the superhero is in many ways the same as the myth of the gunslinger—showcasing a famous hero outside the law entering a grey world in which the concepts of right and wrong have become blurred, effectively transforming the way we will continue to watch superhero movies from now on. Where Logan mirrors Unforgiven in its tone, it also does so in its purpose. Unforgiven signaled the death of the Western genre, while looking back on it in a new light. Logan does the same for superheroes.



Logan is the product of a modern genre system which draws influence from motion pictures’ past while looking to the future. It’s an X-Men movie, deconstructed and then fastened back together with the sinew of the Western. The thematic meat is aimed at the appetite of moviegoers who are tired of having to suffer through the latest serialized go-around of faux end-of-the-world stakes. Here is a self-contained narrative that seeks to ring closure not only to several iconic characters’ existences, but to an era in the lives of fans who have watched the last seventeen years of Hugh Jackman donning adamantium claws in the iconic role.

The film’s premise seems pessimistic at first. Twelve years from where we stand, mutants are no longer born and America is a scorching hell-scape for the few that remain. Violence is the fabric of America in 2029. The only sensible recourse, as the gods of irony would have it, is to escape back to Canada where it all began. But Logan wants no part of a new community. He moonlights as a limo driver to save up enough money to live out at sea, where neither he nor his ailing mentor can cause people harm, away from the world the X-Men failed to preserve. He may have Caliban and Xavier in tow, invalids whose powers involve tracking down any mutants the world has left—a last-ditch effort at community—but to him their function is merely to help each other live out their final days. In a sense, Logan is alone. He was once kind of a hero. Once kind of a good guy, who went on adventures. Once kind of a father, who helped Rogue find safety and guided her towards finding herself. Now he’s a myth. A shell of himself. A drifter without a purpose. The Wolverine exists in the pages of comics, but Logan struggles to retain that heroism. The world has given up on all those like him. He’s giving up on it in return. So, it seems that this dysfunctional family is all he has left.



But Logan is not the dour film this setup would indicate. It is undoubtedly a film about lonely and morose people, and a violent one to boot, but it’s about the good these people do in their final days. More importantly, it’s about how they’re pushed to do it; how they find the things and people that make life worth living again, no matter how briefly. It’s about reaching into the darkness of their pasts and finding a light worth sharing. It’s about the things that birthed us and made us who we are – the pain, the trauma, the unforgiving ugliness that we inflict on each other and on ourselves – but it’s also about where we go from there.

At the beginning of any story, we wonder whether our protagonist will be a hero, whether man will become myth, even if it’s just for a moment. In this story, Logan has been a hero before: he’s a kind of celebrity, his good deeds have been embellished, they are already folklore. The presence of actual ­X-Men comics in the film is more than just a wink to the audience. It not only creates a rift between Wolverine, the myth, and Logan, the flesh & blood, but to some it provides a means of escape (both literal and metaphorical, considering the condition of the dehumanized youths of the Weapon X program). Logan is less film about a character finding out who he is, and more about remembering who he once was. And then, Logan becomes that hero once again for us, one last time.



That is why Logan’s timing and effectiveness are so perfect. The film revels as both a longing for and a criticism of the superhero genre. Conventions of the superhero genre are tried and true, and the film accordingly follows some and upends others. But more importantly, in this last outing of the Wolverine, Logan begs to answer the question of what occurs when genre conventions become so well known that the audience demands something new. What form does that change take?

Nostalgia, for starters, is quite omnipresent actually in today’s Hollywood where every blockbuster has some connection to a popular movie from the past. However, nostalgia is not, by any means, a bad thing, because memory is such a strong signifier for emotional connection. But rather than throwing out the occasional reference, Logan evokes a romanticized past and updates the tried and true storylines with contemporary elements, making audiences aware of this relationship between the past and present. Logan furthermore demythologizes the superhero genre, as it subjects popular myths and conventions to a reality that undercuts and exposes them as inadequate or even harmful. The whole movie is a meditation of the violence that all superhero films imply, as it shows a visceral brutality that complicates the heroics of Logan’s past, as well as those of all superheroes. The film goes to show that no personal moral code can wield power without risking devastation. Logan himself expresses that people who get close to him always end up dying, but the ailing Charles Xavier moreover makes this theme painfully clear as the narrative implies that his aging mind is responsible for the unintentional death of many innocent mutants. Logan’s past exploits of heroism from the previous films even reemerge as trauma and nightmares.


But in the end, there is still a reaffirmation of the myth, which is the most interesting aspect of this entire endeavor. Logan does subvert the genre but, in the end, chooses to reaffirm the myth as something that we need to believe in. Both the film and the character make one last final act of sacrificial heroics that reaffirms the genre myths after exposing them as inadequate, but embracing once again the greatness and hopefulness inspired by superheroes. Superhero films have always accentuated the choice to act heroically even in times of adversity, but what proves the most powerful is witnessing someone finally learning to live with his decisions. Logan no longer has any reason to see good in the world, but he comes back fighting to see it for someone’s sake. He returns as a warrior, finally at peace with what he leaves behind: the death, the pain, the trauma, the suffering—but also, inextinguishable light.

The dog tags, the samurai sword, the adventures on printed pages; these are all symbols of events we witnessed during this seventeen-year saga. They are reminders of a series that was at once disappointing and iconic, much like its protagonist. But here, as this final chapter comes to a close, bringing with it the missing weight of all the death and prejudice that were once mere noise and color, Logan and his final film appearance serve a far greater purpose.

They remind us that no matter what’s come before, no matter the journey we’ve taken or the mistakes we’ve made or the things we deeply regret, there is still a way to move forward when our wounds refuse to heal. There is still a way to make the world better for someone who might need it. And perhaps, at the end of the day, that’s the ultimate theme of the superhero genre. Many superhero films have been plagued in recent years by the stereotypical beam-in-the-sky climax, but turning that skybeam off and beating the bad guys is what makes the world better in that situation. In Logan, it’s just on a more personal level, invoking an empathy which provides a lens to recontextualize that overarching theme.



Still, in its efforts to examine the superhero genre, Logan comes out as one of the best comic books movies of all time, and certainly my favorite film of this year. It’s the best work that both Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart have done in the X-Men series, and maybe their entire careers. Marco Beltrami’s haunting score, Francois Audouy’s dusty, consumerist nightmare production design, John Mathieson’s painterly frames, and James Mangold’s fearlessness to unleash all our bloody fantasies while allowing Logan’s primal core to scream out create an exceedingly entertaining and thoughtful final film for one of cinema’s most significant heroes, one of tragedy and hope that ends softly, rather than with a bang. Yeah, that’s all great. But on top of that, the movie is a conversation between nostalgia for the genre and our increasing frustration with its limits. It’s a contemplation on where superheroes have failed and prevailed, and consequently how we should all continue to hope despite the imbalance.

Logan is the next turning point for the comic book film, an attempt to interrogate the contours of the superhero myth in order to see if there are any interesting directions left to go and to urge us to be hopeful rather than disappointed when the time comes to embrace the coming death of the superhero genre.

Every Oscar voter should read this elegiac review! The message of the film, the cinematic execution, the powerful performances are all worth a Best Picture win!

And I wish FOX had more faith in it than simply banking on favored names in the business in a retelling of a political/historical drama!

The Oscars should hail the triumph of humanity and LOGAN is well worth all the accolades it has received!

Jo

[jo]

Not a true review of the movie, but the legend of LOGAN haunts The Last JEDI!

screenrant.com/last-jedi-logan-luke-skywalker-better-story-death/


An interesting comparison of how Logan's final journey seems like the inspiration for the final journey of Luke Skywalker...and coming to the conclusion that the Logan end-saga was the more meaningful and emotionally devastating final storytelling!

[jo]

Revisiting LOGAN and its most important themes and message!

moviebabblereviews.com/2018/04/19/were-the-themes-in-logan-overshadowed-by-its-reputation/

Were the Themes in Logan Overshadowed by Its Reputation?
by Olaf Lesniak · Published April 19, 2018 · Updated April 19, 2018



It has been over a year since Logan came out and because Avengers: Infinity War is coming out to wrap up such a big hallmark for the superhero genre, I thought we’d take a closer look at what this movie had to offer. Many including me believe it more than deserves to sit among movies like The Dark Knight, The Avengers and Spider-Man 2 as the genre’s best. Strangely enough, it already seems people have forgotten what the film was originally trying to convey and, ironically, it has itself to blame. This article is meant to dive deep and reevaluate the craftsmanship that made it such a powerful picture.

“They’re everything you say…”

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: “Logan evolved superhero movies”. The studio behind it did something unexpected, quite shocking actually. It put creativity over commerce. So rarely do we see big budget studios taking risks with marquee characters and give them the R-rating. Maybe if Deadpool hadn’t of proved the success of the R-rated blockbuster things would have looked different, but what set this one apart from even that movie has little to do with the rating. The big headline that did, though, was that James Mangold’s passion project saw the light of day and worked both financially and critically.


Considering the drama surrounding superhero projects, it’s no wonder the movie feels like a giant leap. Patty Jenkins had to fight over the inclusion of the No Man’s Land scene in Wonder Woman, aka the part which got everyone buzzing. Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four was reworked by the studio without the director’s permission to the point of no resemblance to the original product. Then there are the multiple cuts of films which don’t get released until the Blu-Ray/DVD edition. Even looking at the more positive examples, Kevin Feige planning out the future of the MCU puts creatives at a limit to their craft. This alone makes Logan a groundbreaker, a revolutionary game changer. It’s different and profitable. Sadly, there are also downsides to this praise.

“…but so much more.”

The viewers stop caring about what the film is and focused more on what it accomplishes. For many, it’s a much more comfortable conversation because those opinions are then more based on facts making them less disputable. How many headline articles have you seen about the massive success of Black Panther? In truth, it’s human behavior. That’s why we keep world records on everything. It’s not wrong, but in this case, a part of it does more harm than good.


I’ve barely seen anyone speak about Logan in a way that deconstructed its themes to the fullest. There is an overabundance of analyses only highlighting the importance or what it did for the industry. Today, I wanna change this, not to show how smart, wise and all-knowing I am, but because I loved this movie and desire to start more conversations surrounding the meanings which are covered by its positive reception. It’s as if I only spoke about the box-office success of Star Wars and never its emotional impact. I wanna look at what concepts it presents. Shed a less monotonous association of the movie.


*************************************************************************************




There are exactly three main themes in Logan that give it its identity. I believe Mangold purposefully chose the focal characters of the movie, so with each, he could say something meaningful. Here are the themes which many more need to notice. Expect a major spoiler warning.

“It’s not about deserve.”

Patrick Stewart did an amazing job portraying the oldest character in the film. Charles Xavier is the man who created the X-Men, who decided to help the ones in oppression, the marginalized ones. You could call him the definition of what X-Men stand for. He represents the team’s legacy, the history and most importantly, the past. An old man who can do no wrong.
In modern-day though, Charles is mentally ill and vulnerable. Mutants around the world are fading away and in turn so are his dreams. He can barely pee on his own. Then there are the seizures which cause a psychic wave of devastation and the only way to stop them from happening is by taking medication he doesn’t want. A man who used to help others is now in need. Now they’re the X-Men themselves.


Through his monologue, we find out he did something to them. In the comic which this film was inspired by, Old Man Logan, Wolverine was mind-controlled into killing all the X-Men. Here the credit seems to go to Charles. He refers to it as the incident in Westchester. Did he kill them? Was he also under the influence of mind-control? We never find out. All we know is that he hurt them, betrayed the group of people he trusted, the family he swore to build bridges with. Why am I bringing this all up? You see, the farmhouse scene in Logan was all around his closing arc.

This was, without a doubt the most perfect night I’ve had in a very long time…..and I know I don’t deserve it, do I?
A family who needed help let Charles into their lives. They gave them their own food, bed, and water. The family in a way was a symbol of what mattered to Xavier. He was also the one who was persistent in keeping Laura with them to recreate the old days. It’s also partly why he was the one who insisted on staying because he wanted to share the value of belonging. And on that day, Charles belonged. Later, going back to the monologue, we see him lay in bed and questioning things. Does he deserve this moment?

Charles Xavier represents many of us. In life, we get a lot of things which we maybe did not deserve. We did things which were wrong. We hurt people. And we question if it’s right whether we earned it. But beforehand Charles also did a lot of good, and maybe the good is why the bad doesn’t matter. Maybe that’s why James Mangold doesn’t even tell us what happened in Westchester. It’s about the right intentions we have. Sometimes we mess up, we happen to hurt others. Charles failed the only thing he cared for, but did he? He saved so many lives and dignities even if he later disappointed them. Thanks to him they too were able to spread love to others. Like a true hero.

To me, this is the saddest scene in the entire movie. Not because Charles dies. So many of us see this as a very tragic conclusion to his life, but right before X-24 performs the final blow he says, “I think I finally understand it”. The speech is what made it such a tear-jerker and dying in such a way may have felt catastrophic, but in a way, it was also beautiful. From his perspective, his arc comes to a close. It’s the perfect way to go out because he left with something missing before. Inner peace.



“It’s about what you believe.”

The second most important character in the film is no other than Laura Kinney, performed by Dafne Keen. She’s a character that’s sort of forced upon Logan by some woman he doesn’t know, and later Charles. In a world when fewer mutants exist, there is Laura who means something to everyone.


She represents a rebirth to some, a weapon of mass destruction to others. Yet there’s always a common theme linking the differences. She is all their future. It’s fitting how they decided to use a little girl as children are usually used to symbolize tomorrow, the new age. She’s a new hope for mutant kind. The character herself has motivations set in place and it’s all represented in one item. A comic book.

Logan: Where we’re going, Eden, it doesn’t exist. The nurse got it from a comic book.[…] It’s not real.
Charles: It is for Laura.

A silly, comic book. You see, earlier in the movie Logan is given coordinates said to take the girl to Eden, a safe haven. To his surprise, the X-Men comics Laura was reading had the exact same numbers. An entire group of young mutants wants to escape there without knowing if it actually exists. They just take the made-up story as gospel. What does the comic book have to do with real life? Sometimes even the simplest of things can hold the most significance to us, especially as we’re kids. The comic was their beacon of hope of a world where they’ll be safe. So, in the end, we never get to know if they made it to Eden or not.

That’s the answer the movie again doesn’t provide us with, yet really gives you something better. Getting there was Laura’s main intent. The stories were enough for her to believe and along the way she managed to change people’s lives. Despite the deaths in the film, everyone who she touched got a fulfilled ending. Laura’s relevance to the story, if it’s to continue the mutant gene or help others get to Eden, elevated everyone. Her faith in a comic book inspired others around her to change for the better. Everyone’s faith in her beliefs elevated them. Similarly, others can make us feel inspired. Sometimes even one person can be enough to save another from the miseries eating them away from the inside.


She was the person to give Charles a new reason to live. She was the reason why Logan ended up fighting on. In a way, the meaning has a much more significant sense than the outcome. It’s not about the final destination, rather the journey. Laura leaves the audience member with a sense of affirmation that we’re currently in a better position than at the beginning of the film. In our lives, the same could be true. Many say the world hasn’t changed. It’s exactly as it was, it only hides underneath a different face. Laura challenges that. The downfalls of characters are a focus for the majority of the film.

Charles feels lonely. Logan drinks an excessive amount of alcohol, loses his way, feels miserable and suicidal. Yet at the end, despite the bigger picture of the world still haunting mutants, societies crumbling apart, people changed. Logan and Charles are no longer lost souls. They found an appreciation. Yes, our lives may start becoming surrounded by something darker than ever before, but that doesn’t mean we cannot be better. It’s true that the world doesn’t change, but people can. That’s the future we should aspire to.



“And I believe in love.”


And last, but not least, we have the lead character himself, Logan. Hugh Jackman always brings his A-game, but we can all agree this takes the top spot. Just as Charles represents the past, Laura the future, Logan is what’s happening now. The present is affecting him the most of all people.

Our current states are the result of what the past forged us into. For Logan, he became the Wolverine. He was made a weapon, a monster, but also a hero. It was thanks to Charles who found him and changed his life for the better. The problem was that Logan allowed his monster side to take over. This also explains why Charles admits his disappointment in him.

I called Logan a lost soul. That’s what we see him as at the start of the film, and certainly how he chooses to lead his life. Everywhere we follow him he’s either trying to recover or drink it all away. Problems are what he’s essentially trying to run away from. He wants to venture with Charles into a boat and alienate themselves from the world. Then enter Laura. In the beginning, he chooses to leave her. His involuntarily mandate to take her along proves little development occurs at this stage of his life. The girl trails around him like a chore, another problem. However, a new feeling seeds within our hero.

It’s when Charles demands to stay with the family at the farmhouse. We already established it represents a normal life. It shows the reality of when they feel most human. The inside jokes at the dinner table reminded Logan the days when he was a hero despite the inner flaws. It’s a place which reignites a spark. Charles wanted to stay at the family’s house to feel a sense of belonging, but he also wanted for Logan to see there’s always a better life he can choose to lead. One where he doesn’t always have to run away. The old man saw Laura as an opportunity to change everything, to return to the past, to the good days, not only for himself, but for Logan.


After the death of Charles Xavier, it seems Logan should give up everything. But because of the experience at the farmhouse, he was able to feel something. Even though he was venturing into, what he considered as nowhere, he decided to go help Laura. It wasn’t until the forest scene that he regained a sense of action. He went out to save the young mutants. Ultimately, Logan decided he won’t allow himself to die alone like some deserted animal. He wasn’t going to become the tool they made him into. And that’s also where a lot of Logan’s destiny lies.

To prove that we had the clone, X-24 representing his mirror image. Was he any different from that thing? His life melded him into a man turned weapon, an object, an easily disposable device, only existing for others’ gain. He let himself reach a state as lifeless as the one of the clone. This time he might’ve not been manipulated and forced to kill, but his life held as little of a meaning. He was still the victim of the Wolverine.


And in the final scene of the movie he made his own decision. He decided he will protect Laura and the young kids even if it kills him. Killed him it did. A choice formed by a sense of protection, care if you’d wanna go the cheesy route I’d even say, love. For once he died a free man. “So that’s what it feels like”. What does this exactly mean? Our instincts tell us he’s referencing the feeling of death. However, it contains a double meaning. Its second and more important definition is Logan’s recognition of a true family. Both things he never got to experience until now.


This realization comes to fruition when he tells Laura, “You don’t have to fight anymore […] don’t be what they made you”. The moral he’s learned and wants to pass onto Laura so that she wouldn’t make the same mistake. All so that now she’d be able to “run on home to your mother”.



X

Logan is a story of understanding, rebirth, and inspiration. The past, present, future all encapsulated within its main cast. Maybe we did bad things in the past. That doesn’t mean we don’t deserve the fruits of life, nor does it mean we are submissive to the dark we once used to abide by. Instead, we should seek to become better people. The past defines you, but it’ll never make you the person you are now if you won’t let it.

It’s funny how going back yet again to the movie’s most important scene, the farmhouse, they pretended to be a family by taking on the name, “the Howletts”. For Logan that was only a cover-up to hide his identity. He thought it was something he couldn’t ever be a part of. He never thought he could allow himself to join one. However, as Laura seems to suggest at the end, it was something he certainly belonged in. We all should.

Charles: You know, Logan? This is what life looks like. A home, people who love each other, safe place. You should take a moment and feel it.

Logan: So this is what it feels like.

[jo]

Not a review …

but it seems the new JOKER origin movie ( with Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker) is going to be patterned from the LOGAN artistic direction.

uproxx.com/hitfix/kevin-smith-dc-comics-joker-origin-logan/

Excerpts --

Kevin Smith is not short on opinions these days. Despite his heart attack scare and dedication to his work, Smith still finds time to lament his lack of invitation to the Bruce Willis roast on Comedy Central or talk about Star Wars and Avengers: Infinity War. This time he’s sharing his thoughts on the new DC Comics take on the Joker, telling the Batman villain’s origin on a slim budget starring Joaquin Phoenix.

During a recent edition of Ralph Garman’s Hollywood Babble-On Podcast, Smith went on to defend the idea of a Joker origin film and praised DC and Warner Bros. for the direction they seemed to be taking for the film. His reasoning? Well just look at what Fox did with Logan according to Indiewire:

“I think what they’re doing is smart,” Smith said. “This is a cheap movie, it’s $55 million. They’re not spending…$55 [million] for a comic book property? That’s very inexpensive. They’re going ‘Logan’ model, which is keep it low-budget and make it more adult.”

Logan certainly worked, and the story behind it is well-treaded territory at this point. But the build there was also superb on many levels, the biggest being Hugh Jackman’s final appearance as the character. The same can’t be said about the Joker film and the poison cloud that is currently looming over Warner’s DC Comics properties for some reason. Though for Smith, this direction indicates the studio is attempting to right the ship and get to what works while figuring out their extended universe:

LOGAN worked because the story of Logan's/Wolverine's start of his strong disenchantment with his life started in THE WOLVERINE ( and from other references in other previous XMen movies) Thus the finale movie was expected to move towards a certain direction...and that was how the storyline and character development were written and how Hugh's portrayal was directed.

It is a good sign that LOGAN is being used as some sort of filmmaking standard for a superhero movie. The fact that it was the first one of its genre to merit an Oscar nomination for its screenplay has inspired others to pursue similar storytelling models.


Jo

[jo]

South China Morning Post ( Hong Kong's arguably most prestigious paper) thinks LOGAN is the best superhero movie since THE DARK KNIGHT, despite the putdown of the genre from Ethan Hawke --

www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/2188036/classic-american-films-logan-hugh-jackmans-wolverine

[jo]

This is more of a commentary on the character of X-24 as portrayed in LOGAN as well as some insights on how he could have been more deeply explored in the story --


screenrant.com/x24-trivia-logan-xmen-movie/#leave-comment

Wolverine's Clone: 8 Things About X-24 They Didn't Cover In Logan
by Patrick Mocella – on Mar 21, 2019 in Lists

The solo Wolverine movies are of a mixed bag. The first one was a complete disaster, the second one is good if a bit forgettable but Logan was finally the one that knocked it out of the park. A lot of factors go into that, but one of them was the breakout villain of the film. No not Donald Pierce or that doctor who nearly exterminated Mutantkind, we're talking about X-24!

A physical manifestation of all of Logan's internal fears, this being unleashed his wrath in brutal ways never before seen in an X-Men movie. But there are some other things about X-24 that weren't directly shown in the film itself. What we have here is a list that explores some of the potential inspirations for this character and some finer details about the character you might not have known. So let's cut into the list... bub.




8 Constant Berserker Rage


While fans are generally fond of Hugh Jackman's portrayal of Wolverine throughout his 17 years in the role, there are some valid criticisms of how Logan was handled. One of those was how he seldom went into a true berserker rage state throughout the films. X-24, by comparison, is the exact opposite of that.

While Logan himself doesn't go full-on feral often, X-24 is essentially in a constant state of "beserker fury" that the more bloodthirsty of fans enjoy about Wolverine. It makes for a brilliant way to give fans what they want without changing the actual Logan we've grown to know and love in these movies.

7 Actually Made By Donald Pierce In Comics


While Donald Pierce gets plenty of screen time in the Logan movie, he is ultimately just a pawn of the real villain of the masterpiece, Dr.Zander Rice. In the comics, however, there was indeed an evil Wolverine that was made by Pierce.

RELATED: 10 Things The Dark Phoenix Trailer Hinted About Jean Grey

This was an android designed by Pierce to take out the original. There are some other differences to this fake robotic Logan that we will get into later on in the list, but it's safe to say that it isn't what you're expecting. That is unless you remember a specific X-Men comic story from the 1990s. You know the 1990s? The decade where there more than enough X-Men comics than to fill an entire Danger Room.
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6 Not So Mindless


Upon first glance, you may think that X-24 is an entirely mindless machine who only obeys his creator Dr.Zander Rice. While for the most part, this is accurate, there is some evidence in Logan that he does actually have some free will of his own. Not to say though that he uses this to do good like the real Wolverine.

When X-24 butchers the farmers who tried to take out Logan himself earlier in the movie, his creator pleads with him to stop the violence but the creature is so bloodthirsty he can't stop himself. Not exactly what you're looking for in an attack dog.

5 The Color Of His Eyes


While X-24 is seemingly a complete physical copy of Wolverine in his prime, there are some minor differences between the two warriors. Their hairstyles may be a bit different but if you want to notice a more important change, just look into his eyes.

RELATED: 10 Characters Way Stronger Than Wolverine (And 10 So Much Weaker)

Hugh Jackman and by extension Logan's regular eye color is hazel. However, if you take a good look at X-24 you will notice that his eyes are actually more of a golden color. While there is no narrative speculation for this, we can speculate that this is to make X-24 appear more animalistic than Logan as some members of the animal kingdom have golden eyes.


4 The Name Is Logan Albert


As mentioned above, there was actually a replica of Logan created in the comics created by Donald Pierce. The funny thing is though, for whatever reason, his name wasn't Logan or given a lab experiment name like X-24. There is a reason for this however.

Without going too deep into X-Men comics continuity, there was another android who was also created by Pierce who achieved greater artificial intelligence than she was supposed to have. Once she did, she also buffed up the intelligence of the Wolverine robot and gave him the name Albert after Albert Einstein. Weren't expecting that were you?

3 What Could Have Been


Marvel's What-If? line of comics aren't always filled with classics but they are usually at least a fun dive into alternate timelines. The idea of X-24 being a savage and near brainless version of Wolverine who the real deal has to take down can be seen in one of these books.

RELATED: Was X-24 In The X-Men Comics? Logan Villain Origins Explained

In issue #62 Vol.2 of this series, we see an alternate reality where the Canadian government found another candidate for the Weapon X program instead of our favorite mutant. The experiment doesn't go well as while they now have a fearsome warrior, he is out of his mind and blindly attacks anyone who he stands in front of. Logan takes it upon himself to put down the poor soul and the comic ends with Logan bringing the Weapon X program to the public's attention.
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2 Hugh Jackman Was Skeptical Of X-24


The idea of an evil doppelganger is pure comic book shenanigans that some might see as clashing against the tone and atmosphere which Logan goes for. This might be part of the reason why Hugh Jackman might have been skeptical of the idea in the first place.

Jackman himself has stated that he wasn't originally keen on the idea of himself playing another version of the character he's played since the year 2000. But director James Mangold kept insisting that it was going to work and lo and behold, Jackman eventually became a believer. The literal and symbolic fighting of his own personal demons makes for an epic cap off to Jackman's role as Wolverine.



1 Weaker Than Logan


With the savagery he displayed in the movie and the fact that physically he was Logan in his physical prime, this entry may be a bit of a shocker. But in actuality, X-24's durability is weaker than the flesh, blood and adamantium mutant we adore.

The proof of this lies in the often ridiculed X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In the finale of that movie, Logan is shot in the head with an adamantium bullet. This is what causes him to lose his memory and also knocks him out. A similar shot with another adamantium bullet in Logan however is enough to blast a permanent hole in X-24's skull that he can't recover from. The original wins again!

I posted his comment on that article

Jo(sie)

Re the real color of HughJackman's eyes - I once had the luck of being personally serenaded by Hugh ( part of the act ) in his BackOnBroadway show. He looked directly into my eyes, as he held my hand and sang to me while he was on one of his knees to reach me in my seat. I was startled to see that his eyes were this golden shade, not hazel as they sometimes look on film and photos. Maybe they do change in shade depending on the light or maybe even his mood? So, it is possible that the color shown on X-24's eyes are also Jackman's!

[jo]

A retrospective on LOGAN. Long article - but thoughtful and a very human look at the end-story of Wolverine!

"LIKED" by Hugh Jackman, too! Per his Twitter account.

Film
James Mangold's ​'Logan​' Depicts Wolverine's Worst Nightmare
Michael Curley 31 Jan 2020
© 2016 - Twentieth Century Fox (IMDB)



In Mangold's Logan, an elderly, sick surrogate father and a young, estranged, emotionally-scarred "daughter" come to rely entirely on the aged Wolverine who is now but a haunted, battered, suicidal husk. It's nothing like superhero films that came before.


Logan/Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman, first debuted on film as the central character of X-Men (Singer, 2000). In this film, he is a soulful, pained loner with retractable metal claws, super-healing powers, and no memory of his past. He's pulled into the world of the X-Men by a desire to help a young, runaway mutant girl. In X2: X-Men United (Singer, 2003), he's again centrally placed as he confronts details of his violent past, but chooses to side with his X-Men family. In X-Men: The Last Stand (Ratner, 2006), Logan is forced to kill his crush, Jean Grey, because she has become too destructively powerful. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Hood, 2009) fills in Logan's history, from 19th century Canada through decades of war, gaining his metal skeleton and claws, and the loss of his memory.

He has a brief, funny cameo in the '60s-set X-Men: First Class (Vaughn, 2011), because it seemed inconceivable at that point to have an X-Men film without Logan. The Wolverine (Mangold, 2013) finds Logan struggling with the loss of Jean and burdened by the compounded suffering of endless life. X-Men: Days of Future Past (Singer, 2014) takes Logan through a time travel romp, bridging the original X-Men cast in the 2020s with the newer X-Men cast in the 1970s. Finally, the '80s-set X-Men: Apocalypse (Singer, 2016) reimagined Logan's traumatic metal skeleton-grafting and brainwashing one more time for a memorable but superfluous sequence. These eight appearances over 16 years create a deep cinematic history for the character and strong familiarity with audiences.

The filmmakers behind Logan (Mangold, 2017) were only passingly interested in this history, however. Previous appearances somewhat informed their approach, and the familiarity certainly helped the film resonate with audiences; however, the filmmakers had a very specific, emotionally raw story to tell and were not overly concerned with continuity or superhero tropes.


In late 2013, following the creatively satisfying but not commercially successful The Wolverine, writer-director James Mangold and Hugh Jackman began negotiations for another Wolverine film. Mangold was determined not to repeat himself, or other superhero films for that matter, on the next film. Jackman, meanwhile, was strongly considering ending his long tenure as Logan. The idea, then, was to make the final Wolverine film, his last story. Everything that entailed meant that this would be a very different film. They pitched to Fox Studios, a new approach: darker, more violent, more standalone, less beholden to previous films and, above all, an ending for the character.

The idea of Logan at the end of his life led Mangold to draw some inspiration from "Old Man Logan", a storyline created by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven for the Wolverine comic book series from 2008 to 2009. That story takes place in a desolate future dystopia, where Logan has become a pacifist after the violent deaths of the X-Men, and goes on a road trip through the United States with another Marvel superhero. These elements all made it into the film, but the main plot and other, more "comic book-y" elements were rejected for more raw, grounded emotion.



Overall, Mangold intended to make his new film different by avoiding as many superhero film tropes as possible. His co-writer, Scott Frank, set the tone for the approach when he told Mangold that the film would not be "a hyper choreographed, gravity defying, city-block destroying, CG f--athon." He went on to say, "In this flick, people will get hurt or killed if they get hit with something big and heavy like, say, a car. Should anyone in our story have the misfortune to fall off a roof or out a window, they won't bounce. They will die."

Mangold insisted the studio agree to an R-rating on the film, but not simply to provide more allowance for violence or swearing. Mangold felt that an R-rated film was freed from certain studio or marketing expectations, that he would not be urged to shorten scenes or mediate his mature tone to appeal to teen audiences. Fox allowed the R-rating in exchange for a budget cut, imagining the rating would limit the box office potential of the film. Mangold actively avoided broad heroic moments. His heroes would be weak, physically and emotionally. They would be fearful of danger, they would selfishly resist heroics, they would undermine or question past heroics. Previous films would be referenced only if it helped the story, not simply for fan service.

For these reasons, attempts to include older versions of Rogue, Jean Grey or Sabretooth were ultimately cut by the screenwriters because they rang false. The filmmakers even went so far as to omit "Wolverine" from the title of the film, sacrificing audience recognition for their vision. Every aspect of the approach was a direct rebuke of the conventional superhero film formula.

But a film cannot be successful by simply defining itself in opposition to convention. The standard superhero film formula is widespread because it works, audiences respond to it. For Logan to work it needed a strong emotional core and clear themes. Mangold, Frank and other co-writer Michael Green delivered that in spades. With this being the final Wolverine film, they confronted the character with his biggest fear: familial love.

As an older man, slowly dying, Logan has to reckon with what his life represents. He has a violent past and worries that everyone who loves him dies as a result. He begins in the film looking after Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart), a powerful telepath and father figure to him, who is now raving from dementia. Soon, Logan meets Laura (Dafne Keen), his scientifically-created daughter. This elderly, sick surrogate father and this young, estranged, emotionally-scarred daughter come to rely entirely on Logan, a haunted, battered, suicidal husk. This is Logan's worst nightmare.



Patrick Stuart as Charles (IMDB)


Laura is based on X-23, a female clone of Wolverine. The character first appeared in the animated series X-Men: Evolution in August 2003, then appeared in comics in NYX #3 (February 2004). She became popular in the comics, appearing in limited series and team books over the years. Elements of the comic version of X-23 also make their way into the character X-24 (Hugh Jackman) in Logan. X-24 is a mindless, angry adult clone of Logan, the literal incarnation of Logan's violent past that now hunts his family unit. And so Logan must accept and defend the love he is given by Xavier and Laura, while reckoning with his past.

Logan is a dark, intense, emotionally-charged film. It replaces the conventional tropes of a superhero film with a meditation on violence, loss, aging, family, life and death. Mangold was inspired by reflective, emotional Western films such as Shane (Stevens, 1953) and Unforgiven (Eastwood, 1992). In both films, former gunfighters are pulled back into the violence of their past while philosophizing about the effect of such violence on a person's soul.

He was also inspired by the emotional realism of the family road trip comedy Little Miss Sunshine (Dayton & Faris, 2006). In October 2016, a brilliant teaser trailer set to "Hurt" by Johnny Cash introduced the bleak, grounded, intense tone of Logan to audiences. Logan is a comic book superhero film that actively bucked nearly every convention of the genre. Perhaps ironically, the film is considered one of the finest examples of the genre ever made.

Logan opens with the flipping comic pages of the Marvel logo that has opened MCU films since 2002, but this time every page is clearly from an X-Men comic. It's funny that the logo on Logan celebrates X-Men comics, considering the film itself is not overly concerned with the comics. Logan is set in 2029, and the future elements are subtly layered. There seems to be a border wall between Texas and Mexico, something that was beginning to be discussed in the news as the film was being produced. The mutant population seems to be on the decline. Cars look a little different, and the highways are filled with self-driving trucks. Overall, the future in the film feels like only a slight extension of the present day. Mangold wanted the film to be set in the future so it could address Logan's aging, but he didn't want it to be too showy.
Logan works as a limo driver-for-hire in south Texas. He first appears sleeping in the back of the limo, when a group of men attempt to steal his tires. His first line is "fuck", something that he will frequently repeat throughout the film, and he attempts to peacefully stop the tire thieves. When they shoot him in the chest with a shotgun, he attacks them with his claws, although the claws have trouble fully extending. In the fight he seems more concerned with protecting the limo from damage than his own body.



Hugh Jackman as Logan / X-24 (IMDB)


Afterward he drives to a rest stop bathroom to heal and change his bloodied shirt. The healing takes longer now that he's older, and his body shows more wear than one would expect from the famous fast-healing mutant. He walks with a limp and his eyesight is going. He looks grizzled and old, drinks too much, and buys drugs illegally from a hospital employee. He lives across the Mexican border in a dingy abandoned refinery, where he drinks and suffers from insomnia. Above his bed hangs a samurai sword, possibly referencing The Wolverine and better times. We learn that the adamantium grafted to his skeleton is slowly poisoning him, and he carries an adamantium bullet capable of killing him. Jackman's performance is credible and grounded, and Logan is presented in a refreshingly unglamourous light.

He lives in the refinery with Caliban (Stephen Merchant), an albino tracking mutant, and Xavier, who is suffering from dementia. In X-Men: Apocalypse, the previous X-Men film, Caliban was a very different character played by a different actor and Xavier lost his hair. That Caliban is so different here and Xavier has some hair indicates just how little the filmmakers cared for continuity with other films.

Stewart is magnificent as Xavier in Logan. He is confused by his dementia, sometimes does not recognize Logan, and rambles nearly incoherently. He cannot control his powerful telepathy and, if not given the proper drugs, he has seizures that and telepathically freeze and even kill anyone who's nearby. We later learn that one of the seizures killed the X-Men a year earlier, prompting Logan to isolate Xavier in the refinery. Xavier doesn't remember the so-called "Westchester Incident", and Logan doesn't remind him. Instead, Xavier is angry at the confinement, spewing insults at Logan, blaming him, and refusing to take his medication.

They bicker like a real elderly parent and aging child. Logan is steadfast in helping his surrogate father, carrying him into bed or to the bathroom. I have some experience caring for a disabled parent, so these scenes hit close to home. This early section of Logan plays nothing like a superhero film, but more like a domestic drama. Its muted and bleak, and engages with realistic problems such as aging, illness, caring for a sick parent, and money concerns. In Logan's case, he plans to buy a boat for himself and Xavier to that they may live on the water, away from anyone they could hurt. These are our superheroes, far from their former glory.

Logan is then confronted by Gabriela (Elizabeth Rodriguez), who knows of his past and wants to hire him to drive her and her daughter, Laura, to North Dakota. By contacting Logan, Gabriela brings him to the attention of Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) and his employers. Logan is hesitant at first, but decides to help Gabriela, as this is how he will the money he needs to buy the boat. When he arrives to pick her up, he finds Gabriela dead and recovers her phone.



Back at the refinery, he discovers that Laura stowed away in the trunk of his car. Xavier is elated, insisting that Laura is a mutant and that they must protect her. Then Pierce arrives with his team of mercenary Reavers, and Logan's attempt to live quietly under the radar is shattered.

It's important to note how hard Logan swims against the current of the plot. He doesn't care about Laura or her connection to the Reavers, he doesn't want to get involved. Even when things explode into violence, all he cares apart is getting himself and Xavier to safety. And then, Laura pops her adamantium claws.

Laura is wild, nearly feral. She brutally attacks the Reavers as Logan attempts to drive away. The violence in the film is harsh and shocking. The R-rating not only allows the film to depict this brutal violence (claws through arms and skulls, lost limbs, decapitations), but also the consequences of that violence. PG-13 violence tends to match the brutality of R violence but with less responsibly. All the violence will be depicted, but with none of the blood, gore or consequences. Logan doesn't have that problem.


It's difficult to watch Laura in these fights. I can accept the portrayal of an adult man jumping around, brutally killing bad guys, spattered in blood, but an 11-year-old girl in the same position makes me uncomfortable, which is part of the point. Logan becomes curious about Laura during the fight, and accepts her into his car. And then, in possibly the clearest example of the grounded nature of Mangold's approach, Logan drives his car at a fence in his attempt to escape, and the fence stops him. He doesn't burst through and triumphantly drive to safety, he's caught and must find another way out. Eventually he get aways, and the film becomes a road trip film with the dysfunctional family unit of Xavier, Laura, and Logan.

Logan learns about Laura through videos on Gabriela's phone. A scientist, Dr. Rice (Richard E. Grant), started a lab in Mexico where he impregnated poor Mexican women with mutant DNA to create new mutants. These children were raised and trained to be weapons. When they became too unstable and rebellious, Rice began a new program and ordered the children killed.




Gabriela and the other nurses attempted to save the children and smuggle them to safety in Canada. Laura was created from Logan's DNA, making her Logan's daughter. As Gabriela puts it to Logan in the video, "you may not love her, but she's your daughter." Dafne Keen is astonishing as Laura. In action scenes, she is acrobatic and vicious, channelling Jackman as an 11-year old girl. In between the action is where she really shines, however.

She doesn't even speak for most of the film, with her muteness conveying the trauma of her short life. As she moves through the road trip, she sadly rides a coin-operated horse and grabs a pair of pink sunglasses. These are things that a girl of her age might do, but she doesn't know how to be a regular child. She learns how to hold Logan's hand from her observation of a mannequin display.


Mangold is heavily inspired by Westerns. But to paraphrase the commentary on the 20th Century Fox Blu-ray released in 2017, it's not the specific trappings of a Western (gunfights, deserts, etc.) that appeal to him, but the simplicity of such plots paired with a complexity of characters. This element of Logan is a more subtle, structural rebuke of superhero film tropes. A conventional superhero film can often include overly-intricate plot mechanics and an abundance of McGuffins while sketching characters out as broad archetypes. Logan does the opposite.

The plot is simple: Logan must get Laura to the Canadian border to escape the men who created her. The characters are far from simple, however. Logan is haunted by his past, does not envisage much of a future, and he's now confronted with a surprise daughter. Laura knows little beyond trauma and abuse in a lab, but makes an emotional connection with Logan. Xavier sees Laura as his final chance to foster a young mutant, but also comes to remember the sins of his past.

The other key aspect of Mangold's Westerns-influenced approach is how much of the story in Logan is unspoken, subtextual. Mangold and his collaborators put the characters in various situations that highlight their struggles, and the rest is left up to the performances of the gifted cast. As much as I love comic book superhero films, this being my 43rd article on the Marvel Films, Logan absolutely stands out from the others due to its sombre, subtle, character-driven dramatics. Previous films seemed to establish the rules only so Logan could so brilliantly oppose them.



The trio's first major stop is at a hotel and casino in Oklahoma City, where Xavier and Laura watch the TV Western, Shane, as Logan makes arrangements. Logan finds some X-Men comics, loosely based on the adventures of Logan and the X-Men, and he's at first disgusted by their glorifications and falsehoods. He flips through one to discover the coordinates given to him by Gabriela are from a comic, meaning that Laura's destination is likely a lie. As Xavier points out, however, it's real for Laura, so Logan continues the trip despite misgivings.

But first, Pierce finds them at the hotel. Logan returns to discover Xavier is having a seizure, telepathically paralyzing and hurting everyone in the hotel. Logan's healing power makes him resistant to Xavier's destruction, and he battles through the telepathic shockwaves to deliver Xavier's medicine. On the way, he kills Pierce's men in their hotel room. It's an excruciating scene, as Logan slowly moves to each man and dispatches them, as they are unable to defend themselves. The trio rushes to escape, but Xavier is devastated by the pain he caused his unwitting victim.

Back on the road, the trio witnesses a truck and its horse trailer driven off the road by a driverless truck. Xavier urges Logan to help, which he does, and then to accept the grateful man's invitation to dinner at the family's farm. Will (Eriq La Salle) and Kathryn (Elise Neal) Munson, and their son Nate (Quincy Fouse), own a farm that is being squeezed out by corporate farms. The dinner is a happy, warm scene in set on a sea of bleak violence. Xavier does most of the talking, normalizing himself by claiming they are a grandfather, father, and daughter out to see America on the road. Xavier hopes the dinner, and his insistence to stay overnight, will inspire Logan with the possibility of a normal life. But the bleak violence and the character's demons follow them to the farm, in a shocking, heartbreaking sequence.

At the farmhouse, Logan helps Will fix a sabotaged water pump, and he threatens men who try to intimidate Will. At one point Xavier senses Logan in his room and praises the "perfect night" he is experiencing at the farmhouse before tearfully admitting that he doesn't deserve it. He remembers that his seizures killed the X-Men a year earlier. But his tragic remembrance is interrupted by the even more tragic twist: the man he senses standing in his room is not Logan, but X-24, a mindless, violent clone of Logan created by Dr. Rice.



X-24 kills Xavier, Nate, and Kathryn before taking Laura back to Rice. Chaos erupts as he attacks Will, and Logan fights him. Logan has difficulty defeating his younger, fitter clone until an injured Will drives his truck into X-24 and pumps him with shotgun blasts. Logan takes Laura and Xavier's body, and escapes. But by then X-24 has murdered the family. The message behind the brutality of this scene is clear: Logan can never escape his past, he can never have a normal life. That Will tried to shoot Logan after shooting X-24, not differentiating between them, demonstrates that Logan will always be accountable for his past. The shocking violence in the sequence, especially against such undeserving characters, is off-putting but it underscores the character themes. It's realistically horrible, not glorified in the least.

The death of Xavier is shocking for many reasons. This is a classic Marvel hero of comics and films, killed in bed as an old man with dementia. In Logan, there is no glory in death, just sorrow. Logan and Laura stop to bury Xavier. Logan tries to eulogize him, but cannot find the words. He chokes up, pulls away from Laura's hand and attacks their truck with a shovel before passing out from the pain of his fight wounds. The scene is sad and real, even funny in its own way.

At this point, she fully takes over the film. She speaks for the first time, unloading her frustration with Logan in Spanish for refusing to take her the rest of the way. Logan relents, but keeps passing out as he drives. Laura will not let him die. She gets him to her destination, where she finds a hideout with other mutant children from her lab. They help to heal Logan with small doses of a mysterious green chemical, and make their plans to cross the border together. They later shave Logan's scruffy beard while he's passed out, to make him resemble his classic X-Men look, but he's not amused.
The scenes between Laura and Logan at this point allow some of Jackman's finest acting work. Laura says that she has nightmares about people hurting her, and Logan says that, in his nightmares, he hurts people. Laura says that she has hurt people too, but they were all bad people. Logan insists that she will have to come to terms with that eventually. Without saying it, Laura makes it clear that she is upset Logan will not accompany them over the border. Logan tearfully tells her that she has everything she wants, that she should go without him because "bad shit happens to people that care about me." Laura replies, "then I'll be fine."

When I first saw Logan, my daughter was less than a year old, barely a toddler. She is three now, but already her own person. So, on this viewing of Logan, my heart ached at the father-daughter interplay at work here. I understood the complexities of seeing yourself, good and bad, reflected in a child, of seeing your attitude directed back at you, of trying to encourage your child to be better than you. As my daughter grows, Logan becomes more resonant and more heartbreaking in my mind. Needless to say, this is atypical of standard superhero films.



Dafne King as Laura (IMDB)


Logan wakes to find that Rice and Pierce are following them. He takes a full dosage of the green chemical to temporarily recharge his healing and strength. For the only time in the film, Logan goes full berserker "Wolverine," and fights back-to-back with Laura. The sequence should be rousing, but it doesn't play that way because we know the stakes. The chemical will likely be too much for Logan's body, and he doesn't want Laura immersed in such violence her whole life. Thus, the triumphant action is tinged with sadness.

The chemical wears off, and Rice confronts Logan. He explains that Logan killed his father long ago, and that his GMOs have caused the end of mutants. In response, Logan shoots him in the head. This is the kind of backstory that most superhero films would take ages to carefully lay out, but neither Logan nor the film care. X-24 attacks, and Logan cannot keep up. Laura attacks him too but is thrown aside. X-24 impales Logan on the root of a dead tree. Laura then takes the adamantium bullet, the one Logan meant to use to kill himself, and revived, shoots X-24 in the head. Narratively, Logan's evil clone is killed by his lab-created daughter. Thematically, the angry, violent embodiment of Logan's past sins is destroyed by the embodiment of his best qualities and potential, bringing him a few moments of peace. Possibly hope.
Those few moments, however, are his last. He urges Laura to escape and to stop this life of fighting. He tells her not to be what they made her. Laura cries and calls him "daddy". Logan's final line, "so this is what it feels like," refers both to the death that has eluded him for nearly two centuries and the feeling of pure, familial love. His death is violent, yet beautifully peaceful.

Laura and her friends bury him, and the only thing that can think to say is a speech from the end of Shane. It's about the impact killing other has on your soul. As everyone leaves, Laura turns the cross marking Logan's grave to an 'X'. Cue tears, and Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around". These final moments of Logan are pitch perfect, absolutely gorgeous. They close an unconventional superhero film with the biggest inversion of superhero tropes imaginable: an ending.

The majority of superhero comics, by their nature, feature ongoing serialization. There exists a status quo for each character. Sometimes new stories will disrupt that status quo, introducing major changes or character deaths, to open up story possibilities, but the status quo is nearly always restored. Superhero films inherited the idea of never having a definitive ending, always leaving the door open for a sequel. The Dark Knight Rises (Nolan, 2012) was the definitive end of Christopher Nolan's celebrated Dark Knight trilogy, and seems to kill Batman. But even that film ultimately ends with Bruce Wayne alive, but retired, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character seeming to take up the Batman mantle. Had they wanted to, the filmmakers could have made another sequel.



Even Avengers: Endgame (Russo Brothers, 2019) seems to definitively kill the Black Widow character, yet her first solo film, Black Widow (Shortland, 2020), debuts in May. There's always room for a new installment. To be fair, Iron Man did indeed die in Endgame, which would still only make him second to Logan in terms of cinematic superhero deaths. Hugh Jackman portrayed Logan/Wolverine in nine films over 17 years before the character was finally killed.

For its ending, as well as the rest of it, Logan is an incredible film. It's brutal, bleak and violent, but also adult, mature, and emotionally genuine. It explores the legacy of a superhero, the toll such a life takes on the body and soul, and the ignoble, sorrowful, inglorious endings of a hero. It does so by eschewing the classic, well-established tropes of the superhero genre. And in opposing the tropes, it ended up becoming one of the greatest of the genre.

Logan was critically-acclaimed upon release, landing on numerous top-ten lists of 2017 and became the first superhero film to be nominated for Best Screenplay (Adapted) at the Academy Awards. Audiences are smarter than most marketing departments give them credit for, as Logan was the highest-grossing of the three Wolverine films despite not having "Wolverine" in the title. It earned over $226 million in North America and $619 million worldwide. The budget was lowered to under $100 million due to studio concerns over the rating, which only accentuates the windfall.

Jackman's last performance as the iconic character, and his presumed death at the end, drove many people to the theatres. In Logan, Jackman and Stewart said goodbye to their famous roles, but a lot of people expressed interest in Keen continuing Laura's story in future films. The Disney/Fox merger seems to have ended that speculation, however. All in all, Mangold and his collaborators succeeded beyond all expectations, and proved that even superhero films can be mature, can feel emotionally-real, and can, at last, end.

[jo]

On the project theme being the sole idea of Mangold and his co-writers and how the project secured Fox's approval --


*Hugh posted on social media a graphic image of Wolverine with one claw extended and labelled it ONE LAST TIME. That was 2 years before LOGAN was finally released. He might have talked about the idea of it after he and Mangold completed The Wolverine but I do not think it came solely from Mangold.

http://instagram.com/p/5qJTvZChO3

This was posted 61 weeks ago by Hugh - over 5 years ago (circa early 2015 … if I recall right after the Apocalypse debacle, where Hugh had some expectations about a meaningful role in that movie but was left out from the main storyline)


*Hugh did say that the main theme came to him … and he decided to send his thoughts to Mangold immediately. To Mangold's credit, he gave the storyline and characters the depth and heft which made the movie very special. It was a collaborative effort of both Hugh and Mangold. Also, the noir version gave the story and its characters a different shade of appreciation for the movie - it gave it an even more human and more dramatic appeal.

EDIT: Old post re the above --

Mar 5, 2017 9:50:56 GMT -5 jo said:

Video clip re the inception of the LOGAN concept --

build.aol.com/video/58b89f144d9693747c879b68/?a_dgi=aolshare_twitter


He said it was exactly on March 2, 2015 when he recorded that now-famous phone memo re his thoughts on how they should pursue the last Wolverine movie. He also added that on a conceptual basis, the movie probably carried about 95% of his thoughts then ( and on that basis James Mangold ran away with the conceptual thoughts and created the film story/script!).

Hmm...March 2015 - that was after his run on THE RIVER. It was also already established that he would not be part of APOCALYPSE ( where the part that was supposed meant for him was rewritten to let the Mystique character be given the leadership role *rolleyes*). That was a few months before that awkward ComicCon encounter with Bryan Singer, where it became obvious that Hugh will not be in APOCALYPSE movie ( the cameo was filmed much later - I think very early 2016 if I am not mistaken, almost like an afterthought)...and it was also the same ComicCon when Hugh announced that he would be doing a farewell Wolverine movie.
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Jo

*I doubt that it was Mangold's relationship with FOX which pushed the project. It was likely Hugh's successful longtime association with FOX's most successful franchise and maybe his links with the movers and shakers at the studio which pushed the project to the cooperative stance of FOX. Although I thought it was stingy of them to have cut the budget and and was unappreciative of them not to give full support to a new way to depict a very human story, dressed up as a superhero movie.


Jo

[jo]

Reading Between the Reels
@readbtweenreels
·
36m
#Logan is a 2017 superhero movie directed by James Mangold that serves a raw and emotional farewell to Hugh Jackman's iconic portrayal of #Wolverine. On this episode, we discuss how the film distinguishes itself within the superhero genre.
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#Marvel #XMen

readingbetweenthereels.podbean.com/e/rbr-78-logan