The Good, The Bad and The Critic

Established on March 19th, 2012 and pioneered by film fanatic Michael J. Carlisle. The Good, The Bad and The Critic will analyze classic and contemporary films from all corners of the globe. This title references Sergei Leone's influential spaghetti western The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Review #898: Logan (2017)

Title: Logan
Year: 2017
Director: James Mangold
Country: US
Language: English

For an analysis of Logan we must first look at Deadpool, the first 20th Century Fox superhero film with an R rating. Despite many executives concerns about how a restricted rating would affect performance, Deadpool earned $783 million on its somewhat meager $58 million budget. This financial success inspired the Studio to make the already planned solo X-Men picture into a gritty visual feast. 

In the near future, a weary Logan (Hugh Jackman) cares for an ailing Professor X (Patrick Stewart) somewhere on the Mexican border. However, Logan's attempts to hide from the world and his legacy are upended when a young mutant arrives, pursued by dark forces.

If you've seen James Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgement Day then you'll have a good idea for how the story develops and you'll be able to predict the ending within the first ten minutes. This isn't bad however; you could do worse than using the (arguably) best action movie in the history of cinema as inspiration. Director James Mangold fuses many genres together - road movie, post-apocalyptic action, superhero yarn and Western- to create a world that feels like a mix of  Fallout and Unforgiven.

Logan finds our hero in a sorry state. With a grizzled beard, graying mane, and a weathered physique Jackman returns as what is reported to be his final role of a character who, in this film, is one of the last of his kind. Jackman's performance is memorable, as is Patrick Stewart's. Their acting is helped by great writing, which sets a tone of bittersweet fatalism and Western mythology. Cinematographer John Mathieson shoots in orange, sun-bleached washes, while the location shooting looks far more natural than the Green screen CGI-fests that the X-Men films are normally shot in. 

It's a shame that Fox's X-Men Franchise doesn't have any solid continuity, as Logan would probably have had more meaning if we had a solid understanding of Logan and Xavier's past. Regardless this picture is impressive, perhaps the best "superhero" film (can it be classified as "superhero"?) that has ever been made. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 



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