'Logan' Film Review
The third and final installment of the Wolverine franchise, ‘Logan’ sees an aged Wolverine living in Mexico along with a frail Professor X and mutant-tracker, Caliban. Caliban was previously seen in last year’s ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ in the underground fight club. It’s revealed that Charles is in poor health, having seizures that cause his powers to go uncontrolled. Logan is seen working as a limousine driver to help pay for Charles’ medication and to try to save up enough money to buy a boat and live out on the ocean. Logan is also in a bad way, health-wise. He’s not healing like he should; he’s coughing constantly and limping badly.
When a woman named Gabriella contacts Logan for a job, he winds up getting caught up in her business, as a man named Donald Pierce from Transigen arrives to get Logan to tell him where she is. Logan would later come to find that Gabriella and her “daughter” were on the run from Pierce and his Reavers. Gabriella pays Logan $20,000 and promises $30,000 more to take her and her daughter away to safety. As Logan is about to take them, he finds Gabriella murdered. He takes the young girl, Laura, with him back to his home. Charles had been having visions of her, saying she was a mutant. At this point in the story, there had been no new mutants born in the last 25 years. Pierce and the Reavers show up, Caliban is taken, and the other 3 escape. Pierce is now using Caliban to track the trio, as Logan & co. head to coordinates left by Gabriella. Oh, and did I mention that Laura has the same powers as Logan? She totally wrecks shop and kills lots of people with her claws.
Logan & Charles watch a video on Gabriella’s phone that shows children, including Laura, being experimented on at Transigen. These lab-created mutants were being developed as weapons. Laura, her designation of X-23, turns out to be Logan’s biological daughter, as his DNA was taken during the Weapon-X program at Alkali Lake. Alkali is also behind Transigen. With this new information, Logan seems unmoved, but still continues to trek on. When he finds X-Men comic books in Laura’s bag, he sees a page where a place called Eden is discussed. Eden is a so-called “safe place” for mutants in the comics, and Gabriella believed it to be a real-life representation. Logan becomes furious as he knows them to just be stories.
Flash forward: every once in a while the Reavers show up and there’s a fight. They also have another Wolverine clone, and he winds up killing Charles. Caliban also dies, as he gets a hold of some grenades and blows himself up in an attempt to kill Pierce. Logan and Laura find the other mutant children from Transigen and take shelter with them. Logan is given a serum to help him heal and increase his strength, which he desperately needs to fight the other Wolverine clone. During their fight, Logan is impaled on a tree stump, as Laura shoots the clone in the head with an adamantium bullet. Logan winds up dying of his wounds, as he can no longer heal due to adamantium poisoning that has been slowly killing him for years. Laura buries him and the film ends.
Now that I’ve basically gone over the entire film, let’s get into my likes and dislikes.
Likes: This film would not have been at all the same without an R-rating. And boy, did it warrant it. With lots of f-bombs, extreme violence and bloodshed, and even a boob shot, this film had all the action you could ever want in a Wolverine film. It was gritty, hardcore, and personal. Seeing Logan & Charles’ relationship at this point after 17 years in the film franchise brought things full circle. Charles’ death was impactful to Logan and to the audience in attendance. And yes, Logan dies at the end, leaving me to wonder if such a man could actually die and stay dead. Laura/X-23 was great. The trailers didn’t really get me interested in this film, and I didn’t much care for having a child as one of the main characters, but she proved me wrong. Her brutality and quirks really worked for her character and she was one of the best parts of the film. Even with such a somber tone, there was plenty of humor spread around to lighten scenes. The film was deeply personal and a great character-driven story.
Dislikes: There’s something in me that just feels like the solo Wolverine films are missing something. I’m not sure if it’s just because I prefer him with the X-Men, but I can’t help feeling this way. Throughout this film, Logan & Charles keep referring to an incident in Westchester in which lots of people were hurt. But it’s never revealed what actually happened. Westchester was the site of Charles’ school, and there are currently very few mutants left in the world. The X-Men are all dead. What happened? Did Charles do something that killed them? Did he destroy the school? The answers are never given and the plotline is left dangling. There are also times where the movie really slows down, making it feel longer than it was. As I saw this film at a press screening, I’m not sure if there’s a post-credit scene or not, but the abrupt ending to it after Logan’s funeral was a bit off-putting. He dies, is buried, and that’s it. No hint of anything else to possibly come, no indication that Laura and the other children made it to safety, nothing.
Previously, Hugh Jackman came out and said that ‘Logan’ took place in an alternate universe separate from the main timeline. Comments like this are frustrating to fans of the franchise. I don’t know why Fox has such a hard time with their shared universe, but it continues to be a mess. If that is the case, could Wolverine still show up in any new X-Men films? Hugh Jackman is on record as saying that ‘Logan’ would be his last time playing the character. Stranger things have happened.
Out of the 3 solo Wolverine films, this one is far and away the best one. The intense violence and action help to cover a repetitive storyline. Let’s hope that Hugh comes back to team up with Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool.
My rating: 7 out of 10
