Review of Logan (2017) by Definitelymayb — 04 Mar 2017

Logan is a good movie in some parts (mainly in the beginning). Although this review will probably trigger some of the diehard fans here, much of the film actually has a lot of issues which people seem to be overlooking. If you enjoy the original Xmen films and won't get mad over valid criticisms presented here, feel free to read on. The film does well in many parts: action - amazing and visceral, leaves you speechless. I thought the villain played by Boyd Hollbrook was played very well. Acting in this movie is very good -especially Dafney Keen, the girl who plays X-23. The film is also very funny which is always a good thing.

However, I believe these are the major flaws of the film that prevents it being anywhere as good as X2 or Days of Future Past:

1) Structurally it's very simple (which is fine) but it's so predictable in narrative events. What you essentially have in this film is a an action set piece, then followed by dialogue/character building. Its arguably one of the laziest scripts I've ever seen due to the fact they repeat the same thing after they first retreat from the farm. For example in the midpoint of the film, after they are chased out of a hotel they were residing in, they literally for no reason (despite being on the run) stay at some farm guys house after helping their horses. It makes absolutely no sense given the Transigen troops were after them (with seemingly unlimited resources). And then this is repeated again, when they again stop at the Eden get away.

2) Emotionally this film wasn't that strong. I like the beginning when Logan is taking care of Charles showing the care he has towards his father figure, despite the fact Professor X has lost all of his agency as a character. It is sad, yet emotionally satisfying because it is not artificial. However, this is never developed any further due to the fact the film wanted use to then relate Logan with X-23. So when Charles kinda just dies, it was one of the less impactful deaths of X-Men (I hold X3 death of Charles far superior here). The relationship between X23 and Wolverine also falls flat because they never spend enough time alone to get that relationship. You never really feel Logan is making a choice about his daughter because they never really speak. This was evident in the final act when Logan was seemingly prepared to just let X23 go off and only decided to help once he saw the troops advancing on their position. 3) Score was barely existent, cinematography was average at best (but I did like the beginning 2049 look of America with driveless trucks etc). 4) Lazy tropes. Xander Rice magically appears in the mid point of the film to become another villain and he brings the most generic villain ever which was a clone of Logan. 5) **** kids actor with CGI powers come up at the end. I thought this was suppose to be a grounded film. They also decide to sit there half the time, and only conveniently use their powers where the plot requires them to do so. 6) Chekhov's gun is abused in this film. Adamantium bullet magically shows up to counter clone Logan, magically green power boost potion needed one more time for hero - but then magically evaproates once the noobs are taken out, photo of children conveniently has their secret revendouz point spelt out on the back and surives a grenade explosion. 7) Stupid scene where Caliban blows himself up to also kill Donald Pierce, but is miraculously fine straight after. We also later see the body of Caliban is also not torn to shreds despite 1m from approximity of grenade- WTF? - but even more stupid is the redundant random line said by the villain saying his tissues are good for marking, despite the fact we wont be ever seeing this timeline again and nothing happens with that tissue. 8) Wolverine back get pierced by wood despite having a skeleton made of that stuff. Also stops healing for no reason - we saw earlier in the film that bullets and wounds were still healing albeit slowly.

9) Action was great at start but got tedious. Also too many close ups, wasn't very clean shots by the end. Hopefully, these points highlight the objective flaws of the film. Logan is still a good film, but to say it's best Xmen film would be doing a disservice to X2 and Days of Future Past (and maybe First Class).