Review of Logan (2017) by Cameronius_113 — 03 Mar 2017

Logan was released in 2017 and was directed by James Mangold. The film is a new instalment in the X-Men universe and is the final film starring the centre characters of Logan (Wolverine) and Charles Xavier, showing them tasked with protecting a young girl.

What I love about this film is that it doesn't feel like your average superhero movie (evident from the trailers) and is instead a very human story, hence the title going for Wolverine's human name of 'Logan'. Over time we've seen people's expectations for comic book change quite drastically and we're in a period of time now where expectations are changing rapidly. However, this film bravely ignores the trends and goes for what it wants to be and I highly appreciate it for that.

To start off with, this movie does indeed have an R rating and is very brutal. I knew this was going to be something before I even saw it and I was kind of afraid whether or not this would be too big of a change from the previous X-Men films. Thankfully, the R rating felt necessary and required and if the film was PG-13 it would have nowhere near as much of an impact. The fact that more strong language is included too was another concern I had for it being too big of a change but it makes sense for the characters to use this language considering what stage they are at in their lives and didn't feel like it was there just for the sake of it.

The main three characters of the film are brilliant; Hugh Jackman gives a great performance as Logan and also Patrick Stewart gave a unique, emotionally deep performance as Charles Xavier, showcasing a side to the character I never thought I'd see. Newcomer Dafne Keen was also very promising as the new character Laura Kinney. Showing these characters at the dark point in their lives made for an overall more emotionally involving story and makes them discover each other in a much deeper way than they ever had before and for once the main characters feel like a family instead of just a team. The way they all interact was amazing to see and adds up to the overall 'human' theme of the story.

What I probably loved the most about the film (like I mentioned just then) is how it was a human story, ignoring the trends other comic book movies are going for and being what it wants to be. It's also clear that this is a film not made solely for the money but one for the fans; you can tell they aren't adding things in simply for extra money (for example the film wasn't shot in 3D), there's no big beam in the sky for the characters to fight at the end and it also takes into consideration what films do for people in real-life too, as in the end credits it says that the film help supply thousands of jobs and it's amazing to see when a film goes the extra level with thought like that, especially nowadays when most movies are made for the money.

Overall, I loved how much thought was put into this film and the fact that it was what it wanted to be, especially for the time period of superhero movies that we're in at the moment. The main cast give brilliant performances and was a great send-off for the characters we know and love. I did have one or two problems with the film (which will be in my spoiler section), however they weren't enough to hold down the film in quality. Even if they don't continue to make superhero films like this in the future, we'll always have Logan.

8.