Logan (2017)
Logan (2017) received overwhelmingly positive reviews and many list it as one of the best, if not THE best, of the Fox X-Men movies (which is pretty ironic considering that one of the main criticisms of the original trilogy was that it was too Wolverine-centric). As someone who’s sick and tired of the character, I never bothered to watch it until recently. I’m happy (or in this case, unhappy) to report that it was exactly what I expected.
Wolverine’s final adventure is the kind of “serious” comic book movie that people who look down on comic book movies can say they liked. These are the same people who went crazy with Joker (2019), or whose answer to the question “What’s Your Favourite Comic Book Movie?” is “Road to Perdition”. Yes, Road to Perdition (2002) was based on a graphic novel, but those pedantic jerks know that’s not what the question was about. There’s really nothing too comic book-y about Logan. It’s your typical story of a jaded former hero (Wolverine) who’s forced into one last fight and is reminded of what really matters after emotionally connecting with the daughter (Laura/X-23) he never knew he had. It’s also presented in a dirty and bloody package that immediately sets it apart from those other comic book movies.
Logan takes place in a future when there are no more new mutants being born and most of the existent ones are gone. Evil scientists have been trying to breed mutant soldiers using the genetic material of older mutants, including Wolverine, which left them with a bunch of useless non-evil kids (who for some reason didn’t turn into Homelander even though they were raised in a lab and trained to be emotionless killing machines from the day they were born). Seeing them as a failed experiment, the head evil scientist, Dr Rice, decided to just get rid of them. However, the Hispanic nurses rebelled and took the kids. The one who took X-23 reaches out to Wolverine who initially refuses to help but ends up becoming the target of Rice’s Head of Security, Donald Pierce. Soon, Wolvie has to hit the road with X-23 and a nonagenarian Professor X who suffers from seizures that make him lose control of his psychic powers with deadly results. The goal is to take the girl to a meeting point from where all the children will then cross the border to Canada. Pierce forces Caliban, who was helping Wolverine and Professor X, to track them, and will stop at nothing to get X-23 back.
This never feels like an X-Men movie. It feels as if some X-Men elements were added to a generic action movie script. Since both Wolverine and X-23 fight with their adamantium claws, the end result isn’t much different than a typical knife/sword fight in countless movies. Professor X’s psychic seizures are supposed to be a problem, but they only really matter for what already happened in the past, not for what’s happening now. They serve as a Deus Ex Machina when the bad guys attack and Wolverine isn’t there, but as much as Wolverine and Caliban worry about the lack of medicine, Charles’s health issues aren’t that important to the plot. Especially since after the incident at the hotel casino everything seems fine. He even stops taking the pills that dampen his powers with no consequences. Caliban’s tracking powers? Villains in other movies can follow and find the good guys just fine without those. The nearly unstoppable, unkillable attacker has also appeared in many other non-superhero movies. It’s only during the final confrontation between the bad guys and the other mutant children that we see some other mutant powers in action.
Laura not talking for most of the movie and acting like a feral child only to suddenly reveal she can talk and acting perfectly normal around the other mutant kids is just stupid. Of course, if Wolverine had someone else to talk to, there would be no need for Professor X. Then again, if there were no Professor X, the filmmakers wouldn’t have been able to include a scene where Wolverine helps him use the bathroom (don’t worry, we see it from outside the stall, so it’s just feet) (but seriously, what was the point of that?). And if you’re wondering why the other X-Men don’t show up to help, well, that’s because Professor X killed them with his first seizure. Hmm, doesn’t that basically mean all those people saying mutants were dangerous were right? Also, that was totally Simon Kinberg’s idea, wasn’t it?
Another problem with Laura not being the feral child she initially appears to be is that it makes her relationship with Wolverine not that special. She already has a family: the other kids with whom she shares a strong emotional bond. She refuses to give up on going to them even if it would be safer to go someplace else. The nurse who saved her, Gabriella, essentially sacrificed herself for her, and considering that there are only kids at the meeting point, all the other nurses died trying to help them. So, Laura knows there are people who care and are willing to give their lives to help others. Also, considering how many shitty families exist in the franchise (the Drakes, the Strykers), it’s a little awkward to suddenly be emphasising blood bonds. As for Wolverine, it’s obviously he still cares, or he wouldn’t be helping Professor X. If he were the cold, heartless, self-serving jerk he pretends to be, he would’ve killed him already instead of finding him medicine and making plans to leave together on a boat. Laura helps him to become hopeful again? Eh, he dies almost right after so… This would’ve been more meaningful if instead of dying, Wolverine had survived to carry on Professor X’s work and guide this new generation of mutants.
Of course, no comic book movie is complete without the screwing up of some characters’ page-to-screen adaptation. So, after X-Men: First Class ruined Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost, it’s now Logan’s turn to ruin another member of the classical Hellfire Club line-up, Donald Pierce. This version is a hillbilly (he even has a gold tooth!) and only has one bionic forearm he uses to bitchslap people. Why did they have to use this character? At least Shaw and Frost were attached to the Hellfire Club (now why they decided to use the Hellfire Club for that particular story instead of Exodus and the Acolytes, I have no idea…). The Reavers are just some generic cyborgs that could’ve been any faceless minion army. For some reason, Caliban is nothing like his X-Men: Apocalypse counterpart. I’m not going to complain about Rice being some generic evil scientist because anything that keeps Mister Sinister safely away from the X-Men movies is a good thing. I do have one question though: how the hell did X-24 came to be? He’s obviously older than the children, but Rice talks about him as an improvement. So, did they just manage to create an adult Wolverine clone?
Like I wrote in a previous paragraph, we only see anything resembling a real mutant fight when Rice, Pierce, and the Reavers catch up with the fugitive kids. But by then it’s too little, too late, and too dumb. Surely everyone taking part in the capture would know what each kid’s powers are and be ready for it, right? There are files on all of them, FFS! And since their whole research revolves around mutants, they should have special anti-mutant technology, right? Wrong on both counts. One Reaver has his arm frozen and broken, and a couple more seem to die via pine needle attack. After they manage to catch the kids and restrain them, they keep them alive. And conscious. As if this wasn’t dumb enough, we find out they have nothing to dampen their powers when one of the kids electrocutes their guards.
So, let’s see what’s happened so far in the X-Men franchise (that I'm aware of):
- X-Men: Magneto has a helmet to protect himself from Professor X’s psychic powers, and hits Rogue with a tranquilizing dart so he can kidnap her
- X2: Stryker has a device to dampen Professor X’s psychic powers and keeps the mutants drugged and obedient with his special serum
- X-Men: Last Stand: mutant criminals are kept in containers strong enough to contain the Juggernaut
- X-Men: First Class: Sebastian Shaw has a helmet (which Magneto steals in the end) to protect himself from Professor X’s psychic powers
- X-Men: Days of Future Past: Trask develops the giant, mutant-killing robots known as the Sentinels
- X-Men: Apocalypse: younger Stryker knocks everyone out before picking the mutants he’s interested in
In Logan, which takes place after all of these:
- no power dampeners
- no sedation
- mutants are restrained with regular handcuffs
God, these people are morons! As for the scene where the kids all gather around Pierce and kill him by mummifying him with grass, it’s just laughable. Also, how the hell did the electrocuter kid even get captured? And Rictor could’ve done that the whole time but instead just sat there? I could complain that he should be older than Laura, or that his powers seem more like telekinesis, but after all that came before, there’s really no point to it.
Laura’s fight with X-24 is just stupid. If the adamantium bullet can kill Wolverine and all his derivates because it’s strong enough to pierce their adamantium-covered skulls, wouldn’t this mean that Laura’s adamantium claws are strong enough to slice through X-24’s adamantium-covered spine? We’ve seen her behead people before, so why doesn’t she do the same to him? Oh, right, because then it wouldn’t be as dramatic (and gory) as her blowing half his head off by shooting him while he’s attacking Wolverine. Anyway, Wolverine’s dead and the kids bury him. Laura stays behind long enough to reposition the cross marking the grave as an X. Presumably because this is supposed to be the death of the old X-Men. But don’t worry, there’s hope for Mutantkind in the form of Laura, Rictor, and the other random kids we barely spend any time with and who only matter because using children as lab rats is bad.
I don’t understand what’s so great about this movie, I really don’t. I feel as if I’ve seen this plot several times before and the addition of a handful of X-Men characters doesn’t change that. It’s also funny seeing people gushing about this oh so serious movie when the X-Men series started in a concentration camp and has featured more than one attempted genocide. Wolverine’s claws being bloody and body parts getting hacked don’t make for a deeper movie (though gory fight scenes are always welcome), especially if the character drama underneath the brutality is nothing but a collection of tired clichés.
(PS: dear people on the run from ruthless enemies, if some nice person/persons unrelated to the matter invite you over to their home, please JUST SAY NO. Thank you)
By Danforth