Logan (2017)
Rated R
Starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Stephen Merchant, Boyd Holbrook
Written and Directed by James Mangold
The Story:
In the future, all of the X-Men are dead, except Logan (Jackman) who now cares for an ailing Professor X (Stewart). With no new mutants to train, and Xavier's mind slowly slipping away making him a danger to himself and the world, Logan is trying to get them away from humanity once and for all. Complicating matters, a little girl named Laura (Keen) who was mutated in a lab to be just like Logan, only smaller and much cuter.
Oh, and pretty much everyone dies by the end.
How's that for a big #@$#$ing spoiler?
Well there's your second hint, the first was the title of this @#$@#!$@ing review in the first place.
Thanks to the success of Deadpool, everyone decided that the finale to Hugh Jackman's take as Wolverine would also be rated R.
Why?
So they could show him sticking his claws in people's faces, cutting them to ribbons.
And saying %$&^
A lot.
Apparently $#@#$ you Mother#$#@#@$ is script shorthand for lazy R rated movies.
I get it.
I've climbed up on this soapbox so many times, usually for the R rated comedy raunchfests.
I chastise those for lazy writing, because anyone can F*&$#@#ing cuss, ooooh, how edgy, but if you're going to do it with jokes, the jokes themselves need to be funny, sans language.
So too, in this edgy mutant action-thriller-drama, so too must everything be interesting and not just a way to keep a generation of fans away from the final installment because, well, @#$# you!
Unlike Deadpool, who had only once been seen in a movie form before, and frankly, it sucked, Wolverine has been with us for what, 27 or so movies at this point. Every X-Men movie, and several of his own films. All rated PG-13.
17 years Jackman has been doing this, and he is still the best there is at what he does.
No, I'm putting the blame squarely on the feet of the #@$@#ing lazy screenwriters who frankly bored me with their overuse of language in an otherwise pedestrian script.
You want a good X-Men/Wolverine movie, go see First Class or Days of Future Past. Some might even say X2, but I haven't seen that in so long, I couldn't tell you for certain anymore.
Nope, at the end of the day, I have to grade this final version of Logan against the likes of Batman vs. Superman, and say that when I go to watch a superhero movie, I go to be excited and entertained.
This didn't do it for me, and frankly, if I were to want to watch a Logan solo adventure, I'd rather rewatch X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Yeah, it's got it's issues (oh boy, does it have issues) but it was depressing because of how it was executed.
This version of Logan set out to be depressing from the word go, and succeeded all around.
Therefore, I can't give a seal of approval to a movie that knowingly turns its back on the millions of kids who grew up on Jackman as Wolverine just to make an edgy, adult thriller that kills him off at the end.
#@$@# that.
Final Grade:
