Logan Review Wanted: Dead or Alive

 David SarachmanPosted:March 8, 2017
Updated: April 26, 2022

Let’s get started on this Logan Review.

Logan Needed to Be R Rated

Deadpool seemed to open pandora’s box of R-Rated superhero storytelling. Fox has been definitely lagging behind the success that Marvel has been propelling itself through the Universe with. Winter Soldier was a spy movie, Ant-Man was a heist movie.  I think this is because Marvel was making genre flicks that happened to have superheroes in them. So Deadpool succeeded because at its heart it was a movie about Romance. Sure, that romantic storyline was a roller coaster of weirdly shaped pieces fitting together to make something wonderful, but it was a romance story (and revenge story) painted in red spandex and fourth-wall-breaking colors. It makes Fox a ton of money.

So when everyone started chanting “R-Rating R-Rating” everyone got nervous. Because we could see the storm that was coming and many of us thought that what was coming was going to be a tornado of ultra-violence and sexual fest.

And then we heard about Logan.

Let me state right now that Logan needed to be R-Rated, from the very beginning. Logan-Wolverine has, since the very beginning been a killer, and a rogue, and the very epitome of the anti-hero. Wolverine did what needed to be done so that nice people like us got to see another day.

I’m the best there is at what I do. But what I do best isn’t very nice

Logan Review Movie

So Logan movie is that movie that Wolverine fans have been waiting for since day one. The sad part is we got it at the end of the story instead of the beginning. But we’ll take it.

I’m going to do my best to avoid spoilers, and touch on things that are shown in the trailers, but, do yourself a favor: Go see it now…like right now.

Logan starts off in a darker world, he’s old, and every time he moves you can see pain ripple through across his body like a wave. Watching Hugh Jackman walk as Logan made my joints hurt. Those aches and pains that you get when you get older? He has a double share, Hell, he has a triple share. The year is 2020 so that puts Logan around 140 years old (according to canon Logan was born in the 1880’s).

So we have a Wolverine that seems to move like the entirety of his life is smashing down on him like an enraged Hulk (which also happened in the comics) and the X-Men are gone. We never learn what happened to them but we can figure out that it was bad….really bad.

Added to this mix is an infirm Professor Xavier “Whose brain is classified as a weapon of mass destruction” and a Caliban that seems trying to make amends for something he did in his past.

If you were to see this movie for anything, then go see it for the way that Sir Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman play off each other. These men  have been working with each other for around seventeen years and you can feel the weight of that relationship in their words and how at the core of a crumbling world (and mind in the case of Professor X)

By the time we are introduced to the character of Laura (X-23) we are already totally invested in Logan, Charles, and Caliban. It becomes easy (and painful) to see how these three fit in the world. It becomes real which, I think becomes more terrifying because, what they are going through is not something that could happen only in comics but, it could happen to anyone of us.

And that is the reason why I think Logan is so great.

Not because of the super awesome Wolverine fight scenes (which are both awesome and painful to watch)

Not because of the story (which is an emotional gut-punch)

But because, each of us, in this instance can be Logan.

I’ve always been a fan of Logan/Wolverine. I mean, he’s a samurai berserker with unbreakable razor claws, adamantium skeleton, super senses and a healing factor that has brought him back from being eaten (Old Man Logan).

But he was never my favorite.

Until now.

Logan is a Tale of Redemption

Logan moved Wolverine to the top of my list because for the first time in my life I could be a superhero. I’m not claiming powers or a secret fighting style. I’m claiming that Logan, in a very brutal manner showed the audience that heroes grow old, they get sick and they can die.

That stark brutal reality as laid out in Logan forces the viewer right there, in that moment Logan is about YOU.

All the pain, the history, the scars— they’re all yours now…you’re welcome.

So when we meet Laura, we recognize her immediately for what she represents—redemption.

I’m specifically not going into Laura’s background because you can’t really talk about her without falling through a plate glass spoiler. Just know that she’s awesome and super cool and you need to see her kick some serious ass.

Sure the cynic is whispering that Laura/X-23 is prepped to be Wolverine Part 2: Electric Boogaloo (especially if you know the comics and current Marvel Storyline), but the dreamer, the hero and the romantic will recognize her as the missing piece in Logan’s life, his goodbye letter to the world that has done it’s best to break him.

Why You Need To See Logan Movie Review

You need to see this movie because it’s Hugh Jackman’s (and Patrick Stewart’s) farewell to two of the most Iconic Comic Book Characters in Marvel. Before the Iron Man Movie, there was X-Men, showing the world that you could make a comic book movie that told a mature storyline about real-world issues.

Because it’s the story of a hero that gets to leave the stage on their own rules and not because the studio shut them down.

And because it’s a beautiful piece of cinema that will leave you looking back on your own life and the road you took to get here.

And because it’s simply a fantastic movie.

Go and see it.