Logan
Director: James Mangold
Writer: Scott Frank, James Mangold, Michael Green
Based on: Mark Millar and Steve McNiven‘s comic series Old Man Logan, which is in turn based on the character Wolverine created by Roy Thomas, Len Wein, John Romita Sr. and the Marvel Comics X-Men series
Sequel to: the X-Men movies
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Richard E. Grant, Eriq La Salle, Elise Neal, Quincy Fouse
Seen on: 8.3.2017

Plot:
Mutants have been practically eradicated. There are only a few left – those who manage to hide very well. One of them is Logan (Hugh Jackman), whose age is starting to show in the decreased tempo of his healing. He takes care of Xavier (Patrick Stewart), whose age is in turn showing in the dementia he developed. They are constantly at risk of being discovered. When Logan is asked to drive the young Laura (Dafne Keen) to Canada, he smells trouble and tries to refuse. But Laura won’t let herself be refused. She is like Logan in many ways and definitely a mutant. And she is pursued by an organization that means her harm. Laura forces Logan to face the world and his place in it.

Logan is probably the most emotionally mature superhero film, at least of recent years. Nevertheless, I’m not quite as taken with it as many other people were.

The most interesting part about Logan, to me, was how it showed white men as the past: the future, here, belongs to people of color, specifically girls and women of color. I’m not sure if that was the intended moral of the story, but that’s what I took from it. And I would have loved to see that explored a little more, but it’s mostly the last 20 minutes or so where it becomes really a big part of the plot.

Apart from that, Logan has one of the strongest scripts out there, and I’m not talking about the superhero genre alone. It’s structured and well-constructed from the first second to the last, with just the right amount of foreshadowing and flashbacking and a very logical progression of events.

But I have to admit that the precise writing was a bit of a problem for me as it kept things a little too clinical for my taste. It definitely kept me at a distance from the emotional impact of the story – which is an absolute pity. Sometimes things need to be a bit messy to stay alive and Logan teeters right along the line there.

Altogether, though, there is very little to complain about with Logan. It’s a good-looking, well-acted and well-told film and for somebody who basically grew up with Jackman’s Wolverine (okay, I was 15 when he played him for the first time, just old enough to appreciate the hotness) it’s more than bittersweet.

Summarizing: You’ll probably need to be at least a little familiar with the X-Men but Logan is well worth seeing.