'Logan' Has Claws and Not Much Else

Rating: 8/10 (7 March 2017)

Nearly 17 years ago, "X-Men" debuted in theaters. While it wasn't the best reviewed movie ever by any stretch of the imagination, it did show that the well-known Marvel comic book properties could earn solid box office numbers. Since then, the likes of "Spider-Man 2", "The Dark Knight", and "The Avengers" have evolved the genre from something of interest to only comic book fans to the general public. We've had 3 Spider-Mans, 2 Batmans, 2 Supermans, and 3 Hulks on the big screen. Despite all that change, the X-Men universe has remained somewhat intact. Sure, they've had cast changes but only to show younger versions of characters. Meanwhile, the older cast still manages to pop-up occasionally. The closest thing to a reboot was merely a soft reboot that didn't involve any cast changes.
A large part of this could be attributed to the brilliant casting of the first "X-Men" film. Individually, Patrick Stewart's Professor X and Ian McKellan's Magneto created the kind of spot-on portrayals a comic fan dreams of. But even they pale in comparison to Hugh Jackman's Wolverine. The 6'3" Australian was a last minute replacement to play the 5"3" Canadian character. To say he wasn't comic book accurate would be an understatement. But what he managed to do was improve on the comic book character by bringing it humanity while staying true to the original gruffness of its roots.
Hugh Jackman has played Wolverine in more movies than any other actor playing a superhero. Jackman has appeared as Wolverine in 9 movies and had a starring role in 7 of those. "Logan", by all accounts, is his, and likely Stewart's, swan song to the X-Men universe. It's bittersweet in two ways: 1) because it's sad to see these actors leave iconic roles that they've been at for so long, and 2) because while it's a serviceable outro, it's not nearly as strong as these characters/actors deserve.
Further, this movie seems to ignore both "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and "X-Men: Apocalypse" in the continuity. I will happily admit this movie is a fair bit better than those, nevertheless, it's important to follow the rules previously set up in the universe. Especially when within the post-credits scene in "X-Men: Apocalypse" there was a teaser for Logan. To discover that this tease went nowhere was disappointing at best. Particularly since it indicated a classic X- Men villain would make an appearance, when in reality the villains of this movie are essentially canon fodder to be shredded by Logan and company. Eventually, near the end of act 2, a villain appears that could actually be a threat to the team.
The "Logan" movie has a solid setup. It's the not too distant future (kudos to the makeup department for convincingly adding a couple of decades to Stewart and Jackman) and mutants are dying out. No new mutants has been born for 25 years and those that are left are seeing their powers diminish in various ways. As a swan song, this is perfect. With most of the heroes gone and forgotten, the heroes that remain have to prove they might still be able to do some good in the world.
Unfortunately, acts 2 and 3 become little more than a road trip movie with Logan, Xavier, and a young girl named Laura (played very well by Dafne Keen), as they travel from Mexico to North Dakota. There are various stops along the way that usually result in the group being discovered by the bad guys and having the slash their way out. Throughout the trip it's impossible for the audience to know how far they've gone. Have they gone 50, 100, 1000 miles? As it is, the audience has no way to judge if the journey is almost done or just beginning.
I'm not sure this movie intends to have a moral, but if it did it almost certainly would be, "no good deed goes unpunished". Of course, it might also be "no bad deed goes unpunished". Perhaps, the moral is simply "no deed goes unpunished". It does seem as though Wolverine could've prevented a lot of death by simply minding his own business. It honestly gets to the point where death is so prevalent in this movie, it makes it very hard to develop an attachment to any character. Why would the audience become invested in characters when the movie is obviously willing to kill anyone at anytime?
However, even though this movie was a disappointment, I can't be too harsh on it. If nothing else, seeing Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart in these roles one last time is worth the price of admission. These are two actors who I doubt could give a bad performance if they tried. The story, even with it's failings, is strong enough not to diminish their performances. Additionally, James Mangold's direction is solid enough although the pacing of the movie can get fairly muddy in act 2.
I probably could've been more forgiving of the errors within the movie if they had given some thought to developing the relationship between Wolverine and Laura. What should have been the beating heart of this movie is all but overlooked. Still, as far as outros go, this is a solid one. Further, it's great to see Wolverine exit in an explosion of gore that a character with claws would almost certainly manage.
It's sad to see an end to this chapter in comic book movies, but, on the other hand, we still have Deadpool.