Sunday, March 19, 2017

Film Review: Logan (2017)

Copyright: 20th Century Fox
Getting old is a tough thing to go through, apparently even more so for super heroes. Set some 20 years in the future, Logan explores the moment when powerful and relevant individuals lose all of that and just become frail people who desire nothing more than to rest and forget about their waking hours.

For Logan, now a limo driver in an increasingly crumbling US, that rest is hard to come by as his main task in life is to provide to Professor Xavier, now demented and (because of that) very dangerous, a peaceful end to life. However, a mechanical-hand-owning mercenary puts a dent in those plans when he appears, looking for a particular little girl.

Action and sadness are merged in this film is a great way, while its director James Mangold obviously wanted to make a superhero film like no other. While Nolan brought darkness and maturity, Mangold brought melancholy and resentment to the formula, both of which work like a charm. Logan is jaded and past caring (but not in that cool, rebel way), while Patrick Stewart does a marvelous job as a sick father figure who can give nothing more aside from a small grain of wisdom.

In all, it is this bitterness that builds the road on which Logan has to travel to redemption and purposefulness, no matter how tiresome or painful this might end up being. As an action film, Logan misses the mark only with its collection of villains, which are somewhat prosaic and not really engaging as the good guys.

But they don’t spoil the film, which is all about relationships. When Mangold placed all of this smart script-writing in a dystopian future that is only starting to become a real hellhole, the film ended up being something very unique and it resonated with me completely.