Being a huge X-Men fan, I really hoped this movie would be good and all of the trailers looked amazing, so I went into the cinema with impossibly high hopes, even preparing myself for tears. What I got, however, was an actual punch in the stomach and, like, an hour of crying. This movie exceeded every hope I ever had entering the cinema.
I'm actually having a hard time finding any negatives in this movie whatsoever. I wasn't particularly crazy about Dr Rice, but he's such a minor presence in this movie that I barely even noticed him. There are several villains in this movie, Dr Rice, Donald Pierce and X-24, but what I genuinely believe is going fairly unnoticed in all of the reviews I've read is Donald Pierce and Boyd Holbrook's portrayal of him. Honestly, I don't believe we've had such a good X-Men villain since Magneto, and that to me is really important now since we barely get any good villains in movies these days. Villains can be the most interesting part of a movie. I'm excited to watch Boyd's show "Narcos" now, and I plan on following his career from this moment on. X-24 is also a much better villain than I expected, serving as a sort of a shadow to Wolverine. Another highlight of the movie was Dafne Keen, the little girl that plays Laura. She is absolutely amazing, and I can't stress that enough.
I want to briefly discuss the R rating. Honestly, it adds so much to the movie, and it's amazing to finally see Wolverine cut loose, swearing and slicing people up, it's amazing. And there is a lot of blood and swearing in this movie, which just adds on to this gloomy, gritty feel that lingers over this entire film, further pushing the notion that the dream is dead, that this is the end of the X-Men. It's truly depressing seeing this world where all of your childhood heroes are dead. In a way, I'm almost angry with the creators for twisting the X-Men so out of what we're used to, and that's another thing that I sort of have a problem with, even though nothing really could have been done about it. I don't really feel like the message of this movie, to give up after so many years of fighting, to just kill off everything goofy and colorful about the X-Men and shatter all of our hopes is necessary in a time like this. I think that as goofy as they are, X- Men movies and superhero movies in general just need to do what they were created to do - to raise hope in people that things will get better if we all work together and that we can find a family no matter how different we are. That's an important part as to why X-Men were created in the first place, to show minorities that they're not alone. Now we have a movie that shows mutants, a minority already hated by most of the "normal" people being killed off by the government, and I really don't think that's the message that was needed right now. However, "Logan" is a typical example of the director giving the audience what they want (a nostalgic, gritty Wolverine road trip movie) instead of what they need. In this case, it absolutely works because everything is so masterfully crafted, the cinematography is beautiful, the performances are amazing (Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman should seriously be up for an Oscar), the action, gore and script are ridiculously good, there is a compelling villain and it managed to hit an emotional nerve for me. I can't even consider giving it a lower than perfect score.
I'm excited to see what Logan means for the superhero genre. It's definitely up there with the likes of "The Dark Knight". However, this movie can stand alone as something more than "just a superhero film", and as I've heard so many times before, superhero movies get old. It's time for a little change in the genre. While I can't say I'm particularly happy with the implied direction that the X-Men movies are taking after "Apocalypse" (even though the X-Men are my favorite superhero group ever, though people tend to forget all about comic books and animated series), I'm more than excited to see if they will ever again reach anything close to the masterpiece that is "Logan".
