Director: James Mangold
Date: 25 January 2018
jamesintexas rating: ***
I think that it gets stars just for cursing. Logan, a neo-western in the guise of a comic-book film, is director James Mangold's updating of the dated, PG-13 formula, and it is a welcome breath of fresh air. A grizzled, beat-down Logan (Hugh Jackman) shines in as scuzzy, messy, and lived-in a performance as you'll ever see in this type of universe. Protecting Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart, awesome as always) from those who would do him harm, he crosses path with a new, younger mutant, a version of himself many years ago in the form of Lara (Dafne Keen), mute but lethal, who is making a journey towards the Canadian border to find refuge. Logan must make a decision to protect himself from bounty hunter Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) or make a run for it, against all odds.
Stephen Merchant, Richard E. Grant, and Eriq La Salle round out an excellent cast as supporting characters along the journey. Some of the action sequences are delightfully wicked. What fun this must have been for Hugh Jackman to do after many years of playing this character. Its depiction of Logan as an Uber driver near the border in the near-future is inspired, and the film's constant nodding to the western genre is quite fun. I found the ending to be a bit less inspired, but overall, the film delivers a thoughtful (at times) and fun end to a story that probably went on too long and didn't have enough great movies (I loved X-Men 2).
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