Logan (James Mangold)

[Dukefrukem]

You guys don't have to apologize for not agreeing with me. That's the fun of discuss this stuff.

And don't get me wrong, I liked the movie. It's just nowhere near the best X-Men comicbook movie for me. That first movie still holds a very special place in my heart (that sounded weird to type, but it was the first and last time I saw a movie 4 times in theaters).

For reference, I've listed my favorite comicbook movies: These are the only movies I would consider worth watching.

https://letterboxd.com/dukefrukem/li...movies/detail/

And here is the MCU Ranking

https://letterboxd.com/dukefrukem/li...movies/detail/

[Peng]

Just for fun, ranking the X-men-verse films, not having seen Origins:

1. X-Men: Days of Future Past (8.5/10)
2. Logan (8.5/10)
3. X2 (8/10)
4. X-Men: First Class (7.5/10)
5. X-Men (7.5/10)
6. X-Men: Apocalypse (7/10)
7. The Wolverine (6.5/10)
8. X-Men: The Last Stand (6.5/10)

A bit conflicted whether to put Logan or DOFP first. I think Logan is the best as a FILM, but I still ranked Days of Future Past slightly ahead (at least until I have a proper rewatch of it) because of my fondness for a lot of superheroes converging on a thrilling grand scale (and I really liked Singer as a filmmaker more than most here). I could see Logan only going higher up in time though.

[Dukefrukem]

For those that haven't seen Origins (and believe me you don't need to) this is a pretty cool timeline video that sums up all of the X-Men movies with Wolverine (without any Spoilers in Logan).

[Skitch]

I don't hate X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

[Skitch]

That video makes me want to rewatch all the X-Men movies.

Especially the first one, the best one, a mountain that Duke and I will die on.

[TGM]

I don't hate X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Me neither.

[TGM]

I think I'm gonna try and see this again sometime later in the week when there shouldn't be such a shit crowd. People are so rude and disrespectful, laughing at all the trauma and anguish happening on screen, making those of us who are genuinely getting sucked into the movie suddenly taken right out of the moment. I forget who said it here exactly, but it made me think of whoever mentioned their audience laughing during a screening of the original Halloween, and how annoying that was. Like, it really isn't that sorta movie.

[Irish]

------- Suck Line

We're not doing this again, are we?

(I liked your post; very curious about the movie now)

[Irish]

I don't hate X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

There are people here -- terrible, guilty, remorseless people -- who gave low rankings to Gone with the Wind.

You have nothing to be ashamed of.

[

Show Spoiler

Except for that thing about Tron: Legacy. That's just weird and unnatural.

]

[Morris Schæffer]

I think this is very, very good, but I'm struggling to reconcile the glowing reviews with my own thoughts. Is this movie great because it is, or simply because it doesn't have an end of the world scenario? In other words, because it is simply not what the others were? And with others I mean most Marvel movies because the X-Men films have shown to be quite capable of dealing with more intimate, more grounded and relevant stories and moral issues.

I mean, Logan is virtually an immense breath of fresh air by default, but I'm thinking the movie is a bit muddled in its motivations. I hear it's about regret, but I'm not sure I got this from the movie. Regret about what? Xavier has done everything in his power to make mutants accepted by society. Whether he succeeded or not is besides the point, but no one can deny the man tried hard. So where does regret come from? What's Wolverine's regret? That he killed a lot of people? They usually wanted to kill him also, so he merely defended himself.

I think the scenes of slaughter, albeit of the R-rated variety, gave me very little satisfaction as it's all so similar and brutal and oh so visceral, but the violence didn't stun me, didn't shock me. Which perhaps it should have as I get the feeling these characters are in fact running away from that life, their powers a curse rather than a talent to be admired and cultivated. Plus, Logan actually tells the little girl that "she should try not to be the person others want her to be." But again, I think for that message to work, I would have to be shocked by the on-screen violence, but I wasn't.

And Dafne is just so talented and vicious and blessed with turbo speed that she makes short work of the opposition. And that's been a problem of many superhero films, that the heroes are just too powerful. Logan is heaps more plausible in that regard, but the villains just don't feel like real villains, but more like cannon fodder to be dispensed in videogame-fashion. SPLAT! SLASH!! KAPOW!!! KERDZING!!!!!!
It's never good when the bad guys actually have to bring in [

Show Spoiler

Logan's evil twin brother

] to actually make some progress. I didn't like that character, he seems written for the sole purpose of evening out the odds, because the writer - I believe Mangold himself - didn't quite know how to deal with his heroes' superpowers, even if one guy isn't quite the mutant that he used to be.
Again, it's still much better than most Marvel films, but it says a lot about the other qualities of the movie that I felt the gory R-rated scenes took me out of it a little bit. It was a real pleasure just seeing the characters going on the road trip, interacting with each other, reminiscing about the past, meeting other folks. Jackman and Stewart are fantastic, and if this movie was merely about getting older, no longer feeling relevant, escaping one's past, then I would have liked it even more. But I also understand Logan is already a big enough gamble and so I'm definitely grateful for the path taken, and the chances afforded by the studio.

I think Singer as director could've easily fucked this up. Part of what makes this movie excell like it does is in just how deadly seriously they take this material. It elevates it to something more than just another typical comic book movie, makes it feel like a hard drama first that oh by the way, there's also mutants involved, too. And if Singer's last outings are anything to go by, then under his helm, this would almost certainly be just another typical campy comic book flick. There's a definite weight to this movie that typically goes missing in Singer films, and this movie definitely earned that weight.

Not sure I agree we should criticize Singer for this. None of his X-Men films are campy. In fact, I would argue that Singer has treated the material in certainly X2 with the utmost care and respect, crafting an X-Men that's at least as thoughtful, topical and engaging as this one. Logan is merely a different beast from the other X-Men movies. I don't think that says anything about directorial talent. Singer could have easily made this same movie that Mangold did, but I suppose the time wasn't right, the world wasn't ready for this sort of Wolverine movie, or perhaps the studios weren't and needed Deadpool to see the light so to speak. The other X-Men films were a real juggling act with all those mutants running around, which is a much bigger challenge than just focusing on one (well, two or three depending on you how look at it) and I think Singer did a real good job even if Apocalypse was overkill.

It's all about intent. What do you want to do and how much does everyone else want to go along for the ride? It's not about directorial talent. If it was, then The Wolverine would not have had a clunky samurai robot finale. No, it's about being given free reign to do something different, it's about being the right time for this sort of movie. What if Jackman didn't want out of the franchise? Would they have gone all out for something this toned down? This raw? This different? I guess we can argue about that all night long and we'd be none the wiser.

Anyhow, Logan ends powerfully, but I believe it could all have been even more devastating had they completely unshackled themselves from the constraints imposed by the genre. And yes, that's probably too much to ask I know.

[Morris Schæffer]

Had some real The Last of Us vibes this movie.

[Skitch]

[

Show Spoiler

Except for that thing about Tron: Legacy. That's just weird and unnatural.

]

[

Show Spoiler

The Jeff Bridges CGI? Yeah I mentioned that.

]

[Dukefrukem]

I think I'm gonna try and see this again sometime later in the week when there shouldn't be such a shit crowd. People are so rude and disrespectful, laughing at all the trauma and anguish happening on screen, making those of us who are genuinely getting sucked into the movie suddenly taken right out of the moment. I forget who said it here exactly, but it made me think of whoever mentioned their audience laughing during a screening of the original Halloween, and how annoying that was. Like, it really isn't that sorta movie.

I forgot to mention this, but I had similar behavior issues in my theater. Three separate people checking their phones and texting during the slower scenes. Ugh.

There are people here -- terrible, guilty, remorseless people -- who gave low rankings to Gone with the Wind.

You have nothing to be ashamed of.

[

Show Spoiler

Except for that thing about Tron: Legacy. That's just weird and unnatural.

]

Raises hand.

[TGM]

RE Morris, on regret:

He may have tried hard, but he still failed in the end, and so regret can come from not believing he did enough, in Charles' case. Hell, as he's mulling about his perfect evening, he mentions how he doesn't deserve it, so clearly he's battling with some wicked demons.

Or for Logan, hell, the fact he's been around for so long, has seen everyone he's cared about die, while he still gets to live, yeah, that can get to a guy. He could've done more, or he should've been the one to die, not them. They didn't deserve it, and its a lot to take on. These are the sorts of thoughts that we see him dealing with, just from his sheer anger and frustration, or the scene at the graveyard, etc. It's not told to us explicitly, but all shown through visuals and sheer performance. That's Logan's regret. And it's why he's contemplating suicide throughout, a means to escape this hellish life that has been so unrelenting to him, and has in turn made him such an unrelenting beast of a man.

RE Morris, on Singer:

Campy might not be the right word, but they all have a very distinct comic book feel. Which isn't bad, for what they are, but isn't an approach that I feel would do this movie justice.

Hell, of all the issues I had with The Wolverine, one of the bigger ones was its inconsistent tone, how sometimes it felt like something a little more serious than your typical comic book fare, only to suddenly become just another silly comic movie with its climax. Not that that was Singer's fault, obviously, but I can't help but feel his version of this movie would have fallen for those same sort of trappings, based solely on all his prior work that I've seen. And, well, that's one of the big things that I love about this film, is how it fully commits to transcending beyond just a typical comic book flick, and consistently maintains its gritty and grounded approach the whole way through.

Not saying Singer couldn't do the same thing, but based on everything I've seen from him, it's not something I would expect him to pull off, either. Feels like it'd be an inevitable clash of tones and styles, IMO.

[Winston*]

Mostly done with superhero movies in general but this was awesome. Loved it. Def the best acting ensemble in one of these things.

[Dukefrukem]

Tracking 80 mill now.

$85 making it the largest R-Rated March opening ever.

http://heroichollywood.com/logan-debuts-85m/

[Winston*]

I think Singer and Mangold are good action directors btw. This still rules:

[Winston*]

Along with the main three, Stephen Merchant was also excellent in this I thought. Also really liked that guy who played the southern baddie. Never seen him before.

[Morris Schæffer]

$85 making it the largest R-Rated March opening ever.

http://heroichollywood.com/logan-debuts-85m/

That's great! Go Logan!

[Skitch]

Hell yeah GO LOGAN!

[Dukefrukem]

I think Singer and Mangold are good action directors btw. This still rules:

People bring up that scene all the time, and it's literally the best directed action scene throughout all 10 movies- which doesn't paint a good picture for what the rest of the franchise can produce when you never see any scene come close to reproducing it. It's all the opening to X2, which tries to set a tone, and fails miserably.

It's almost as if he got lucky on this one scene, or someone else ghost directed it.

[Dukefrukem]

$85 making it the largest R-Rated March opening ever.

http://heroichollywood.com/logan-debuts-85m/

Really happy a strong Sunday evening pushed this to $88,411,916, making it gross more on opening weekend than X-men Origins... if you can believe that.That shitty movie made $179,883,157 ($373 WW).

[Dukefrukem]

[Dukefrukem]

CGI is getting good.

[TGM]

The X-Men movies are a bit harder for me to rank than most times when I rank a series of movies. I feel there's ranking in terms of actual best to worst, & then in terms of how much I actually like them, despite their inherent quality.

For instance, here's how I'd rank the X-Men movies in order from actual best to worst:

Logan
Deadpool
Days of Future Past
First Class
X2
X-Men
The Wolverine
The Last Stand
Apocalypse
Origins


But then, in terms of most favorite to least favorite for me, here's how that ranking would look then:

Logan
Deadpool
Origins
First Class
Days of Future Past
The Last Stand
X2
X-Men
Apocalypse
The Wolverine

What can I say? X-Men Origins may have been bullshit, but it was at least consistent bullshit from start to finish, and it was damn fun bullshit at that.