No stars (turkey). Rated R, and generously, for relentless profanity and strong, brutal violence
By Derrick Bang
Discussing the big-screen
adaptation of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, back in late 2014, gave me the excuse to indict Suzanne
Collins’ reprehensible source novel as a complete betrayal of her characters,
and of her readers: a needlessly nasty finale that cruelly (and pointlessly)
killed major supporting characters while turning resourceful Katniss Everdeen
into a sniveling victim.
 |
| When their attempt to enjoy one restful night is interrupted by a squadron of gun-toting killers, Logan (Hugh Jackman) and Laura (Dafne Keen) do their best to survive. |
It was the most senseless,
deliberately mean-spirited betrayal of a heroic franchise — by its original
author, no less — that I’d ever encountered.
Until now. This film is even
worse.
Logan doesn’t merely trash the long-beloved
character of Wolverine, played here (for the ninth time!) by Hugh Jackman; director
James Mangold and his gaggle of co-writers defecate all over the entire X-Men
franchise and, by extension, the broader Marvel superhero universe. All this,
with the apparent blessing of the parent company, given the familiar
pre-credits Marvel Entertainment logo.
Shame on everybody involved.
Whereas 2014’s exciting X-Men: Days of Future Past cleverly
employed backwards time travel as a means of re-booting the franchise — with
smiles all around during the unexpectedly happy ending — Logan takes the opposite approach, moving the action forward to
2029. The tidings are grim: All of Logan’s X-Men comrades are dead, via some
horrific event that apparently involved both Charles Xavier/Professor X
(Patrick Stewart) and an evil scientific genius named Dr. Zander Rice (Richard
E. Grant).
I say “apparently,” because while
the film repeatedly references this ghastly occurrence, we never get details.
A despondent Logan, his
once-invulnerable body being poisoned by the adamantium enhancements to his
skeletal frame, is drinking his days away while earning chump change as a limo
driver. His lair, across the border in Mexico, also serves as a hideout for
Xavier, stricken with Alzheimer’s, senile dementia or some other brain
disorder. Their sole companion is the albino mutant Caliban (Stephen Merchant),
who fears that he’s doing little but watching his two friends die. Slowly.
Unlike the rival DC universe,
which occasionally indulges in such canonical mischief by branding the results
“imaginary stories” or “elseworlds tales,” Mangold makes no such reassurances
here. This is the way things are ... and they’re about to get worse.
To a very small degree, this
film’s misbegotten script borrows the established comic book origin story of
Laura Kinney, better known as “X-23”: a laboratory-bred young girl created in
the mold of Wolverine/Logan, with both his healing factor and razor-sharp
adamantium claws. Logan learns of the girl’s existence after a threatening
visit from Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), a cybernetically enhanced “emissary”
from the Alkali Corporation, which — we eventually deduce, through vague
inference — was behind the extermination of all the other X-Men.
Logan wants no part of any of
this, but he loathes Pierce and Alkali enough to overcome such reluctance, when
fate brings Laura to his front door (literally). Pierce and his squadron of
gun-toting thugs aren’t far behind, at which point Logan sees — in gory,
blood-splattering, decapitating glory — that young Laura possesses both his berserker
rages, and his athletic ability to turn opponents into deli slices.
None of the hundreds of Pierce’s
doomed associates, as this wretched film progresses, has the slightest trace of
individuality or personality; they’re all just meat-bags waiting to be peeled.
At which point I should emphasize
that this ain’t no family-friendly comic book movie. Logan is quite appropriately rated R, for both graphic and
unrelenting violence, and the liberal application of profanity. The title
character drops F-bombs like raindrops, although Jackman’s heart doesn’t seem
to be in so much swearing. Perhaps he, too, sensed the wrongness of this film’s
approach.
Granted, there’s definitely a
vicarious thrill to be had, the first time Logan really goes to town — dealing with some gang-bangers trying to
steal the hubcaps off his limo — but the bloom quickly fades from that brutal
rose. Mangold subsequently indulges in nonstop mayhem, turning the film into an
abattoir of flayed flesh, punctured eyeballs, impalements, gaping wounds,
hacked-off limbs and any other means of evisceration that come to mind: a level
of tasteless carnage usually associated only with grody horror flicks.
And while some eyebrows are
certain to be raised, by the fact that much of this butchery comes at the hands
— or, rather, claws — of a child, I’m afraid that ship sailed several years
ago, with the big-screen introduction of Chloë Grace Moretz’s Hit-Girl, in Kick-Ass. Which, to its credit, had the
good sense to leaven its carnage with
dollops of dark comedy.
You’ll find not a trace of humor
here; the result is likely to be embraced only by gore-hounds who thrive on
this sort of swill. Mainstream viewers — parents who indulgently take their
comic book-weaned kids to all Marvel movies — are hereby warned.
But that’s not the extent of
Mangold’s grisly, wretched excess; he also indulges in the casual sadism of
introducing kind-hearted sidebar characters, for the sole purpose of
slaughtering them 10 minutes later. That sort of contrived, manipulative
scripting is beneath contempt.
I can’t imagine what prompted
Mangold to wallow in such revolting rubbish; he’s much better than this, having
previously helmed 2007’s terrific remake of 3:10
to Yuma, and directed both Angelina Jolie and Reese Witherspoon to Academy
Awards, in (respectively) Girl,
Interrupted and Walk the Line.
Did he derive some sort of sick pleasure from befouling such a successful
franchise?
Jackman’s occasionally awkward
line readings aside, he’s quite convincing as a dispirited warrior drowning
beneath too many awful memories. Unfortunately, for all of Mangold’s
aforementioned skill in earlier films, with other actors, he fails to draw the
necessary transformation from Jackman. This story demands that Logan soften, at
least to some degree, but it never happens; he’s angrily bitter from start to
finish. The monotony becomes tedious.
Young Dafne Keen is more
successful as Laura, who displays an impressively wide range of emotions while
remaining mute for most of the film. (She can talk; she simply chooses not to,
for the most part.) Her wary gaze bespeaks too much treachery by previously
encountered adults, and she’s certainly believable when out-of-control enraged.
At the same time, she occasionally displays the playful curiosity of a child,
particularly when confronted with everyday wonders — stores, horses — that she
never experienced in her laboratory-raised environment.
Stewart’s portrayal of Xavier is
heartbreaking; he persuasively depicts a level of senility that has shattered
this once-heroic, rigorously moral paterfamilias. The strength of Stewart’s
performance merely enhances this film’s overarching sense of perfidy: It’s like
watching James Bond as a clumsy, doddering octogenarian who shoots himself in
the foot. It’s not something we ever should allow, let alone witness.
Holbrook makes Pierce a
standard-issue giggling psychopath who indulges in faux politeness: a tiresome,
oft-repeated stereotype that should have been retired years ago. Holbrook
brings nothing new to the table; Grant, similarly, merely repeats his frequent
shtick as an oily, condescending baddie.
But
the entire cast could have been terrific, and the result wouldn’t have changed:
Logan is an abomination. God forbid
it should make enough money to persuade Marvel Entertainment to indulge in
further franchise anarchy.
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