A [Logan] thread. For nerds. *Spoilers*

Grislo

This is a Logan thread.

It will have spoilers.

Don't spoil anything that isn't Logan.

Spoiler: Logan is really good.

honovere

I want to repeat how good I thought Patrick Stewart was in this.

The interactions between him and Jackman were the high points of the movie for me.

Room got a bit dusty a few times.

Grislo

This is a pretty great movie.

It is not in any way flawless, but I think that whatever flaws it has are minor, and some of them are very much down to personal preference.

The use of Shane doesn't really do it for me – it doesn't have a cultural significance to me, and I don't think they manage to give it that heft in the hotel scene. That said, Laura's use of the speech at the funeral is a great character moment, showing us that she isn't really equipped to handle that type of situation. The shifting of the cross is excellent.

The collective of kids killing Pierce felt – I don't want to say cheesy, but like something I'd have expected from another type of movie. It is thematically fine, though.
And, broadly speaking, Logan saving children is an excellent end. I mean, everything that isn't the first two X-Men movies should really be ignored (and they can too, but I think they work still) which gives Logan a good journey, especially from X2 to this.

Those two minor issues are really nit-picks, though.

I know some people dislike X-24, and I get that the inclusion of a powerful mutant for Logan to fight feels clichéd to some, but I again think it makes thematic sense for him to fight an out of control version of himself. A little heavy handed? Maybe. But not bad.

Someone mentioned in the movie thread that the family being black, and subsequently killed, was less than ideal, and I get that, but I really like the fact that they were a black family, and that it wasn't a “thing”. It was handled well, and felt natural (and it's pretty fucked up that I have to be impressed by that, dear superhero movie industry).

The acting is stellar, from almost everyone in a major role. I wasn't hugely impressed by Pierce as a character, but he works well enough for what the movie needs out of him. Jackman, Keen and Stewart all knock it out of the park. And then stab it. Repeatedly.

The action works. There'll be complains about Laura, and I'm sure they'll be very valid, but I have no issues with how they did things technically. It was an exciting action movie, with clear and well shot action. And, you know, a solid drama on top of that.

Highly recommended, if anyone is silly enough to be reading this before watching it.

Prohass

I feel like because I know nothing about this storyline from any comics or anything like that it was particularly powerful and exciting

honovere

The kids were basically the lost boys and girls. Lil magneto could've been named Rufio.

And yes, the scene of them combining powers to kill Pierce wasn't that good.

The worst piece of dialogue was probably the bit about Laura's foot blade.

That's minor nits to pick for me though.

Snicketysnick

Cross posting my stuff because I didn't see the thread

Snicketysnick wrote: »

LOGAN was excellent

Really appreciated the opening going for it with the first line being a swear word and then a lot of dismemberment shortly after. A great way of setting the bar at you must be this tall to ride.

Dafne Keen put in a brilliant performance, I was a bit worried she was just going to be yelling and stabbing, but she knocked it out of the park in the last half hour.

Yet another electric black man!

I was expecting the leader of the kids to bust out some sweet eyebeams, but having him be mini Magneto was a great surprise.

Little glimpses of a future America with robo trucks and harvesters and so on were very well done.

I hope that the thing that gets taken from this (and Deadpool really) is that you can do a Superhero film without a world-ending stakes plot, it can be small and close to the characters and produce something far more engaging than 20min of CGI and a beam of light shooting in the sky.

I agree about X24, he's the only part that I felt was a bit, safe? for want of a better word. But he does serve a purpose and in the end he's not as blunt an idea as he could have been.

Hermano

I did have to stifle a laugh when the black kid turned out to have electricity powers, that really is a thing huh

Grislo

honovere wrote: »

The kids were basically the lost boys and girls. Lil magneto could've been named Rufio.

And yes, the scene of them combining powers to kill Pierce wasn't that good.

The worst piece of dialogue was probably the bit about Laura's foot blade.

That's minor nits to pick for me though.

The foot blade bit was just odd, I'd forgotten about that. It felt like a strange pre-emptive move against criticism that would never happen.

My mind went to Hook towards the end, too, with the kids. But yeah, nitpicks for me as well.

Snicketysnick

Also bloody hell where 15s not this violent when I was a lad, I thought that last week watching John Wick, but this was something else, I'd love to know if what let it dance under the 18 rating was something innocuous like language (Lack of the C word) or if it was some other hurdle I've missed.

OmnipotentBagel

I thought X-24 worked because Wolverine at his core is a man torn between the bestial rage he's constantly living with and wanting to be a good person. By the time of the movie he had retreated so far from that struggle, he was tired of it. Laura was forcing him to confront it again, and X-24 was the physical manifestation of that struggle. The fact that Laura was the one to finally kill it is pretty apropos to the theme of the movie--she's the reason he finally triumphed over his base nature in the end. He got to die as a good man, capable both of loving and being loved.

Grislo

Adding to that, the bullet she uses is rather fitting.

sarukun

This movie had a tiny handful of weird tonal moments

Bottom was definitely when the farmer tried to shoot Logan. Cut the legs right out from under me.

Devlin_Dragonus

sarukun wrote: »

This movie had a tiny handful of weird tonal moments

Bottom was definitely when the farmer tried to shoot Logan. Cut the legs right out from under me.

I feel like that worked in a lot of ways to reinforce Logans skewed view going into the last leg of the movie and eventually his redemption finale arc if you will.

Just cuz

He was shown a good life in what that family had. Charles makes a big point about it but this entire time he has been feeling that he is poison and death to everyone he cares about, its some pretty heavy survivors guilt. He says as much shortly after to Laura. The farmer trying to shoot him makes sense, it was a "this is all your fault!" reaction, guy wasnt thinking clearly, since he was most likely running on pure adrenaline at that point.

Devlin_Dragonus

Is it wierd to say that is this is kind of the "No Country For Old Men" of Marvel Movies?

OmnipotentBagel

Devlin_Dragonus wrote: »

Is it wierd to say that is this is kind of the "No Country For Old Men" of Marvel Movies?

I've seen some reviews say exactly that, so I guess not.

Grey Ghost

Prohass wrote: »

I feel like because I know nothing about this storyline from any comics or anything like that it was particularly powerful and exciting

This basically doesn't resemble any particular comic storyline at all

Grey Ghost

ALSO THIS WAS GREAT

OmnipotentBagel

One of the guys I saw this with was all "Man I gotta check out the comics now" when we left the theater. "No you don't," I told him. "But I want to see what they took from it!" "Nothing. The best decision they made with this movie was to take the broad premise of 'Old dying Wolverine in the future' and literally nothing else, that comic is AWFUL."

I hope he believes me--it'd be a real tragedy if this movie turns people onto the original OML book.

sarukun

Devlin_Dragonus wrote: »

sarukun wrote: »

This movie had a tiny handful of weird tonal moments

Bottom was definitely when the farmer tried to shoot Logan. Cut the legs right out from under me.

I feel like that worked in a lot of ways to reinforce Logans skewed view going into the last leg of the movie and eventually his redemption finale arc if you will.

Just cuz

He was shown a good life in what that family had. Charles makes a big point about it but this entire time he has been feeling that he is poison and death to everyone he cares about, its some pretty heavy survivors guilt. He says as much shortly after to Laura. The farmer trying to shoot him makes sense, it was a "this is all your fault!" reaction, guy wasnt thinking clearly, since he was most likely running on pure adrenaline at that point.

I meant, like, emotionally.

That whole sequence was a bit weird, but that moment was just Goddamned heartbreaking.

OmnipotentBagel

sarukun wrote: »

Devlin_Dragonus wrote: »

sarukun wrote: »

This movie had a tiny handful of weird tonal moments

Bottom was definitely when the farmer tried to shoot Logan. Cut the legs right out from under me.

I feel like that worked in a lot of ways to reinforce Logans skewed view going into the last leg of the movie and eventually his redemption finale arc if you will.

Just cuz

He was shown a good life in what that family had. Charles makes a big point about it but this entire time he has been feeling that he is poison and death to everyone he cares about, its some pretty heavy survivors guilt. He says as much shortly after to Laura. The farmer trying to shoot him makes sense, it was a "this is all your fault!" reaction, guy wasnt thinking clearly, since he was most likely running on pure adrenaline at that point.

I meant, like, emotionally.

That whole sequence was a bit weird, but that moment was just Goddamned heartbreaking.

Yeah it was exactly the kind of thing he was talking about and the worst possible timing in the world.

Renzo

Saw this last night. It messed me up pretty good.

I was scrunched up into a ball of nerves for the first act, until right after the train.

I want to talk about it more, but I'm a little busy.

Johnny Chopsocky

This was a motherfucker of a movie. Heavy shit goes down, and there is no end-credits stinger and that is a good thing.

God, I feel drained. Good job, James Mangold. You did a real good job.

OmnipotentBagel

I had no expectation of a stinger but I stuck it through the end credits anyway because they were perfect for decompressing and that movie DEMANDED decompression.

Second best use of The Man Comes Around I've seen on screen.

Butler For Life #1

I said it in the movie thread, I'll say it again

how amazing was it to hear Xavier give an impromptu ad for the Quesalupa

I felt like I might have been hallucinating during that scene

it was just so weird

OmnipotentBagel

I will believe, until someone proves otherwise, that that was not scripted nor did Taco Bell have anything to do with it. P-Stew just really likes the quesalupa and ad libbed it.

Butler For Life #1

also I posted this in the other thread but it got bottom-paged and I'm really proud of it, so heck, I'm reposting

was anyone else struck by the fact that in the film with Taco Bell product placement, the plot revolves around a Run for the Border

OmnipotentBagel

Nowhere near enough of it revolved around Doritos-based insanity though

nightmarenny

Butler For Life #1 wrote: »

also I posted this in the other thread but it got bottom-paged and I'm really proud of it, so heck, I'm reposting

was anyone else struck by the fact that in the film with Taco Bell product placement, the plot revolves around a Run for the Border

The canadian border in fact.

Hey can we talk about how openly political this movie was? Because it had no interest in subtly when it came to that.

Devlin_Dragonus

I told my friend that his kids finally got representation in a major motion picture. (he is Mexican-American and his wife is canadian)

KingofMadCows

Such a great movie. There are way too many good things I could say about this film. I definitely need to see it again to catch more of the details for the backstories and clues for what happened to the world. It's like Children of Men, Little Miss Sunshine, and No Country for Old Men mixed together.

I especially liked the way they depicted the violence. They could have gone the easy way and made it cool and badass. That's what a "comic book movie" would have done. But they made it so brutal and horrific that makes you want to turn away. The movie does a great job of dealing with the consequences of violence and its effects on both the victims and those who inflict it.

Also, Xavier killed all the mutants when he had a seizure in Cerebro, didn't he?

nightmarenny

KingofMadCows wrote: »

Such a great movie. There are way too many good things I could say about this film. I definitely need to see it again to catch more of the details for the backstories and clues for what happened to the world. It's like Children of Men, Little Miss Sunshine, and No Country for Old Men mixed together.

I especially liked the way they depicted the violence. They could have gone the easy way and made it cool and badass. That's what a "comic book movie" would have done. But they made it so brutal and horrific that makes you want to turn away. The movie does a great job of dealing with the consequences of violence and its effects on both the victims and those who inflict it.

Also, Xavier killed all the mutants when he had a seizure in Cerebro, didn't he?

No. Mutants just stopped being born and at the end the evil scientist reveals their company had been using additives in food and water to suppress the mutant gene.

The remaining mutants have been hunted near extinction and it probably didn't help that Professor X did basically annihilate any mutants living with the X-men.

Snicketysnick

He's probably what got rid of the X-Men though, in the "Westchester Incident" which was mentioned as having I think 600 casualties on a news report in the background.

Devlin_Dragonus

KingofMadCows wrote: »

Such a great movie. There are way too many good things I could say about this film. I definitely need to see it again to catch more of the details for the backstories and clues for what happened to the world. It's like Children of Men, Little Miss Sunshine, and No Country for Old Men mixed together.

I especially liked the way they depicted the violence. They could have gone the easy way and made it cool and badass. That's what a "comic book movie" would have done. But they made it so brutal and horrific that makes you want to turn away. The movie does a great job of dealing with the consequences of violence and its effects on both the victims and those who inflict it.

Also, Xavier killed all the mutants when he had a seizure in Cerebro, didn't he?

the radio news cast in the truck that Logan turns off was mentioning the Westchester incident in relation to the event in Las Vegas.

In it it mentions several casualties (forget the exact number) and "the last 7 mutants members of the..." *Logan turns it off*

And later that doctor, whose name escapes me at the moment, is credited as the one who wiped out existing mutants and filtering out new ones "like they did with Polio".

Prohass

Yeah it wàs a double whammy, the doctor and government basically genetically engineered the food and water supply to stop new mutants being born, then rounded up or deported existing mutants. And most awful of all Professor X is implied to have killed the xmen leadership in the Winchester incident, which is what wolverine and he avoid talking about

My absolute favourite sequence was the seizure in Las Vegas. Holy god that was just so brilliant. That's what xmen should be about, conceptually arresting powers shown in interesting ways.

Oh god this film was so good, my heart.

And I love that the adamntium is what was giving Logan cancer or whatever.

God this whole movie was just packed with great stuff

nightmarenny

Prohass wrote: »

Yeah it wàs a double whammy, the doctor and government basically genetically engineered the food and water supply to stop new mutants being born, then rounded up or deported existing mutants. And most awful of all Professor X is implied to have killed the xmen leadership in the Winchester incident, which is what wolverine and he avoid talking about

My absolute favourite sequence was the seizure in Las Vegas. Holy god that was just so brilliant. That's what xmen should be about, conceptually arresting powers shown in interesting ways.

Oh god this film was so good, my heart.

And I love that the adamntium is what was giving Logan cancer or whatever.

God this whole movie was just packed with great stuff

On that note one way that they kinda fell on this movie is the way X-men movies tend to always fall apart. Scenes where a huge number of powered individuals fight at the same time.

Its understandable. The Avengers movies and Civil war are basically the only times that looked good and Civil war is literally the only time they've had a full powered vs powered fight.

KingofMadCows

They said that no new mutants have been born for 25 years. It's later revealed that was because the government/corporations put something in the water. They also mentioned how Caliban used to help the government track mutants. I believe the radio said that the Westchester incident "last year."

While that could explain why there are no mutants in the US, what about the rest of the world? The way they talk about how there are no more mutants suggests that the disappearance of the mutants was a global phenomenon.

Prohass

they kept that to a minimum I think, and because it was kids they used to more effectively in terms of themes. I still agree its not as visually grounded as the logan and laura stuff though

nightmarenny

KingofMadCows wrote: »

They said that no new mutants have been born for 25 years. It's later revealed that was because the government/corporations put something in the water. They also mentioned how Caliban used to help the government track mutants. I believe the radio said that the Westchester incident "last year."

While that could explain why there are no mutants in the US, what about the rest of the world? The way they talk about how there are no more mutants suggests that the disappearance of the mutants was a global phenomenon.

I can't remember did they say the Westchester incident happened just last year? I could swear it was a while ago. Anyway Xavier for sure didn't kill all mutant because Kalibak(was that his name?) is around doing his thing and goes completely unexplained. They also mention Mutants existing but being in hiding. Why should a company choosing to genocide mutants be restricted to the US? That company probably imported to every country on the planet.

nightmarenny

Prohass wrote: »

they kept that to a minimum I think, and because it was kids they used to more effectively in terms of themes. I still agree its not as visually grounded as the logan and laura stuff though

Its hard to explain the issue with it but its very consistent with the way they used powers in the other movies. Very limited and...

Its like you can feel the scene bending to budget concerns?

OmnipotentBagel

nightmarenny wrote: »

Prohass wrote: »

they kept that to a minimum I think, and because it was kids they used to more effectively in terms of themes. I still agree its not as visually grounded as the logan and laura stuff though

Its hard to explain the issue with it but its very consistent with the way they used powers in the other movies. Very limited and...

Its like you can feel the scene bending to budget concerns?

I know what you mean. It's the same effect you get from AoS, where it's like you can see them basically doing "insert CGI here" and the movements feel really unnatural because of it.

Johnny Chopsocky

I don't know why people keep using "gritty" as the chief word to describe Logan. The word I keep coming back to is "melancholy".