LOGAN Slashes into Theaters

    

Jeri Jacquin

In theatres this Friday from writer/director James Mangold, Marvel Entertainment and 20^th Century Fox is the anticipated film in the saga of Wolverine with LOGAN.

The story picks up as Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is a washed out limo driver living well beyond 2016. In fact far into the future and his dream is to buy a big boat and sale away from humanity. That was the plan until a man named Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) showed up in his limousine.

Pierce makes it plain that he is looking for someone believing that Logan may have answers. Logan assures the intruder that who ever he’s looking for is of no interest to him. That’s when the name Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) is mentioned angering Logan.

Taking off for a hideout, Logan is trying to keep things safe which is about to change when a little girl named Laura (Dafne Keen) comes into his life. Pierce and Dr. Rice (Richard E. Grant) are looking for the girl and stopping at nothing to make sure it happens.

Laura and Charles connect to one another and it becomes clear that there are more young mutants in hiding from Dr. Rice and Pierce. Logan isn’t happy about any of this and knows the only way to stop it is to get Laura to safety.

The danger along the way is hard, fast and out for only one thing – to destroy the young mutants by any means possible. There is a new mutant on the horizon who will challenge them all!

It’s always nice to see Jackman but in LOGAN it is cringe worthy watching him continually try to convince me he is old and decrepit. Why do I want to see that? The bad attitude from a younger Wolverine is back but now seems more like Grumpy Old X-Men which might make an awesome film for the next X-Men installment.

Holbrook as Pierce is just another psycho who has a young guy chip on his shoulder. With the air of invincibility he goes after Logan, Charles and Laura. Stewart as Charles was just a hard thing to watch. Grant as Dr. Rice is just the next generation psychopath who doesn’t mind killing a kid or two.

Keen had the best part in the film I should think. There isn’t much dialogue and she has the angry eyebrow of Jean Grey with a few moves of her own. It took a hot second to realize there are new X-men in town.

Other cast include Stephen Merchant as Caliban, Elizabeth Rodriguez as Gabriela, Eriq La Salle as Will Munson, Elise Neal as Kathryn Munson, Quincy Fouse as Nate Munson, and Reynaldo Gallegos as Rey.

LOGAN is a sad film from start to finish and not in a ‘you-got-a-tissue?’ way as far as I’m concerned. There is nothing worse than beating a comic book anti-hero to death and then dragging him through 137 minutes of MY life that I’ll never get back. Don’t misunderstand me, I wanted to cheer for the film but instead jeers snuck out now and then.

The story did absolutely nothing for me and I’m sure I’ll get a yelling from a lot of people for saying that. Do I have to read the comic to understand what the hell is going on? It’s like an X-Men sludge mixed up to give Wolverine another adventure at what I’m sure I don’t know.

Did Wolverine really need another movie? I can honestly say that I have a sore neck from the amount of head shakes I did. What goes on with Charles isn’t much better to my way of thinking. I mean seriously? If the anti-hero Wolverine is to get a beat down, there is no respect for Charles at all!

Of course I’m trying not to give too much away which isn’t all that difficult in the case of LOGAN. I’m sure that comic fans will be happy and feel a sense of closure. My sense of closure came from finally feeling free to walk out of the theatre!

So prepare for a slashing and bashing that comes with hanging out in mutant territory.

In the end – don’t mess with the limo driver!