“Give me a chance,” Xavier (Patrick Stewart) begged to Logan (Hugh Jackman) way back in Bryan Singer’s X-Men. “I might be able to help you find some answers.” And to paraphrase famous songwriter Bob Dylan, things have drastically changed. Since that has happened, comic book movies have taken over the movie screens. It’s an uglier world with uglier heroes and uglier villains, and “Logan” is the product of that world.
All of those years and feelings together form the latest installment of Fox’s blockbuster X-Men cinematic universe: “Logan,” directed by James Mangold. Loosely inspired by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s comic mini-series called “Old Man Logan”, where the beloved Wolverine is grizzled, violent, and unnervingly aggressive. This also …show more content…
When we first find our titular hero, he’s drunkenly asleep in his prized Chrysler limousine, which he uses to shepherd around wild bachelorette parties and depressing funeral processions day in and day out. Yes, after all these years and for all of his dour soul searching, Logan has amounted to little more than a glorified Lyft driver, a serious step down for the hero. And when he’s not slumming it in the backseat, he’s living in an abandoned, derelict facility, where an overturned water tower houses his longtime psychic mentor, Xavier. Time hasn’t been too kind to the former professor, either, who’s suffering from a debilitating case of Alzheimer’s, which has thwarted his abilities and made him an unpredictable, telepathic nuclear bomb. As we learn, if he’s without his medicine, all hell breaks …show more content…
Rather wisely, Mangold uses this opportunity to build upon his futuristic world, leaning less on the grander details and more on intriguing subtleties, from the driverless trucks cluttering the freeway to the eerie H.G. Wells-esque farmhands looming in the background like a dark cloud on a sunny morning. These bits and pieces spark up the imagination to fill in the rest of the blanks, while also serving as intriguing hallmarks to Mangold’s sobering commentary on a not-so-distant American life. Given that so much of the action takes place around the Mexican border and through the small towns of Middle America, there are many allusions to today’s heightened political anxieties and controversies and while these issues are hardly shoved down your throat, “Logan” certainly doesn’t shy away from
All of those years and feelings together form the latest installment of Fox’s blockbuster X-Men cinematic universe: “Logan,” directed by James Mangold. Loosely inspired by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s comic mini-series called “Old Man Logan”, where the beloved Wolverine is grizzled, violent, and unnervingly aggressive. This also …show more content…
When we first find our titular hero, he’s drunkenly asleep in his prized Chrysler limousine, which he uses to shepherd around wild bachelorette parties and depressing funeral processions day in and day out. Yes, after all these years and for all of his dour soul searching, Logan has amounted to little more than a glorified Lyft driver, a serious step down for the hero. And when he’s not slumming it in the backseat, he’s living in an abandoned, derelict facility, where an overturned water tower houses his longtime psychic mentor, Xavier. Time hasn’t been too kind to the former professor, either, who’s suffering from a debilitating case of Alzheimer’s, which has thwarted his abilities and made him an unpredictable, telepathic nuclear bomb. As we learn, if he’s without his medicine, all hell breaks …show more content…
Rather wisely, Mangold uses this opportunity to build upon his futuristic world, leaning less on the grander details and more on intriguing subtleties, from the driverless trucks cluttering the freeway to the eerie H.G. Wells-esque farmhands looming in the background like a dark cloud on a sunny morning. These bits and pieces spark up the imagination to fill in the rest of the blanks, while also serving as intriguing hallmarks to Mangold’s sobering commentary on a not-so-distant American life. Given that so much of the action takes place around the Mexican border and through the small towns of Middle America, there are many allusions to today’s heightened political anxieties and controversies and while these issues are hardly shoved down your throat, “Logan” certainly doesn’t shy away from