Friday 10 March 2017

Logan - The scoop and digest

Spin-off trilogy concludes with Hugh Jackman portraying iconic character for the last time.

Hugh Jackman - Logan / X-24
Patrick Stewart - Charles Xavier / Professor X
Boyd Holbrook - Pierce
Stephen Merchant - Caliban
Dafne Keen - Laura / X-23
Richard E. Grant - Dr Zander Rice
Eriq La Salle - Will Munson

2029.

Mutantkind is on the brink of extinction.

An alcohol dependent James 'Logan' Howlett works as a chauffeur and brings prescription drugs for a frail Charles Xavier at abandoned smelting plant across the border in Mexico.

Structure of haunt is meant to suppress intermittent seizures.

Albino mutant tracker Caliban keeps him company in Logan's absence.

Thanks to adamantium selfishly poisoning his very core, the ability to heal is less reliable and body has grown progressively weak.

Transigen Corporation nurse Gabriela asks Logan to escort her and little girl Laura to 'Eden' in North Dakota.

Cybernetically-enhanced chief Donald Pierce tasks Logan to find woman and child, but he refuses.

Logan finds Gabriela has been murdered off-screen and saves Laura from Pierce's Reaver cronies.

Bonebreakers?

Unfortunately no.

Still, cyborg on tank treads did feature in arcades X-Men and The Punisher as regular enemy and boss respectively.

Pierce tortures Caliban by exposing face to daylight and he's forced into finding them.

Video message on Gabriela's phone reveals Transigen head Zander Rice turned children into deadly weapons for the X-23 project by using mutant DNA samples.

Completion of the X-24 project rendered kiddie winks expendable but Gabriela managed to help several escape.

As Laura was bred from his own DNA, Charles tells Logan she's his daughter.

Logan discovers Laura's X-Men comic (created purely for the film), referencing Eden and scoffs that such a place exists.

Following a highway incident, the Munsons take the trio in for helping them round up their horses.

Things are going okay until Logan's feral clone X-24 turns up and slaughters family, stabs Charles and kidnaps Laura.

Logan returns and finds Charles who dies shortly after.

Caliban blows himself and Pierce's van up so Laura can escape.

Original and imitation lock horns, and Will rams X-24 with car, impaling experiment on the forefront of a combine harvester.

Albeit in different circumstances, Dolph Lundgren's GR13/Andrew Scott was also forced onto agricultural machinery in entertaining action farce Universal Soldier.

Like Xavier, Will succumbs to his wounds, with Logan and Laura fleeing in their vehicle.

Charles is given a dignified send off and Laura drives an exhausted Logan to Eden.

In the aftermath of farmhouse massacre, Rice gives X-24 serum to speed up regeneration.

Jack Baker from Resident Evil 7?

Only kidding.

Rictor rules the roost at Eden, and Logan believes Laura can lead the rest of the other Transigen escapees to freedom beyond forest to the Canadian border.

Using a serum left by Rictor, a revitalised Logan kicks Reaver ass.

However, nothing lasts forever...

Rice informs in an attempt to control mutant population, a nasty old virus was unleashed, so Transigen can create their own.

Logan sends Rice to his maker and Pierce lets X-24 loose.

Children take care of the Reaver remainder and overwhelm Pierce.

Logan and Laura team up and even with Rictor using seismic powers to slam truck on emotionless killing machine, X-24 just won't quit.

X-24 surprises Logan and impales him on tree stump, but Laura finally eliminates seemingly invincible threat with adamantium bullet.

Father dies in Laura's arms and he's buried in the forest.

Adjusting the cross to form an 'X', children search for a new beginning.

Clawsome

Sharing parallels with The Wrestler and classic 1953 Western Shane (watched by Charles and Laura), this is everything I hoped for and more.

Brutal and bloody epic is made possible by James Mangold growing a pair of fucking balls and going with 15 cert, meaning amazing gore and f-bombs are not restricted by the evils of 12A.

Situation is appropriately bleak and there's little room for humour.

Chunks of comic storylines Old Man Logan, X-23, Mutant Massacre and Death of Wolverine are deliciously exploited.

Jackman and Stewart are excellent and emotional chemistry can really pull on heartstrings.

The young Dafne Keen acts beyond her years and support also gets a high ten.

No post-credits scene was important for closure and while most will moan, I agree with the omission of Stan Lee cameo.

Miscellany

When car doesn't start, Logan throwing temper tantrum smacks of Fawlty Towers episode Gourmet Night, when Basil gives 'vicious bastard' vehicle a damn good thrashing.

Johnny Cash song The Man Comes Around plays during end credits.  Dawn of the Dead (2004) uses it for opening titles.

X-24 closely resembles Liev Schreiber's Victor Creed from Origins.

Surely intentional?

According to Mangold, Charles having hair is down to his deteriorating mental condition, as mind was previously too busy for head to grow hair.

(WHAT?)

Continuity

Logan states bullet was acquired 'a long time ago', strongly inferring adamantium ammo was stolen from William Stryker.

Bullet blows part of X-24's head off, but in Origins, Stryker scoring a head shot on Logan with the same shit only inflicted memory loss.

Errr.

Timeline

Ignoring Origins (standalone), The Wolverine takes place after The Last Stand.

Mid-credits scene with Ian McKellen's Magneto and Patrick Stewart's Xavier sets up Days of Future Past.

Wait a minute, Xavier was disintegrated at Jean Grey's house.

Anyway, Wolverine's time-travelling exploits in DOFP erased everything that happened between 1973 and 2023.

Apocalypse is set in 1983, and extra scene shows X-23's blood retrieved by the Essex Corporation.

Feature presentation is set six years after the timeline established by DOFP, so we assume at some point, Charles killed several of the original X-Men when having one of his seizures.

Verbal and/or physical references include:

Logan as a cage fighter and battle at the Statue of Liberty (X-Men);
Dog tags, Weapon X and Logan murdering his father (X-Men Origins: Wolverine); and
Samurai sword (The Wolverine).

In his own words, director said:

"We are in the future, we have passed the point of the epilogue of Days of Future Past."

As this is a direct sequel to both DOFP and Apocalypse, how the FUCK can Charles and Logan remember events from a timeline that no longer exists?

Yeah...

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