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Logan is purportedly the final Wolverine movie, and I’ll only go into as much detail as the Red Band Trailer 2 shows below, as it’s often difficult to know what you can and can’t say about an X-Men film, without giving spoilers. There’s a lot more to discover throughout the long but necessary 137 minutes, but if I couldn’t say even what was in the trailer, then I’d be saying, “It’s called Logan. It’s fab. Go see it. The end.”
Firstly, you’ll note that this is not your average 12-certificate movie… because it’s a 15. And I’m so glad that it is. Why? From the opening fight, and throughout many more, the 15-certificate allows the Wolverine to slice ‘n’ dice through the baddies like never before. For every other film, the blades met other bodies *just* off camera, and it was ridiculous. Being a mutant can be a gruesome business, especially when blood spills a lot, and it does here, from the start and throughout. And it’s awesome.
The idea of a 15-cert/R-rated third Wolverine movie had been suggested a while back, after The Wolverine was cut to a 12 for cinemas but later a 15-cert for Blu-ray. Then when Fox took a chance on allowing a 15-cert for Deadpool, and later Warner Bros with Suicide Squad, and both were No.1 for 3 weeks, that’s raised the bar for Hollywood treating the audience like adults 🙂
My favourite attacks are when a blade goes through someone’s head! Or several heads!
The endless slashes and attacks are worth the price of admission alone, and they never get boring like the endless crashing and bashing in 2013’s Man of Steel, for example. In fact, the way mutants crash and bash their way through adversaries in this film is the way that ALL superhero movies should be carried out.
This installment is set in 2029. Logan (Hugh Jackman) is an old man, and Charles is even older of course, but our hero is losing his healing powers and despite trying to make ends meet as a limo driver (yes, even superheroes have to earn a crust, it appears), he drinks heavily. It’s like he no longer cares about himself. However, film references are still abound with a Freddy Kreuger reference to Hugh’s claws, plus the main baddies being Boyd Holbrook as Donald Pierce – who spends most of the running time going after the hero, and Richard E Grant – whose role will become clear, as he hams it up and is sneering as ever.
For the good guys, Logan’s joined by Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) – who’s suffering from Alzheimer’s, and an albino called Caliban (Stephen Merchant – not quite as annoying as usual, but he has a shaven head, so this is the role we now know he was filming when recording Stand Up 2 Cancer’s The Crystal Maze episode – it wasn’t that he was trying to method-act his best Richard O’Brien!), but the main addition is the mysterious Laura (Dafne Keen, quite brilliant as an angry mute). As I explained earlier, I will reference what’s in that trailer, and she does show that she can hack and slash just like the titular character, so what’s the connection there?
Amongst the fruity language, there’s a great sprinkling of humour, such as a nice exchange in a bust-up between Pierce: “(It) breaks my damn heart” and Logan: “Well, I’ll rip it out of your chest(!)”
And a brief potential spoiler (although not really) to kinda explain a line from the trailer:
But here’s one which you may want to wait until after you see the film (even though it won’t spoil anything major) but it explains why, for the single showings of Logan on February 28th, ALL cinemas were showing it at 22:23…
In addition, Logan’s “Holy fuck” in the trailer is re-recorded for the film as a less strong “Holy shit”, but the 15-cert allows for so much plenty of effing and jeffing that you’d think he’d be about to brreak into a Roy Chubby Brown routine!
Patrick Stewart has said this movie will be his last X-Men outing… and even Mr Jackman has said he finds it a struggle to work out at 48 years of age, but will they call it a day? If you believe that, you’ll believe anything.
And I, like a few others, stayed for the expected end credits sequence, like you get at the end of ALL X-Men films… but there was not one. However, we were treated to a blast of Johnny Cash’s The Man for the most part, which was nice. Most of the trailers used his cover of Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt.
Overall, Logan is the most fun I’ve had watching an X-Men film since 2011’s X-Men: First Class, but if this is to be the last ever X-Men movie, then I think we have had our fill of them.
As for my usual end credit adventures, I won’t go into huge detail again since I have before, but after emailing Head Office and getting odd replies, both Split and T2 Trainspotting apparently saw the problem resolved, but The Lego Batman Movie showed it went back to the original problem. So which way did this one go? Sadly, like Lego Batman…
Book tickets for Logan at Vue Cinemas.
Logan is available to pre-order on Blu-ray, 4K Blu-ray and DVD, and click on the poster for the full-size version. Also, you can buy the Soundtrack CD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 137 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Cinema: Vue, Lowry, Salford Quays
Year: 2017
Format: 2.35:1 (Arri Alexa 4K)
Released: February 28th 2017, 10.23pm
Rating: 9/10
Director: James Mangold
Producers: Simon Kinberg, Hutch Parker and Lauren Shuler Donner
Screenplay: Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green
Music: Marco Beltrami
Cast:
Logan: Hugh Jackman
Charles: Patrick Stewart
Laura: Dafne Keen
Pierce: Boyd Holbrook
Caliban: Stephen Merchant
Gabriela: Elizabeth Rodriguez
Dr. Rice: Richard E Grant
Will Munson: Eriq La Salle
Kathryn Munson: Elise Neal
Nate Munson: Quincy Fouse
Federale Commander: Al Coronel
Federale Lieutenant: Frank Gallegos
Federale: Anthony Escobar
Rey: Rey Gallegos
Mohawk: Krzysztof Soszynski
Macon: Stephen Dunlevy
Bone Breaker: Daniel Bernhardt
Pretty Boy: Ryan Sturz
Reaver: Brandon Melendy
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.