Logan (2017)

Logan (2017)

Director: James Mangold

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Richard E. Grant, Stephen Merchant

In the spirit of James Mangold’s new X-men movie: Logan (2017), let’s start this review straight to the point shall we? Logan is a swift kick to the nuts to all these comic book movies that we’ve been seeing as of late. You know the ones. The computer generated fuck-a- thons that we’ve gotten so accustomed to. The truth is that we’ve had enough of those haven’t we? Movies in which computer effects have taken over human emotion, they’ve taken away that feeling. You walk out a lot of those movies with numbness in your head. Logan is the complete opposite of that and it’s so goddamn refreshing!

Logan is the story of Wolverine in his last days, when he finds no pleasure in being alive. His “dad” is Professor Xavier, an aging empath who can’t control his powers. In comes a woman named Gabriela who wants’ the famous ‘Wolverine’ to help her find a place called ‘Eden’, a supposed heaven for mutants somewhere in North Dakota. Can Old Man Logan still do this? Will he agree to helping Gabriela and Little Laura reach ‘Eden’?

I honestly thought people were exaggerating about how good Logan was, because recent films that people have raved about have disappointed the hell out of me.  John Wick Chapter 2 (2017) I’m looking at you kid. So I went to see Logan with some trepidation, yet the first ten minutes of this film quickly put me in my place! It wasn’t long before I was saying things like “What. The. Fuck.” Should I put things in perspective? The films first words are “Aw fuck!”. On this film, Logan is a limo driver trying to forget his past with the X-men, he’s trying to live the life of a regular Joe. Basically, he just wants to be left alone to die in peace. Mutants are going extinct and Professor Xavier is a senile old man who doesn’t know where he stands. Holy bajeezus! What the hell is going on here? I wasn’t ready to see Wolverine and Prof. Xavier in such dire straits! It is this level of gravitas that makes this film stand apart, it’s not afraid to mess with the status quo, in fact, it throws the whole X-men universe out the window! Fuck that shit! Awwww I love it!

The great thing about this film is that it is a cliché breaker; it takes everything you expect from a Wolverine movie and turns it upside down. This is why it works so well, on this movie nothing is sacred and anything can happen. So you feel unsafe, you don’t feel like you can predict the film every step of the way, like you’d be able to predict a film like Kong Skull Island (2017) for example. I mention Kong Skull Island because I actually did a double feature of Logan/Kong and went from the ultimate anti-cliché movie (Logan) to a cliché by the numbers movie (Kong). So trust me, Logan is like a bucket of cold water being thrown down your back. It’s the ice bucket challenge, but for X-men fans!  

Why does this movie work so well? Various factors play an important factor in this. First, moviegoers in general are tired of computer generated special effects, specially the kind that take over an entire film. You know how it is. Suddenly, nothing that is happening on screen is real; it was all created on a computer. This can go on for minutes and minutes on end. I mean, suddenly it’s been ten minutes and not a single actor, not a single set, not a single real location has been seen on screen and then you have to wonder, am I watching a live action film or an animated one? Wolverine keeps its visual effects to a minimum. This is not to say that it doesn’t have them, but it keeps them to a minimum, to enhance a moment. And even then, they don’t take over. They are simply used to enhance an illusion. Beautiful. It’s the way effects should be used. Second. This is a strong screenplay. Why? Well, because its not about saving the universe from another whole that’s opening up in the middle of New York City (again), rather, it’s a very personal story about Logan and Proffessor Xavier dealing with getting old and coming to the last stage, coming to terms with the end of their lives.

The third and final point is that the cast Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and newcomer Dafne Keen out do themselves performance wise! They all bring their ‘A’ game here. I’ve heard some people talk about giving Patrick Stewart a nomination or something. That might be stretching it a little? It probably has to do with how different this take on Professor Xavier is. It’s great to see Logan playing the father figure to X-23, the scenes with both of them together, road tripping? Sweet.  One little thing though, I did feel that Logan turns suddenly into Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1984). Was director James Mangold paying tribute to that film? The reason I mention this is because the similarities are staggering. So that’s it ladies and gents. What we got here is a fantastic film that shakes the very foundations of the X-men universe. Wolverine fans should be pleased. Question is, who’s gonna be playing Wolverine next? Whoever he is, he’s got big shoes to fill.

Rating: 5 out of 5

  

The Wolverine (2013)

Title: The Wolverine (2013)

Director: James Mangold

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Hal Yamanouchi

The Wolverine is the summer movie that slipped by me, it was not a top priority in my list because there were so many other summer flicks that seemed more mind blowing, I figured I’d get to it eventually. The trailers hadn’t blown me away and to be honest, I didn’t think it was going to be good, I guess it had something to do with how much I loathed X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), the last Wolverine solo movie. You know, the crappy one, the one that should’ve never happened. Well, I am happy to report that this latest Wolverine movie completely ignores that last film, the story basically unfolds as if that last Wolverine film had never happened. And I am also happy to report that The Wolverine is a solid film, a good Wolverine movie at freaking last! All you need to know is that you should see this one as a continuation of X-Men: The Last Stand (2009). So what exactly made The Wolverine not suck?

This time around we meet up with Wolverine as he is trying to forget his connections with the X-Men; he can’t deal with the fact that he essentially killed the love of his life, Jean Grey in X-Men: The Last Stand (2009), so he’s gone off to Canada to live a life of solitude, disconnected from everyone. He’s still a do gooder, but he wants to be left alone. Unfortunately for him, the past won’t let him be. You see, in 1945, during the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Wolverine saved a soldier named Yashida from the atomic blast. The man feels a debt with Logan, and so as Yashida lies in his death bed, he wants to see Logan one last time, to thank him for having saved his life. But Yashida wants more than to thank Wolverine. As it happens, after Logan saved his life, Yashida  ended up becoming the head honcho of a major corporation that specializes in technological advances and so, Yashida wants to use this high tech to somehow extract Wolverines healing factor. The problem is that extracting Logan’s healing factor would kill him. Yashida thinks Logan will agree because Logan sees his immortality as ‘a curse’. The question arises: will Logan agree to do the process, or will he find a reason to continue living?

The first thing that worried me about this film was James Mangold directing. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing because Mangold has directed some decent films in his time, Copland (1997), Girl Interrupted (1999) and 3:10 to Yuma (2007) come to mind, but in my opinion he is not one of those directors who has a distinctive style or anything, he doesn’t put a stamp on his films. Plus, I mean we had Darren Aronofsky almost direct this one and that prospect got me jazzing my pants. Sadly, it never came to be and we got Mangold, a director I see as a ‘directors for hire’, kind of like Joe Johnston. These are directors who do a good job of directing a film, it will look great, it’ll tell it’s story, but the film wont have a stamp on it, it wont be unique in any way. These directors simply do their job as directors, they follow the studios requests and voila! a product is sold. If I had to say something distinguishes a Mangold film is that he gets good performances out of his actors, he focuses on the characters and the story, which of course is a good thing on any film,  and in the end its something that benefits this particular film, because Wolverine is a character that's begging to be explored.

Good thing is that on this film we get to know Logan better than any other X-Men or Wolverine film that’s been released. This movie is not just one action sequence to the next, or one crappy cgi filled moment to the next, nope, on this one we spend some quality time with the character. Kudos to the writers for coming up with some really cool moments in terms of things that can happen to Wolverine, as a comic book geek, I was enthralled with some of the events that unfold here, not gonna spoil it though! The film does a good balancing act between character development and solid action. Ever wanted to see Wolverine battling a bunch of ninjas? You’ll see it here. Ever wanted to see Wolverine go up against an atomic bomb? It happens here. There’s this awesome sequence where a bunch of bad guys chase Logan on top of a bullet train, cool stuff. Exciting! But we are not left without the more introspective moments, moments were we see Logan falling in love anew or moments when Logan remembers the love of his life, Jean Grey. Also, this is the first film of all these X-Men/Wolverine films that made me realize that essentially Logan's an immortal? Kind of like  Highlander (1986)? They really put a focus on this aspect of the character which they hadn't done so much before, so we get Logan dealing with some of the issues that an immortal has to deal with, like watching his loved ones die. 

The only complain I might have is that it was a bit too similar thematically speaking to films like Prometheus (2012) and Blade Runner (1982), because all these films are about a person close to death that’s searching for eternal life, which brings the movie down a notch in terms of originality, but aside from that? It’s all cool in my book. The villains were cool, I have to admit I loved the way they depicted ‘Viper’ the snake lady with the poisonous tongue…cool character, truly a threat to Logan. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was great, this is the sixth time he has portrayed the character, and well, by now he’s got it down flat. This Wolverine is a bit closer to what Wolverine is like in his solo stories, alone, depressed  and pissed off, always on the edge. I still have to wonder what Darren Aronofsky would have done with the character, Aronofsky ended up not directing because he wrote a script that was too ‘R’ rated, and much darker in tone, the studio didn’t want to mess with their kid friendly golden calf, so Aronofsky dropped out. With this kind of film, the studio wants it to be PG-13 because they want to aim it at kids,  and Aronofsky didn’t want to make a kids film, he wanted to make a serious take on the character. I’d say that Mangold managed to deliver the goods for the studio (the film still ended up being PG-13) but at the same time, it’s not all that kid friendly, its PG-13 but it’s not strawberry shortcake. I mean, Wolverine is spewing profanities left and right on this one. Wolverine says bitch, asshole, he says shit quite a few times…and finally he utters the king of all profanities “fuck” on one occasion, because that’s what the MPAA allows on a PG-13 film. You get to say one fuck, so you better use it wisely! I guess this was the studios version of giving the film an ‘edge’. There’s also a scene in which Wolverine walks in on a bad guy as he is with a bunch of prostitutes walking around in their underwear, but that’s as far as the “edge” on this film goes. Bottom line is that maybe some scenes might be a bit too much for little kids.

Ninjas always make any movie that much cooler

And speaking of little kids, I saw this one on a packed theater filled with little kids! It was a cool experience because I got to see a bunch of kids hollering and cheering for Wolverine every time he did something cool or heroic, I mean I actually saw this little kid super excited during the train sequence, it took me back to when I was a little kid. At the same time, I saw another little kid next to me say something like “enough!” when the movie got a little too talky. What us adults call character development bores the hell out of the kids. So anyways, that’s my two cents on The Wolverine, not a bad movie at all, not the piece of crap I was expecting and it’s a million times better than X-Men Origins: Wolverine. One more thing, after the movie is over, wait for the extra ending that will have you salivating for the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), which will reunite the X-Men from the past and the future in one gigantic, orgasmic comic book movie. This film will mark the return of Bryan Singer to the X-Men franchise which he helped launch with the highly successful X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003). Anxiously awaiting that one, it looks promising!

Rating: 4 out of 5  

Knight and Day (2010)

Title: Knight and Day (2010)

Director: James Mangold

Cast: Cameron Diaz, Tom Cruise, Peter Saarsgard, Paul Dano

Review:

Watching Knight and Day was the cinematic equivalent of going to a Rolling Stone’s concert where you see a bunch of aging rock stars that for all intents and purposes are still trying their best to rock. Though they still “got it” they’ve also lost that vitality, that craziness and unpredictability of their youth. In Knight and Day the stars that are still trying their best to rock in their old age are: Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. Though Cruise is just about to hit 50 and Diaz is only 38, they look really beat for some reason. Maybe its because we remember them more for the roles they played in their youth. It’s funny how we as movie watchers freeze an actors image in our mind, and think that they will look like that forever. I mean, don’t you sometimes think that Tom Cruise will always be that young strapping dude you saw in Top Gun? Or that Cameron Diaz’s hotness will be the same as when she first appeared in The Mask all those years ago? It’s when you see these actors getting old on screen that you realize they are just as human as us. And they wont remain young forver. But these actors are not ready to give up their younger action packed years, they want to go down fighting the good cinematic fight, and so we get a film like Knight and Day, where Cruise is still playing the indestructible super agent, killing the bad guys and saving the girl.  How did it go?

In Knight and Day, Tom Cruise plays Roy Miller a rogue FBI agent who is out to protect a young genius who has just invented a power source that supposedly never wears down. The FBI wants to stop Roy and get the battery. Meanwhile, as he runs away from the government Roy stumbles upon June Havens (Cameron Diaz) your every day regular girl on her way to her sisters wedding. Unfortunately, she stumbles upon the whole pursuit and becomes an accomplice to Roy. Roy tells her he is doing good, trying to do the right thing, that if she sticks to him that she will have a better chance to stay alive. While the government tells her that Cruise is a nut, a government agent whose gone rogue, and that they need their help to stop him. Who will she believe? And will Roy manage to save the everlasting battery from falling in the wrong hands?

The way I saw this movie, I got the vibe that they were trying to duplicate the enormous success of films like Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005), where they pared two huge actors of both genders in one bombastic big budget action adventure film. It’s one of those movies that wants to cover it all. Problem is that Cameron Diaz isnt exactly a huge box office draw; and Tom Cruise, well, some people prefer to make fun of him nowadays. Though I will say that Cruise has retaliated that situation very intelligently by making fun of himself in comedies like Tropic Thunder (2008), where he showed to the world that yeah, he’s got a funny bone too. He is taking this route of getting on audiences good side by playing funny/happy go lucky characters. This is the case with of Knight and Day, where he is this crazy unpredictable character who has the solution for everything he is always 50 steps ahead of you. He has been trained to do everything and anything, no one can trap him, he is always on the run, and he is that much more clever than the bad guys. Buty at the end of the day, his objectives noble.

"Please save me Mr. Secret Agent Man!"

My main problem with the film was that they played the female character in an extremely clichéd way. Knight and Day reminded me of films like Romancing the Stone (1985) and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) where the guy is this loose cannon with the answers to everything, and the girl basically screams, shouts, cries and fucks everything up through out the whole film. She’s only there for the guy to rescue her. I would have thought that the portrayal of women in films would have been past that by now, but apparently not. Cameron Diaz’s June, is that walking cliché of a female character every step of the way. Roy does all the smart moves, she stumbles trips and generally “cant cope well with a situation” unless she is drugged. She does some good at the end of the film, but by then, she’s already walked through every step of the female cliché book. The supporting cast was made up of Paul Dano who plays Simon, the genius who is working on the everlasting battery thingy. If you ask me he was completely wasted on this movie, having very little to do, they could have given that role to a lesser actor. Same goes for Peter Sarsgaard. They guy is a solid actor, but here he plays a luke warm half assed villain. I mean that’s another rule this movie broke for me. It had a weak ass villain. A pity, because they had such a good actor to play him.

As for the action adventure side in the film, it’s non stop. There was a lot of CGI involved on this movie, but I did notice that Tom Cruise was doing a lot of his own stunts, I'll give him that! I mean, sure, he's harnessed up the wazoo, but at least the guy is doing it himself. Kudos to him for that. We go from a plane crash, to a car chase, to a motorcycle chase, to a boat chase, to a train, after a while, you feel like cashing in your frequent flyer mileage. We go from Austria to Spain, to Mexico to U.S.A. and back again. Its one of those movies where the characters fly all over the world in the span of an hour and a half. You feel like a ping pong ball half way through the movie. The action sequences are complex and entertaining just don’t expect any level of reality to them. People jump from moving cars while shooting their guns. There are spectacular car crashes in this extended freeway chase sequence. A plane crashes in a corn field, in fact every conceivable vehicle you can think of crashes. But a word of warning, none of it feels believable. This is the kind of film where you have to just give in to the action adventure fantasy. Take that disbelief and suspend it before hitting play.

"Theres this really cool new church called Church of Scientology, ever heard of it?"

The plot is paper thin, which is kind of weird because the film was written by 14 different people! I have a rule when watching movies, if the film is written by more then two writers, it’s bound to be crap. There are a few exceptions, but generally, for some reason, it’s always been true. The more writers the film has, the shittier the film is gonna be. Usually this type of deal applies to big budget movies, where studios can’t freaking make up their minds as to what kind of movie they want to make. I have to admit, the films story is a mess. The good guys are the bad guys and suddenly everything changes and they are the good guys again and everything is alright? The ending made no point to me, really, the story was a big old mess, sweeping everything up to make everything alright at the end, sacrificing logic along the way. That’s they kind of movie this is, a big budget blunder. At one point the film was going to star Chris Tucker next to Eva Mendez! Even Gerard Butler was slated to star on this one! Actually, I’m kind of curious myself as to how that version of the movie would have turned out! Butler was born to play big action; sadly, he opted to make The Bounty Hunter (2010) with Jennifer Aniston. So what we got here ladies and gents, is an attempt to make a big budget action adventure comedy, that didn’t exactly work out at the box office. Toy Story 3 made sure of that! But honestly? I had some fun with it. It’s that kind of a movie that isn’t brainy or intelligent, but it is light, entertaining and fun.

Rating: 3 out 5

 

Tom Cruise and director James Mangold