Logan impresses both comic and general audiences
By SOPHIE OJDANIC
SPCHS Student Journalist
2017’s Logan wowed audiences and critics alike without the splash-page showdowns that comic book movies are known for. And to be quite honest, the film didn’t need one. The execution of the plot and story were nearly perfect – and exactly what they were meant to be. Logan scored a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and raked in a whopping $616.20 million compared to its estimated budget of $97 million, showing that it wasn’t just a fantastic comic book film, it was a fantastic film.
Directed by James Mangold and starring Hugh Jackman as the title character, Logan is arguably one of the best superhero movies of all time. In 141 minutes, the movie explores the depth of characters rather than the overwhelming and sometimes meaningless (looking at you, Batman V. Superman) constant combat. Logan’s synopsis reads like an action film, which is accurate, however, at its core the film mainly focuses on bringing an arc from 9 movies over the course of 17 years to a close (10 movies if you count a photograph cameo in Deadpool.)
The film is set in 2029, when mutants have become (nearly) extinct. Logan Howlett is in hiding near the Mexican border, working odd jobs to try and provide for himself and two other surviving mutants: Professor X (Sir Patrick Stewart) and Caliban (Stephen Merchant). Meanwhile, a young mutant makes her presence known to the trio. This mutant, known as Laura or X-23 (Dafne Keen), crosses paths with the surviving mutants while on the run from an anti-mutant team, run by Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook.)
The tone of the film is a drastic change from everything film audiences have seen from the genre so far. It is dark, it is gritty, and most of all, it works. The film quickly establishes that it isn’t going to be a happy-go-lucky adventure film. The heroes that audiences have come to know and love are no more. The first scene in the film consists of Logan slaughtering a group of people who tried to steal his car. The sequence is quite brutal, but from that point, the viewer knows exactly what the ‘R’ rating means.
Cinematographer John Mathieson (The Phantom of the Opera, Gladiator, The Man from U.N.C.L.E) really deserves a round of applause for his work on this film. He superbly uses lights and darks to illicit mood and juxtaposition. Going back to the first shot of the film, Logan rises up in the frame as his car is raised up on a jack. He is brought out of the darkness at the bottom of the frame into the light at the top. This lighting, while making a beautiful opening shot, also foreshadows the events of the film. Logan goes through the film in somewhat of a battle with light and dark, and this opening shot introduces the viewer to that point.
Another example of the noteworthy work Mathieson did on this project is in the lighting. He used one light at an extreme angle to hollow out the actors’ eyes, cause scars to stand out, and make everything look more stark overall. However, nothing in the film was shot to look attractive. According to Mathieson in an interview with Express, “when you do a loaded scene… you don’t worry too much about the lighting, it’s all about capturing the performance.”
Overall, Logan is a must-see, even if one is not necessarily into the genre from which it stems. It shed new light on the characters, and really developed a story that if the studio wanted, could stretch into more films. The downside of the film, I feel, is that the writing team may have heard they got an ‘R’ rating and went a little crazy. It seems like every second word out of any given characters’ mouth is something vulgar. From the perspective of a comic reader, it makes sense, but from the perspective of an audience member unfamiliar with the comics, it is quite jarring to hear Sir Patrick Stewart drop 3 f-bombs in one sentence. That fact, however, is something that can be overcome quite quickly. So, despite some poor dialogue choices, Logan is a 4.5-out-of-5, and definitely deserves a watch.
SPCHS Student Journalist
2017’s Logan wowed audiences and critics alike without the splash-page showdowns that comic book movies are known for. And to be quite honest, the film didn’t need one. The execution of the plot and story were nearly perfect – and exactly what they were meant to be. Logan scored a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and raked in a whopping $616.20 million compared to its estimated budget of $97 million, showing that it wasn’t just a fantastic comic book film, it was a fantastic film.
Directed by James Mangold and starring Hugh Jackman as the title character, Logan is arguably one of the best superhero movies of all time. In 141 minutes, the movie explores the depth of characters rather than the overwhelming and sometimes meaningless (looking at you, Batman V. Superman) constant combat. Logan’s synopsis reads like an action film, which is accurate, however, at its core the film mainly focuses on bringing an arc from 9 movies over the course of 17 years to a close (10 movies if you count a photograph cameo in Deadpool.)
The film is set in 2029, when mutants have become (nearly) extinct. Logan Howlett is in hiding near the Mexican border, working odd jobs to try and provide for himself and two other surviving mutants: Professor X (Sir Patrick Stewart) and Caliban (Stephen Merchant). Meanwhile, a young mutant makes her presence known to the trio. This mutant, known as Laura or X-23 (Dafne Keen), crosses paths with the surviving mutants while on the run from an anti-mutant team, run by Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook.)
The tone of the film is a drastic change from everything film audiences have seen from the genre so far. It is dark, it is gritty, and most of all, it works. The film quickly establishes that it isn’t going to be a happy-go-lucky adventure film. The heroes that audiences have come to know and love are no more. The first scene in the film consists of Logan slaughtering a group of people who tried to steal his car. The sequence is quite brutal, but from that point, the viewer knows exactly what the ‘R’ rating means.
Cinematographer John Mathieson (The Phantom of the Opera, Gladiator, The Man from U.N.C.L.E) really deserves a round of applause for his work on this film. He superbly uses lights and darks to illicit mood and juxtaposition. Going back to the first shot of the film, Logan rises up in the frame as his car is raised up on a jack. He is brought out of the darkness at the bottom of the frame into the light at the top. This lighting, while making a beautiful opening shot, also foreshadows the events of the film. Logan goes through the film in somewhat of a battle with light and dark, and this opening shot introduces the viewer to that point.
Another example of the noteworthy work Mathieson did on this project is in the lighting. He used one light at an extreme angle to hollow out the actors’ eyes, cause scars to stand out, and make everything look more stark overall. However, nothing in the film was shot to look attractive. According to Mathieson in an interview with Express, “when you do a loaded scene… you don’t worry too much about the lighting, it’s all about capturing the performance.”
Overall, Logan is a must-see, even if one is not necessarily into the genre from which it stems. It shed new light on the characters, and really developed a story that if the studio wanted, could stretch into more films. The downside of the film, I feel, is that the writing team may have heard they got an ‘R’ rating and went a little crazy. It seems like every second word out of any given characters’ mouth is something vulgar. From the perspective of a comic reader, it makes sense, but from the perspective of an audience member unfamiliar with the comics, it is quite jarring to hear Sir Patrick Stewart drop 3 f-bombs in one sentence. That fact, however, is something that can be overcome quite quickly. So, despite some poor dialogue choices, Logan is a 4.5-out-of-5, and definitely deserves a watch.