Logan

I decided to add a picture of a real wolverine to the top of the review as a joke, as if I had mistaken the character for the animal. Then I did a Google image search on "wolverine" and found almost nothing but pictures of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Seriously, I needed to scroll down a really long way to find this picture of the actual animal.

I walked out of Logan confused about its pacing. It bothered me and I didn't know why. Some parts seemed really draggy and I didn't understand what they were doing in the film. The plot did not unfold in the rhythms I had expected it to. Then I came home and saw another reviewer describe it as a Western. And as I look back now, with the understanding that it was paced like a Western, man, Logan was a fucking symphony.

I'm still not sure that I liked it. It was a great movie; I'm just not sure that I liked it. There was a lot of sadness and pain in this movie, and it all happened to characters I've become very fond of. These beloved characters were so sad for so long that by the end of the movie, I was sad too. A bad movie can't make you feel like that, but also, I had not been expecting to feel so sad tonight and the sadness put a little bit of a kink in my evening.

Here's a quick plot summary: in the near and dystopic future, Professor X is hiding in a derelict water tower in Mexico, suffering from super-mutant-dementia. Logan struggles to obtain adequate medication for the Professor, failing often. Logan is also quite ill and aging visibly, and his alcoholism has really spiraled out of control. Then plot things happen, forcing Logan and the Prof to throw their lot in with a little girl who is kind of like a Wolverinelet, driving her north across the US toward the promised safety of Canada. They are hotly pursued by the evil corporation that made her into a Wolverinelet.