100/100

This is what life looks like. People who love each other. A home. You should take a moment... Feel it.

Hard. Perhaps that's the word that best describes my feelings with this picture. Hard to watch, hard to write about. When it ended, me and my friend Ly sat in silence, during all the credits. As part of a generation conditioned to expect something more after the ending credits of a superhero movie, part of me hoped that this wouldn't end there, and part of me was scared by that possibility. And there was nothing. That was it. So we got up, walked out, still not saying a single word, until we reached the bus stop and parted ways.…

Logan might be the greatest comic book man movie ever made. I compare Logan's journey to an aging gunfighter, all in for one more showdown with the devil. From the opening scene, you know why this movie had to be a hard-R. This is how you make an R-rated comic book man movie. This is how you make an action movie. This is how you go out like a boss. The way this year is going, 2017 is shaping up to be one of the most awesome years in action cinema, and the good news, it's only March.

Stunts. Story. Special effects. That's what I most admire about Logan. The realism of the stunt people (especially Dafne Keen's stunt double)…

The year is 2029, and the mutant formerly known as the Wolverine isn’t quite as invincible as he used to be. After being alive for almost 200 years, he’s finally starting to show his age. He’s haunted by something from his past (you’ll have to see the previous movies to find out what, or re-visit them to remember), and he hurts people in his dreams. He’s rotting from the inside out, he needs reading glasses, and his healing powers can’t keep up. He’s saved the world like eight times over, but he’s now a glorified Las Vegas Uber driver who cares more about his limo than he does his life. He may be the one guy on Earth who can’t…

For much of the film, this is a comic-book movie the way A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE is a comic-book movie, so much so that I wish all of LOGAN maintained the same quality. As moving and exciting as it is, the film has an ungainly structure that works against it. The economy and grace of the film's first hour gives way to "And Then..." plotting (And Then there's a shocking death! And Then there's a new, even worse baddie! And Then there's another desperate race against the clock!). All these "And Then" scenes are good on their own, but they lack causal precision (the pacing from the start of the film through an agonizing standoff in an Oklahoma hotel-casino is…

'Logan', dir. James Mangold

I've got 4 other reviews backed up in my drafts to finish, but I just got home from a late night early screening of 'Logan' at the local IMAX and holy DAMN. I just couldn't wait. My jumper has been cried and snotted on, my eyes are puffy, and in short, I am a wrecked mess.

Honestly, if you've ever enjoyed Wolverine in any film he's been in, you can't miss this. James Mangold has finally gotten 20th Century Fox to let Hugh Jackman give the best Wolverine performance he's ever given. Ever. Legit. Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier also hit me right where I live with his acting, and Dafne Keen as Laura Kinney/X-23 was…