Logan (2017) ✦ Full-Length Watchalong Reaction
Added 2024-12-07 21:30:01 +0000 UTC😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
I know so many of you are excited for this so I can't wait to read your thoughts! Thanks for watching!
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✦ KL
Comments
Too many movies try to sugarcoat things. Sure a happy ending is great and all, but there's so much more to explore in emotion. I honestly love seeing films that provoke strong emotional reactions and if I end up with tears streaking down my face, that's fine. If a film moves you like that it's done something really well. I recall some moments in "The Life of David Gale" hitting me like a truck. Same with the ending of the most recent remake of "A Star is Born".
Paul Howard
2024-12-12 12:58:44 +0000 UTCAdmittedly, I'm biased against this movie to begin with, but the B&W version of this and Fury Road are among the ones I'd cite as the least effective, among this trend. My feeling is that the B&W redos make more sense when the point is to put the movie in conversation with a relevant existing black-and-white movie. The two I like the most are The Mist (2007) and Johnny Mnemonic (1995), which I think link them to Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Alphaville (1965), respectively (the latter of these is openly the intention, as mentioned in an interview with the director). I haven't watched it, but I can also get behind Parasite (2019), which would be connecting it to The Housemaid (1960). Logan is certainly drawing on Westerns, and there are major B&W Westerns, like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), but Logan tells you that it is drawing on Shane (1953), which is in color, so I don't really get much out of it.
Tyler Foster
2024-12-09 19:41:47 +0000 UTCMain reason I don't like these things is because they're very well-used tropes: the innocent that dies to kick the plot off and a silent type who can actually speak and has been waiting until a certain moment to start talking. As mentioned, I haven't seen this movie since 2017 and will never watch it again, but I remember zero meaningful development or interaction between X23's caretaker and X23 before the caretaker is brutally murdered. To my memory, she only lasts until about 15-20m in and in that time she has only two scenes, one talking to Wolverine and one where she's found dead. The talking thing is annoying is because it's just an arbitrary roadblock between characters who are stuck together who we know are going to bond in some way. Silence isn't a particularly interesting barrier because it creates no sparks, whereas a personality clash could be far more interesting. Reading your comment, it seems like an easy way to solve multiple problems of mine at once would be for the caretaker to survive through more of the movie, getting more fleshed out so we can actually see and understand the bond between her and X23, and perhaps die in place of the farmer family, maybe even sacrificing herself for X23. That would be a more dramatically meaningful death than a family we barely know, make her more of a character in the story, and give X23 someone to talk to (not necessarily seen, just implied) during the period where she won't talk to Wolverine.
Tyler Foster
2024-12-09 19:33:16 +0000 UTCThe racism that you see here, I get it. I disagree, but I can understand where you're seeing it. The critcism that is most surprising to me is your take on X-23/Laura... truly doesn't feel like an opinion that you'd have, based on what I know about you anyway. My take on it is that yes, even though she is powerful enough to take down all sorts of men on her own, she is still a child with a child's development and it's not like she asked to become a mutant. Even children that have "perfect" lives are still going to lean on guardians for guidance, so Gabriela being a part of this story and her life makes sense. X-23 has been through some pretty severe trauma and found an adult that wanted to help get her out of it. As for the mute part of her character, is this not a pretty accurate response to severe trauma, especially when you add on her [presumably] witnessing Gabriela's death? I think in this story it took around a week of being with Charles and Logan before she first spoke. I see it as X-23 simply needed that time to feel comfortable and develop a little bit of trust that Charles and Logan were not going to hurt her. I honestly wasn't expecting her to speak at all, so when she did I was pleasantly surprised and felt that it made sense for her arc. But hey, I know I've said opinions about some things that have been surprising, so it's not a big deal, but definitely enjoy the discussion!
kaiielle
2024-12-09 18:23:55 +0000 UTCAppreciate this, thanks!
kaiielle
2024-12-08 21:52:51 +0000 UTCPrecisely why I don't watch movie trailers if I can help it! Hmm Logan in B&W would be interesting, that's for sure! As for the trilogy part... it's tough. I'd like to consider it a trilogy and I think it can be considered as one, with the general understanding that the timeline is just a general mess anyway. 😅 HAH yeah I think along with continuity stuff, we can kind of throw that sort of thing out the window too.
kaiielle
2024-12-08 21:52:42 +0000 UTCOh man. 😭
kaiielle
2024-12-08 21:51:32 +0000 UTCI haven't played Portal yet! But that's very cool.
kaiielle
2024-12-08 21:51:22 +0000 UTCAppreciate it, thank you!
kaiielle
2024-12-08 21:51:10 +0000 UTC💯
William
2024-12-08 16:48:57 +0000 UTCAlrighty, so. To clear up the timeline, this movie is chronologically the last movie in the fox x-men franchise (taking place in 2029) At the end of days of future past, Logan returns to the X mansion where everyone is alive again. The date that scene takes place is 2023. And 5 years later in 2028 (as mentioned in the film) Charles had a seizure that ended up killing a good few of the X-men, and Because of that, he and Logan went into hiding. After that, mutants were wiped out via other methods like Xander mentioned (putting anti mutant chemicals in drinks and food) which slowly killed off the rest of them, which is why we don’t see any other characters from the previous movies and why Logan said there hasn’t been a new mutant born in 25 years. Some people theorise that this movie is an alternate future and that it’s ’not cannon’ but this isn’t true at all. Not only is this movie confirmed canon by a later movie (won’t say which one) but there are other Easter eggs that prove it’s canon status. The Statue of Liberty event from the first X-men movie being mentioned is one thing, but the samurai sword from ‘The Wolverine” movie is visible in Logan’s room at the beginning of the film. The fox X-men movies have always been messy as hell but all you need to know is that chronologically speaking, this is the end. And man, what a way to go out. I’ve said this before but in my opinion, marvel has never gotten better than this. For me the top marvel projects are Netflix’s Daredevil, The Punisher and this movie. It really doesn’t get better than those. Loved this reaction, KL. it didn’t disappoint!
Sean H
2024-12-08 13:57:02 +0000 UTCHave been waiting for this! I love this movie so much. The performances are incredible. It's genuinely one of the best "super hero" films ever made. I cried hard. Also i don't know if you've ever played the Portal video games, but Calaban is played by the same guy who voices Wheatley from Portal 2, which is my favourite video game of all time. He's an amazing actor
Rhys
2024-12-08 12:10:47 +0000 UTCJames Mangold also directed The Wolverine. When Yukio tells him she saw him die holding his heart in his hands….it was foreshadowing Laura holding his hand in this movie when he finally did die.
boss435
2024-12-08 07:01:36 +0000 UTCLoved this reaction! When Laura first reveals her mutation, your reaction was priceless. Back in 2017 that scene was spoiled in the trailer, I’m mildly jealous you got to witness it cold. The Blu Ray release included a black & white version of the film, don’t know if really makes a difference but I rather enjoyed it. I’ve been waiting for you to get here just because you kept referring to the Wolverine movies as a trilogy and I know we have 3 movies, but they all function independently with no through line or arc between them, IMO. So I don’t consider them a trilogy the same way I would LOTR or the original Star Wars films. Curious now that you’ve seen them, do you still consider them a trilogy? To answer your question, I did see this in theaters and there was not a dry eye in the place by the end. While in was widely publicized this was Hugh Jackman’s last movie we all expected him to die. The marketing wasn’t shy. But seeing Professor X go the way he did. That was the most unexpected moment in 2017. That and X-24. That plot point was kept under wraps, though it’s the least interesting of the movie, again IMO. Minor nitpick #1. It was established in X2 that once Adamantium cools it’s indestructible, except against more Adamantium, so Laura just wouldn’t work. Children have their bones continue to grow into adulthood. She’s still growing, grafting adamantium to them would destroy them. Her bones, encased in immovable metal would grind rather painfully into powder on her next growth spurt, with a healing factor probably making it worse as the bone marrow healed and tore repeatedly. While I didn’t consider that before, that was on my mind today through through the whole rewatch/reaction. Still enjoyed it, just saying…science…🤓
Bryan Dempsey
2024-12-08 06:04:52 +0000 UTCOkay so questions you had, “The Manchester incident” was not in any movie, they just give clues that Charles had an episode a year prior to this movie and wiped out the X-Men and killed/wounded lots of others. That’s why they went into hiding. The movie that Charles and X23/Laura were watching was called Shane. It was nominated for Best picture, and is a classic. I never heard of it until this movie came out and then watched it. Pretty dang good and the cinematography was amazing. I think they should have ended the Fox X-Men franchise here because it was a perfect ending to this iteration of the X-Men/Wolverine.
Ray H
2024-12-08 02:53:19 +0000 UTCTo KL: no, I do not think you are a bad person because you don't see the movie the way I do. To Nathan: yes, it is very obvious that the X-Men are often used as metaphors for discrimination...which is the very reason the movie's seemingly unconscious discrimination is so off-putting. Going back to KL, saying that the carjackers fit the location may be true, but why do there have to be carjackers at all? Again, I'm working on nearly 10-year-old memories of the movie here, but my recollection of that opening sequence is that the point of it is tone setting: here's what the vibe of this version of Logan is. In other words, the scene could be replaced with anything, as long as it establishes that Wolverine is dangerous and the movie is R-rated. Since I haven't seen the movie in so long, I can't offer a worthwhile suggestion as to what it could be instead, but it doesn't have to be carjackers at all. The same goes for the caretaker; I see no reason why the film couldn't just suggest that Weapon X escaped on her own without a caretaker (although my memory is saying this probably has something to do with the fact that she doesn't speak for half the movie, which is as mentioned an element I don't particularly like to begin with). I also didn't exactly suggest that the farm family should only be white people, just that I felt like the idea of a guy who stubbornly did not want to leave the area despite the harassment he was receiving (which I think was racially-driven) felt like it would be a more fitting role for a white guy. Mangold could easily have made his wife Black instead, or left his kids Black and just said they were adopted. Alternatively, because the X-Men so often symbolize the oppressed, why not cast a non-white actor in the role of Caliban? Or if the film were subverting that, in the roles of either Dr. Rice or Donald Pierce? In any case, it is not just that POC die in Logan that bothers me, it's that several of them (the caretaker and almost the whole family) die for little other reason than to motivate Logan to act, and others (the carjackers) die in a way that the audience is seemingly supposed to think is really cool and badass. The former is especially irritating because there is a term, "fridging," which was coined by comic book writer Gail Simone *about* comic books. It refers to a DC comic plotline in which a hero returned home to find his girlfriend had been murdered and stuffed into a fridge as the inciting incident in a story. Dead wives and girlfriends were a trend in comics, and Simone was annoyed that these women ended up being little more than motivation in a hero's story. To me, the way Logan uses POC is little more than a variant of fridging. Shouldn't the sight of what Dr. Rice is doing in Mexico be enough to drive Logan? Is it necessary for these other characters to die for him to be motivated to act?
Tyler Foster
2024-12-08 02:39:01 +0000 UTCEnjoy when you get to it!
kaiielle
2024-12-08 01:56:03 +0000 UTCHow did I forget you would be reacting to this today! I will try and watch later.
Christopher simeon
2024-12-08 01:44:42 +0000 UTCNailed it, Nathan.
William
2024-12-08 01:19:11 +0000 UTC100%
William
2024-12-08 01:18:53 +0000 UTCAgree with you on the Logan v. X-24 moment! It's a good one.
kaiielle
2024-12-08 01:00:46 +0000 UTCYeah this movie kicked my ass when I first watched it. 😅 The tragedy of Logan is nearly unmatched in fiction, which is also why I would NOT want to live as long as he has. Like, the loss Logan has had to live with is just bordering on sadism essentially. One thing that really strikes me about this one is when X-24 enters the picture. It's definitely been referenced in previous X-Men movies before, but they really drove home a big quality about Wolverine in this movie, which is his immense sense of fear and self loathing. Logan has this fear that deep down, all he is, is a mindless, animalistic killing machine. All the things he's seen, the wars he's fought, and the amount of lives he's taken, plus all the people he's lost, it's a no brainer you'd develop that kind of thought loop. Seeing X-24 walk down the stairs with that deep piano key, was so chilling. It's literally Logan looking in a dark mirror, facing everything that he's afraid of about himself. His humanity completely stripped, and he just exists to kill, fueled by no other feeling than pure rage. Logan obviously does have that rage inside him, and he's clearly had a rough time trying to live with that part of him, but seeing that personified in a clone? That must've been terrifying, seeing someone wearing your face like that 😂 Anyways I'm super happy you enjoyed this one, and I'm very excited for Deadpool 2! One of my favorites 🙌
Lorenzo Baxter
2024-12-08 00:49:56 +0000 UTCAlso the comic this was loosely based on, Old Man Logan, is gritty, violent, and full of swears.
Nathan Jasper, the Artist Formerly Known as Primary
2024-12-08 00:30:22 +0000 UTCThe whole point of X-Men from the beginning of the comics was to point out the social commentary on race inequality, race rights, gay rights, etc. Race has always been infused into it whether literal or metaphorical.
Nathan Jasper, the Artist Formerly Known as Primary
2024-12-08 00:28:59 +0000 UTCSo it's your #2 then? 😏
kaiielle
2024-12-07 23:54:28 +0000 UTCI've now seen those three movies you listed! Although it's been a while since seeing Les Miserables; I'm long due for a rewatch. Charles' death was tough, but I also appreciate how raw it was. I mean, the overall setting of this movie was pretty raw and rough. Logan definitely suffered the most in this movie out of them all, for sure.
kaiielle
2024-12-07 23:54:18 +0000 UTCDefinitely! Enjoy. 😊
kaiielle
2024-12-07 23:52:27 +0000 UTCCompletely agreed with you! I'm someone who can (and does) rewatch Schindler's List and I've always had people surprised when they find that out about me. I should save your comment so I can just say that next time it happens. 😊
kaiielle
2024-12-07 23:52:10 +0000 UTCAlways appreciate your thoughts and yeah, we are very different about this movie! I'm not sure if you opened the video and watched my review, but I don't just want to repeat my points here about the overall "tone" of the film and why I felt that it, along with the increased swearing and personalities of Charles and Logan, all made sense to me for this point in the convoluted and difficult to understand timeline. 😉 I'll admit that I'm a bit confused about the racism angle here, though. I didn't pick up on that at all in this story - does that make me a bad person? In the past I have picked up on this sort of stuff, but didn't here. I thought the cast was pretty diverse! The group Logan killed at the beginning, doesn't that makes sense because of where they are, physically? The family, sure they could have just cast white people, but I appreciate that they didn't. Even the group of kid mutants were pretty diverse. If this whole movie had white people only, there'd be complaints, no? So you make the cast diverse, but in a story with a ton of deaths like this one, there are going to be some who die. But there were a number of white people who died in this movie too, including our two primary characters! It seems like the primary social commentary taking place here was one of refugees (the kid mutants) and migrating (to Canada), and the struggle/process involved in doing that. I agree that teaming up with the kid mutants a bit earlier would have definitely been a good time. 😊
kaiielle
2024-12-07 23:51:07 +0000 UTCAs with Wind River, no shade to those who love the movie but woof! One of the worst superhero movies ever made for me. Just for starters, the film seems to have some weirdly subconscious racism running through it. Right from the beginning when Wolverine murders a bunch of stereotypical carjackers to show off how violent and R-rated this movie is, I had a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. This got worse when Weapon X's nurse is also slaughtered to motivate Wolverine, and then writer/director James Mangold doubles down by doing it again to the family they encounter and visit. The one part that felt like it could've been developed into better social commentary would be the exploitation of children on the other side of the border, but the movie barely does anything with that but show it. Beyond that, while I haven't seen the film since it came out, the movie just isn't very good as a movie in my opinion. I personally do not care if comic book movies are PG-13 and cannot stand the obsession with R-rated filmmaking as a sign that something is more mature or more serious or has more gravitas, so the violence and swearing all comes off pretty try-hard to me, not to mention, while it's expected that CGI will be used for Wolverine's claws, I also felt like the digital blood looked pretty poor. More to the point, this was supposed to be the farewell for both Logan and Charles after almost 20 years of X-films. Only problem is, now they're suddenly brutally violent and swearing up a storm, in a gritty neo-Western. Through this massive tonal shift, the film honestly doesn't even feel like it's apart of the previous X-Men movies, which makes for a poor finale. Ideally, I would have liked for the film to feel at least a little pulpier and less grounded, to put it more in the world of the other movies. If it has to be R-rated, so be it, but at least try and feel like it's part of the same universe. Drop the thing where Weapon X doesn't talk for half the movie and move up the arrival of the both of them in Eden with the rest of the mutant kids and dig in a little more to the idea of Logan as reluctant mentor. I can't even remember now how exactly Boyd Holbrook's forgettable bad guy fits in, so just get rid of him entirely, and give more screen time to Richard E. Grant and X24. It would be more meaningful to see the kids use their powers as a collective to fight back if we had more of an investment in them and if there were a more tangible sense of how Logan's insight helped them succeed.
Tyler Foster
2024-12-07 23:25:25 +0000 UTCA thing that movie studios and executives typically do not understand: pain and loss are beautiful because they are universal. We can all identify with them, and even crave the need to feel them--especially in a heightened, romanticized state, as this allows us to feel connected, and to know that we can recover; that when the movie is over, and we're done crying, we can feel released from them. If they made more movies that explored the full scope of human emotions, instead of just the cookie-cutter happy endings and sugar-coated niceties they usually churn out, they would have more success, and perhaps the movie industry (including the super-hero ones) wouldn't be choking on its own repitition. Just a thought. Oh, and this movie fucking rocks.
Steve Mercier
2024-12-07 22:23:54 +0000 UTCOh, dang. Forgot this one was coming. It’s a heavy one for sure. Super heavy.
William
2024-12-07 22:07:54 +0000 UTCDafne Keen became a legend in her first major film. She was insanely amazing as X-23 and doing most of her action was incredible for someone her age. It's so hard to rank Hugh Jackman's dramatic performances. He's had so many great roles. The Prestige, Les Miserables, and Logan are the three that come into my mind first. Xavier's death scene was hard to witness after seeing him in the XCU for so long. He was such a cherished icon of a man and to go out the way he did and be buried in some random spot away from his school added to the heartbreak for me. But Logan couldn't carry a body around in the back so I get it but it's still sad. Logan quietly whispering "it wasn't me" tears me and then X-23 trying to hold Logan's hand at the burial... it was a tough watch. It's an interesting take, the thing that made him also destroyed him from the inside out. Adamantium poisoning must be just constant miserable pain. And Logan's a guy that suffered for so long as it is. Brilliant film. The fact it's still being talked about 7 years later just goes to show how impactful it really was.
Nathan Jasper, the Artist Formerly Known as Primary
2024-12-07 21:57:27 +0000 UTCGod, Logan is such a great superhero movie. If it weren't for the Daredevil director's cut, it would easily be my favorite superhero movie.
matt
2024-12-07 21:42:33 +0000 UTC
