Logan

"A man has to be what he is, Joey. Can’t break the mould. I tried it and it didn’t work for me... Joey, there’s no living with... with a killing. There’s no going back from one. Right or wrong, it’s a brand. A brand sticks. There’s no going back. Now you run on home to your mother, and tell her... tell her everything’s all right. And there are no more guns in the valley." Absolute care for characters in a movie shot, acted and produced with utmost dedication is when a dialogue from a 1953 Western features in and perfectly qualifies the titular character in your Western-styled 2017 movie about the sundowning of heroes and the spark of a new generation within the unlikeliest of circumstances, requiring the one character most ill-fitted to be a parent be instrumental in ushering in this new generation. The X-Men have never felt more at reach and human than they did in this movie. Those scenes before things went belly-up at the Munsons perfectly encapsulates the strained but intentionally-catered for dynamic between successive generations of mutants in both Logan's and Charles' circle. The insufferable grandfather (Professor X, Magneto, Sebastian Shaw, Beast, Nathaniel Essex), the reclusive and stumbling father/mother (Wolverine, Storm, Mystique, Marvel Girl, Cyclops, Polaris, Scarlet Witch), and the impulsive child needing direction (Laura, Jubilee, Pyro, Rogue, et cetera). All the family trees (biological and found) you can draw with these characters are distilled into Charles, Logan and Laura here, and we see them do the work to surpass their individual current challenges to contribute, because, what else did they have? Charles, in his bid to contribute and not feel like a burden, had to break through the dulling effects of his medication to protect Laura when Logan wasn't present. The consequence was the remembering of the Westchester Incident, an event Logan and Caliban had been preventing him from recalling, not knowing that that very recollection was all he actually needed to go through what he needed to go through in order to find his own Sun Seeker; in order to leave the land of the living at a satisfactory point. Logan, in his bid to contribute and not feel like the one who couldn't look past the guilt of his past and be a hero one more time, had to take the entire vial of the green serum from Transigen, giving him a rapid boost of energy he needed to cut through the Reavers to save the kids, whilst rapidly running down his body's ability to heal, such that that last impaling from X-24 becomes his last ever deed. The death of one who still knew the importance of "living with it" (as he advices Laura), even after 200 years. Laura, in her bid to contribute and not be the damsel in distress, unwittingly pressures Xander Rice to release X-24, who ends up becoming the undoing of the Munsons, and ultimately, Charles and Logan. Logan sees the potential of her taking his usual route and blaming it all on herself, and tells her while he parts, "Don't be what they made you". The very lesson he continuously had to remember to stay on the right side of things, against all odds. Behind all his earlier rejection of Laura and her possibility was one thought. Hugh Jackman's acting is so exceptional that you can see it through his eyes: I will not acknowledge that someone other than me is about to go through all the horrors I've gone through. A child at that matter!. He eventually starts accepting Laura when he starts seeing her take initiative and do achieve some amazing independent feats (drive him to the hospital, find the rest of her crew herself in North Dakota). Perhaps, she's not as helpless. Perhaps, she just might be able to. The thoughts in his mind in those moments. He relaxes his reflex stubbornness, and in turn, Laura relaxes herself enough to start speaking to him. Turns out, she's a prattler. Lol. Beautiful parallels; powerful motivations; a cohesive story about regret, hard choices, parentage, and escape. This one was made out of love. Say, Gabriella really suffered more than (or faster than) she really was supposed to, given how ferocious Laura is, you know. Dafne Keen's acting in this movie rivals Hugh Jackman's and Sir Patrick Stewart's at all levels, especially in scenes where she doesn't say a word. Do you know what it means for a pre-teen to do that? That is confidence through the roof! And not only that, she nails the Spanish accent to the T! Yes, her ethnicity is part Spanish, but this girl grew up in England, and sounds nothing like Laura in real life. Feat! The metaphors of slavery, subjugation, and the race to refuge is not at all subtle in this movie. What's more poignant is the intentional choice to make the kids' parentage be a mixture of dead mutants and "those left for dead". It's a sharp commentary on the societally-imposed and class-activated disposability the downtrodden often find themselves when in the presence of old powerful systems of subjugation that promises one thing and delivers another. The kids being chiefly Black and Latino is well-done. It's not poverty stereotyping. It's a mirror to reality, and even more important, the power the subjugated can amass by banding together. The power of many. Even Stephen Merchant's Caliban, and his representation of the tool amongst the disposable who is in the vicious cycle of helping the enemy against his own, and regretting it. For most, as was the case for Caliban, breaking past that cycle is often an explosive choice. What a powerful character-driven story! Movie is also technically sound. Nary a plot-hole found. Benefits a lot from being a simple self-contained story. Some of the score wasn't really hitting though, but it can be very easily looked past. Making this Rated R was the best choice. The places that rating allowed them to go allowed this movie to hit heavy when it needed to. *Marvel Cinematic Multiverse Movies, Ranked*