Logan (James Mangold, March 3 2017) Movie • Page 14

I'd probably just do release order.

 

To prepare for Logan? You don't need anything else.

To enjoy the films? The only ones I genuinely love are X2 and Days of Future Past, both which work fine by themselves. If you just feel like watching them all to take in the whole franchise, though, good and bad alike, the order they came out is fine.

If, regards to the above conversation, you want a fan order akin to the Star Wars Machete Order or whatever, you could always do something with the timelines I posted above, lol. Any of those orders would probably make for an interesting experience.

 

Agree with all of this, but I would add First Class to ones that I genuinely love.

 

My favourites are The Wolverine, Days of Future Past and Logan. X2 didn't hold up as well as I thought it would when I watched it again recently, I still like it tho.

 

I've just never been crazy about First Class for whatever reason. Fassbender was a fantastic Magneto, and McAvoy was a decent Xavier, but I wasn't really into the rest of the cast. It's good but doesn't fully click with me. I still think an Origins: Magneto film starring Fassbender would've been better, lol.

 

I loved the first two back when they came out but haven't watched them since, didn't like Last Stand and hated the two solo Wolverine movies. Loved First Class/DOFP and even enjoyed Apocalypse a decent amount. Logan is probably one of my favourite films ever.

 

Overall, I agree with your thoughts on the cast. Though I do like Bacon, as well.

Fassbender and his story make it for me over anything else. His stuff just hooks me in so much. I agree, I wish it could have been just that.

 

X2 doesn't any particularly impressive performances or anything, but I think it has a very strong story with a lot of cool elements, and the action in it has aged shockingly well for a 2003 genre film. The opening sequence with Nightcrawler is still one of my favorite comic book action sequences. I've revisited it twice in the past year or so and loved every second of it both times.

 

I think X2 does a great job of utilizing the world set up in the first film and, overall, gives something cool for each character.

Also, the mansion fight scene was so brilliant. I forgot to come back and comment about the extreme violence in Logan. But I guess, I'm more entertained by the more creative way the mansion fight is done vs just showing claws going through heads.

 

I haven't watched the first trilogy in a long time. First Class is great, DoFP is amazing, and Apocalypse is ok.

 

Claws going through heads was I think essential for Logan, since the weight of the violence was an important part of the story.

For sheer entertainment value, though, yeah, X2 did great with Wolverine even with the rating. I do remember a specific guy getting stabbed, and you literally see the claws go in and out of the guy's chest like a ghost, w/out even any surface marks, lol. But, it didn't stop that whole sequence from being great.

 

It just got repetitive to me. Where in the pg 13 movies they had to get creative to show him attacking people, though they weren't always successful. I agree the violence was more fitting in Logan, but it needed a different spin on it at some point, at least to me.

 

I never got bored of the violence in Logan. I felt like the situations changed up enough to make it consistently compelling.

 

This isn't a Logan-specific problem, but the masses of anonymized violence in genre movies lately is so tiring. In Logan we watch probably 250 human beings die unceremoniously, killed by our heroes, even as the movie is trying to acknowledge it with the scene between Logan and Laura where she says she hurt people, and he says she'll have to learn how to live with that, and she says they were bad people, and he says "all the same". It's a really beautiful scene and conversation but none of that awareness makes it into the violence or dramatization of the antagonists. The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, John Wick 2, the Magnificent Seven remake, Man of Steel, Hacksaw Ridge, I think Deadpool (I honestly don't remember much about that movie), a lot of big superhero or action movies relish in their violence and body counts while not acknowledging the actual humanity that should come with recognizing that, even if they're anonymous movie characters, people are people. When hundreds (or billions) of them die, it should mean something. Not that every single person who dies in an action movie needs a back story and pathos, but a textual awareness of the cost of that violence in action scenes would go a long way (I love that scene between Logan and Laura, but in actual practice of the violence in the movie there is absolutely none of that tone). Fury Road did it well, making Nux an integral character who experiences an arc and brings dimension to the opposing characters. The Nice Guys is another great example of actually understanding how to dramatize characters feeling conflicted about violence and coming to terms with their ultraviolent pasts to potentially change going forward.

 

I greatly enjoyed the film. This is the style of Wolverine film that I always wanted to see. If only the last entry would have been R-rated and raw like this. My only major complaint is:

the family at the farm didn't need to be killed like that. With all the overwhelming amount of sadness and despair portrayed, this could have been a bit of relief from that. It just felt like overkill to me. It just wasn't necessary. We already know how bad things are. And they still get worse from there too.
Great film though, loved the Neo-Westen vibes. And the X-23 portrayal was very well done.

I give it an A-

 

I'm like a half hour into rewatching the first X Men movie and I'm kind of astonished how terrible this is. I knew it wasn't good but my word

 

I still like/love the first couple X-Men movies, but the bar for superhero films have definitely gone up since then

 

I rewatched them recently too, and even though dated (esp the action scenes) the first Xmen still has a lot of great scenes. Opening the film in Auschwitz is still pretty ballsey for a superhero film. Love the introduction to Logan as well.

 

Forgive responding to an older post, but I think Logan does a better job of this than the others you cite.

The key for me is in how it used Shane. The idea that being a man of violence is like a brand, leaves you marked as someone inviting more violence is kind of foundational to this movie. He doesn't want to be involved. He tried to run rather than fight multiple times. But once that can of worms has been opened, it's a cycle that's hard to stop. Kind of like Unforgiven or The Gunfighter in that way.

Which is not to say the film doesn't play its action scenes for excitement. But I think it's a little more nuanced than the horrible-ness of Jurassic World.

 

I agree, but I think the problems are still there, even if it's more nuanced and aware of those issues. I saw someone say in that opening scene, where his car is getting robbed, he shouldn't have fought back. He could have maybe tried, then had his claw get stuck and just wearily gave up as they beat him up or take the car wheel. It would lessen the repetitiveness of the violence and be a more emotional opening if we saw that the Logan we've known for seven movies is not the same Logan we're introduced to here. His refusal to help out the girl (or anyone, really) would then be more nuanced, because we'd know it's partially because he doubts his own abilities, maybe he hasn't been able to be as ruthless since whatever that event was that killed all the other X-Men. Then seeing Laura with his same powers, seeing her rampage, he can join in and it plays triumphantly. That could have been a much more resonant arc.

But I like the movie quite a bit, regardless.

 

I do think they make the point that he's not what he once was. He takes a beating at the beginning from a bunch of random gangbangers, when he's an invincible killing machine.

I do agree with you on a lot of movies (the DC movies and Jurassic World as particularly egregious offenders), but this wasn't a movie that set off that alarm for me particularly.

 

Finally got around to seeing this. What an amazing display of filmmaking. Kudos all around. Don't think the movie would have had the same emotional impact if it was PG-13.

 

Saw this last night.theater was packed. RIP that family on the farm. They were the most heroic and inspiring characters in the film.

Am I sick for how much I enjoyed the violence and gore?

 

I'm happy so many people are still going to see this! Farm house was my favorite scene in the movie and nope, all that violence was amazing and really well done