This is a big episode for a few reasons. No, we didn’t get to talk to Hugh Jackman, but joining Frank is an array of PTS contributors: Joel Copling, Kyle Jonathan, and Ben Cahlamer. We spend an hour discussing James Mangold’s LOGAN, Hugh Jackman’s seventeen year; seven-year span playing Wolverine, and an overall assessment of Hugh Jackman’s filmography! We hope you enjoy!
The idea behind this film was to franchise origin stories, including a Magneto film that turned into a soft reboot of the X-Men films with FIRST CLASS. We were also supposed to get a solo Gambit film that is still currently in development limbo, and a Deadpool film with Ryan Reynolds that eventually took seven years to get off the ground. What ended up happening was an unintentional Wolverine trilogy.
This film has some major flaws and is an imperfect picture. The two sequels, THE WOLVERINE and LOGAN, remain superior films to this, yet Origins still remains my favorite Wolverine film warts and all. The X-Men franchise has never taken continuity into consideration. Actors were recast in important roles, most notably in this film Danny Huston as William Stryker and Liev Schreiber as Victor Creed/Sabertooth. Timelines get blurred, especially after the hard franchise reboot of DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, and what ends up happening is reinvented origins for Wolverine. Basically, the takeaway here is that the timeline continuity of the X-MEN films is almost as confusing as the TERMINATOR saga.
What saves this film for absolute failure are two important factors and why this remains my favorite Wolverine centered film. Firstly, the opening credits sequence is phenomenal. Spanning the course of every major American war from The Civil War to Vietnam we watch Jackman and Scheiber, brothers in arms, relentlessly fighting and almost single-handedly winning each war for America. As the wars rage on, Logan observes and acknowledges Creed’s bloodlust and morality eroding.
Secondly, which is encompassed in the opening credit sequence, the relationship between Logan and Creed. They’re brothers, they share the same mutant powers. Freakish regeneration and organic weapons from their hands. What sets them apart is important. Creed isn’t as strong as Logan when it comes to regeneration, he would not be able to survive the Adamantium process as Stryker tells him. Most importantly, Creed lacks the morality that Logan attains. Logan has empathy, Creed does not.
Violence is what both of them were born into, what their sole purpose became as they aged into warfare. Creed’s bloodlust overtook him and what little compass of morality he had was disbanded, while Logan was more sensible – more in touch with humanity. This comes full circle in the botched third act of the film that turns Wade Wilson into this super mutant Weapon X. It is a silly ending that promises the future reconnection of Logan and Creed. Regrettably, that never happened; which is a total and complete shame considering this year’s LOGAN was the perfect opportunity to do so.
Casting the dated CGI and third act aside, this film is still steeped with fertile X-Men lore. We get a cool glimpse at Taylor Kitsh as Gambit, which leaves us wondering what could have been had he reprised his role in future films. Taskforce X led by Stryker (who does Brian Cox’s original turn absolute justice) is a very fun aspect of the film yet is underutilized. Aside from Logan and Creed, the team is made up with Reynolds as Wade Wilson (pre Deadpool), Daniel Henney as Agent Zero, Kevin Durand as Fred Dukes/Blob, Will.i.am as Wraith, and Dominic Monaghan as Bolt.
This film could have been monumentally better, but if you take it for what it is, it remains an incredibly enjoyable picture. Had the film focused more on Logan and Creed fighting their way through major wars, or made Taskforce X the focal point, this film would have been fantastic. What we’re left with is an at times clunky vehicle with an easter egg packed third act that left most Wolverine diehards disappointed. Regardless of keyboard warriors trolling of this film, it’s a lot of fun with colorful dialogue, heavy adult themes, and a once in a lifetime performance from Liev Scheiber as Victor Creed. ORIGINS: WOLVERING rightfully earns its keep as the starter for one of the most beloved superhero trilogies in recent memory.
Before I break into the review portion of this piece, special mention must be made of the alleged cut scene from Deadpool 2 that serves as a preview or teaser of sorts for the upcoming sequel to the R rated smash hit. I greatly enjoyed experiencing the company of the darkly comical Merc With A Mouth once again, to the tune of John Williams’ epic Superman: The Movie score, and the song that closes out the late Tony Scott’s underrated True Romance. What a fun little riot, a pleasant albeit all too brief little tease of the pleasures to come. Cue the music!
In 2029, the ageing James ‘Logan’ Howlett (Hugh Jackman) is a pale shadow of the once iconic mutant hero he used to be, Wolverine, popularized in comics that both exaggerate and sanitize the truth. Mutants are extinct save for Logan, Professor Charles Xavier (Sir Patrick Stewart), and the albino mutant Caliban (Stephen Merchant). A mutant birth hasn’t been recorded in 25 years either. Logan is an alcoholic, sporting a visible limp and a frequent cough, and a cynical, cantankerous, almost always pissed off demeanor. He’s kind of an asshole now. His body is slowly breaking down thanks to the cancerous adamantium that covers his entire bone structure and trademark claws, his wounds healing slower and leaving big ugly scars. He’s also plagued by nightmares if the brutal acts committed against and by him. At 200 years old, Logan has experienced multiple lifetimes of violence, tragedy, loss, heartbreak, and grief, the result of which coupled with his age, has broken the poor guy’s soul. He lacks the conviction and strength to get through each day, hence his worsening alcoholism and overbearing cynicism. Life has truly beat the hell out of Logan, yet he presses onward. If an adamantium bullet doesn’t kill him, time, our own worst enemy, surely will. Eventually. By this juncture in Logan’s life, violence isn’t just a way of dealing with other violent beings, it’s become a part of who he is, as if a genetic code for violence is coursing through his veins.
Logan works day and night as a limousine driver in Texas for the kind of drunken party girls who like to flash the driver, and foolhardy guys that dickishly chant jingoistic phrases. His work provides him with just enough cash to afford him the medicine he and Caliban require to help control a neurodegenerative disease that produces seizures Charles is suffering from, the result of which if left untreated renders anyone in the vicinity, save for Logan, temporarily paralyzed, or dead. They live in seclusion in a dingy private smelting plant in Mexico, until their relatively peaceful existence is shattered by the arrival of a merciless cybernetically enhanced assholes called the Reavers. They’re led by Wolverine fanboy and henchman Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), and Zander Rice (Richard E. Grant), a bioengineer and Donald’s boss. They’re seeking the mute Laura aka X-23 (newcomer Dafne Keen), an 11 year old mutant who bears eerie resemblance to Logan. I think we all know why. A brutal encounter sends the trio on their way to Eden, a supposed place of salvation for young mutants in North Dakota, with the Reavers hot on their trail. Yes, this is a road movie but don’t worry, it’s a great one.
I’ve been an X-Men fan since I was a little kid, watching the ’90’s animated series on television, watching every live action movie adaptation, and collecting action figures and comic books along the way. I don’t have anything against PG-13 movies or comic book movies, with the sole exception that the rating limits on-screen violence. I’ll gladly watch jokey, fun superhero flicks any day of the week, a few of which even populate my own favourite films list. But Logan required an R rating to get across the precise tone director James Mangold and Hugh Jackman have been aiming for over the last few years. Just like many other fans, I’ve been waiting 17 years to see Wolverine finally cut loose and tear people to shreds the way I’ve always known he can, because foot-long metal claws from the strongest metal on the planet (in their reality), don’t just poke the bad guy – they dismember, disembowel, and decapitate. Rest assured, he finally does in Logan.
The rumours are true, Logan is packed with plenty of bloody violence, far from tame, and with enough blood soaked carnage to satisfy even the most bloodthirsty gore-hounds. Heads roll, limbs fly off, threats are ripped open wide, and buckets of blood are spilled as Logan finally delivers a whopping heap of berserker rage fuelled killings throughout its 135 minute runtime, especially in two scenes of 100% pure classic Wolverine berserker rage that will blow minds. Two fight scene in particular, one midway through the movie, and the other the bloodstained finale, offer up some of the most intense, brutal, and graphic comic book movie violence committed to film. These two scenes in particular are stand-out action set pieces due to the physical and dramatic weight the R rating allows them to possess. When Logan becomes physically drained, weakened by multiple gunshots (*spoiler alert* or stabs wounds from an experimental clone of himself *end of spoiler*), we feel his exhaustion through his body language and facial expressions. When he or Laura are dispatching foes left and right, we feel the primal anger and blood lust. A PG-13 movie could never have that dramatic heft to it. Logan also bears a significant amount of profanity, enough to rival last year’s similarly R rated comic book movie hit Deadpool, but unlike that movie, profanity isn’t used like a comedic tool to up the wattage of vulgarity as was needed. Rather, the frequent uses of the f-bomb accentuate the anger and frustration the characters (Logan in particular), are experiencing at any given moment. Logan isn’t for the faint of heart, but there’s more to Logan than just gory violence.
Hugh Jackman deserves an Oscar for his performance as Logan. I’m not just saying that for the sake of it. Hugh has never given a more layered, meaningful, naturalistic performance in the 17 years I’ve been watching his movies. If Logan is a truly his final outing as the iconic character, I don’t think he could have given a better performance than what you’ll see in Logan. The script by Mangold and co-writers Scott Frank and Michael Green, along with that R rating, affords Jackman the opportunity to work with dialogue and scenes that at ask for more of dramatic work than physical, allowing Hugh to go to places he wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach. It’s the work of an actor who knows this character better than anyone else outside of his creators, who isn’t simply playing a role, but living within the skin of him. He is our Logan, through and through in every way in this subtle, deeply human performance. Sir Patrick Stewart has never been better as Charles Xavier, and acting on the assumption that this is also his final turn as his iconic character, as reported in recent days, I couldn’t have asked for a more fitting end to his reign. Dafne Keen needs an X-23 movie pronto, she’s so good for such a young newcomer. Boyd Holbrook makes for a menacing villain, his smooth talking Texas accented Donald acting as quite the ice cold delight in a sea of CGI, oversized doomsday super villains, and Richard E. Grant gives multiple dimensions to his Zander, bringing a welcomed honesty, tenderness, and sheer cruelty to what could have otherwise been a thinly developed villain.
At first glance, Logan is a comic book movie meant to bring a satisfactory yet heartbreaking end to a 17 year long career and story arc spent on the iconic hero. Peel back the layers and it’s a redemption through justice and revenge western tale, the kind kind of story carried through history books for centuries to come. Logan is right from the get-go, a classic western yarn, and the best kind too. The kind of western where a tired gunfighter has to take up their guns one last time in the name of frontier justice. The western frontier may be gone, but the idea of the stubborn hero who needs persuading still exists, right down to the classic Shane appearing on a hotel television.
That Logan uses a couple of the same tropes seen in westerns decades ago doesn’t mean the film is a slave to those tropes, as Logan firmly stands on its own two feet as a unique amalgamation of comic book fantasy, the classic western, and the modern family road trip drama. Remove the use of mutant powers and you have a modern day western about a tortured soul waiting for death to end his suffering, until his skills are called upon to assist those in need, one last time. Hollywood hasn’t run out of fresh ideas, rather they’ve just found creative ways of reinventing the wheel from time to time. Taking the fantastical world of the X-Men and grounding it in the themes of the classic American western is a brilliant manner of humanizing and personalizing Logan’s story. Logan has more in common with Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven than any of the X-Men movies that precede it. The presence of X-Men comics in the film (real comic books with newly commissioned art by their original artist Dan Panosian), seems to suggest that the world in which the previous 9 X-Men movies occupied may also have been a sanitized embellishment of the grim world Logan inhabits. I quite enjoy the notion.
Last year Deadpool proved an R rated comic book movie about a fourth wall breaking, profane, crudely humourous, violent mercenary out to rescue his lover and not look like an avocado had sex with an older more disgusting avocado, could out perform multiple other comic book movies released this past decade, if the correct amount of love and respect are applied to the material. This year, Logan has proven that Deadpool’s success wasn’t just beginner’s luck, but that lightning struck twice because just as much love, passion, and respect were applied in all the right places. That they had the balls to make a commercial comic book movie about a broken man learning to love one last time, proves they broke the mould when they made Logan. That we’ll likely never see another comic book movie that treads these waters again is fine by me. I wouldn’t want it any other way. This final ride was perfect.
By J.D. Lafrance
After his debut film Strictly Ballroom (1992), writer/director Baz Luhrmann never looked back, creating lavish, ultra-stylish musicals William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Moulin Rouge! (2001), and let’s not forget that $5 million Chanel commercial starring his cinematic muse, Nicole Kidman. With, Australia (2008), he decided to take national pride to a whole new level by creating a sweeping romantic epic about his home country that takes place between the World Wars and was made by and starring Australians. With a budget in the neighborhood of $130 million, the pressure was on Luhrmann now more than ever before to deliver at the box office and, while underperforming in North America, it went on to gross $200 million worldwide despite a lukewarm critical response.
Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman) is a headstrong English aristocrat who travels to Northern Australia in 1939 to meet her husband at their ranch Faraway Downs. Within a few minutes of arriving, she meets her guide to this strange new land, a man known as the Drover (Hugh Jackman), a hard-drinking, two-fisted Australian version of a cowboy. They take an instant dislike to each other: she thinks that he’s crude and uncultured and he thinks that she’s too prim and proper.
They arrive at Faraway Downs to find her husband dead (apparently at the hands of an Aboriginal) and the ranch in disarray and in danger of being foreclosed. Mr. Carney (Bryan Brown), the local tycoon with a monopoly on the local economy, has his right-hand man, Mr. Fletcher (David Wenham) try to sabotage Lady Ashley. In order to save Faraway Downs, she has to drive 1,500 head of cattle to Darwin and so she enlists the help of the Drover. Along the way, they befriend a young Aboriginal boy named Nullah (Brandon Walters) whom she protects from being taken away and forced to assimilate with white folks.
As with his previous films, Luhrmann populates Australia with broad, stereotypical characters and tells a classic story. The film revels in archetypes: Ashley is a pure, upstanding woman, the Drover is the rugged western hero, Fletcher is the dastardly villain, and Nullah is the adorable child who narrates the story. As he proved with is previous films, Luhrmann has an uncanny knack for casting. Who can forget the undeniable chemistry between Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in Romeo + Juliet and the sparks that flew between Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge!? He’s at it again with this film with the casting of Hugh Jackman and Kidman as the romantic leads.
Jackman finally fulfills those early comparisons to Clint Eastwood, playing the Drover as a tough, dependable hero who’s not afraid to show his vulnerable side. He’s never been more charismatic as he proves to be equally adept at the physical demands and the emotional range that the role requires. No one knows how to photograph Kidman quite like Luhrmann. She looks stunning, even covered in a layer of dirt and dust from a cattle drive. At first, her stuffy English aristocrat comes off as a cartoonish stereotype but as her character becomes acclimatized to the country and she develops a bond with Nullah, she becomes warmer and more empathetic.
Beginning in 1939 and climaxing with the Japanese bombing of Darwin in 1942, Luhrmann’s Australia mixes the larger-than-life melodrama of Gone with the Wind (1939) with the exciting cattle drive in Red River (1948) and with a dash of The Wizard of Oz (1939). His film clearly harkens back to the kind of cinema that they just don’t make any more with very little CGI used and everything built from scratch and on location. Australia is the kind of ambitious Technicolor epic that might have been made by John Ford or George Stevens. It is a marvel of absolutely stunning cinematography – only Luhrmann could make the desolate outback look vibrant and alive. He alternates between sun-drenched day scenes and night scenes that appear to be impossibly illuminated by the stars.
One should not go into Australia expecting realism. Luhrmann presents a mythologized take on his country. Love him or hate him, you have to respect Luhrmann for not being afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve. He’s arguably the most romantic filmmaker working today with the possible exception of Wong Kar-Wai. And with Australia, he has made an unabashed love letter to his homeland on a grand scale.
With LOGAN being a gigantic hit at the box office, after seventeen years and seven turns as the Wolverine, Hugh Jackman is done with his most seminal character. I imagine we’ll see him again, at some point down the road, but time will tell. Jackman is so much more than the rough and tough Canadian mutant, he’s a wonderfully rounded actor that can mix brute blood lust with musical performances and soul bearing dramatic performances. While Jackman is just hitting the sweet spot of his career, I wanted to take a look back at his finest performances.
THE FOUNTAIN 2006 Dir. Darron Aronofsky
This is a film that has accrued such a following over its lackluster release, that one day, this will be looked at as not only one of Aronofsky’s finest films but also one of Jackman’s best performances. Here, he plays the same soul over a course of three different centuries. It’s apparent he’s a different man with each new becoming, yet he still is able to remain the same person. It’s an incredibly heartfelt and touching performance in a film that needs more acclaim.
LES MISERABLES 2012 Dir. Tom Hooper
Hugh Jackman has gone through a bounty of physical transformations playing Wolverine on screen, but nothing like his turn as Jean Valjean in LES MISERABLES. Here, he embodies a fugitive, for decades, on the brink of the French Revolution – well, I’m pretty sure everyone knows the story. But here, Jackman is able to pivot back to an area of performing that he loves: musicals. While the contemporary Hollywood musical comes back in fads, I think this film stands out due in part to the actors are all singing live while being filmed. This not only enhances their performances but makes them feel honest and organic, particularly Jackman.
LOGAN 2016 Dir. James Mangold
This is it (maybe). Jackman in his last turn as Wolverine. He brings his all to this film, not once coasting in a character he’s played seven times in seventeen years. Here, Logan is broken, surrendered, and wanting his life to finally be over. Bravo to Jackman for going all out for this role. He didn’t have to, and it is incredibly admirable of him to treat this character with such fondness and respect. While the overwhelming echo chamber of hype is loud, I imagine this is the film that everyone is going to remember Jackman for.
THE PRESTIGE 2006 Dir. Christopher Nolan
Jackman has an incredible knack for taking all of his affability and rolling into ambiguous characters that are cast in the greyscale of morality. Here, Jackman’s obsession takes him down a rabbit hole of darkness where he ends up doing things so unforgivable, there is not really much of a shot at redemption, but I suppose that’s the point of this dark and twisted tale of magicians bent on obsession.
PRISONERS 2013 Dir. Denis Villeneuve
In the role of a grieving father, blinded by revenge and rage, Jackman plays his most complex character. The brilliance of the film, but in particular, the development of Jackman’s character, is that we’re given clues to who this man in before the events of the film unravels at a rather rapid pace. While some of the clues are aesthetic choices or shot composition, a majority of them are cued in by subtle actions Jackman takes. While his character becomes more and more vested in revenge and violence, the path to atonement becomes more and more opaque, and Jackman eventually gets the ambiguous end that he deserves. Or does he?
X-MEN APOCALYPSE completely forgoes and abandons the immense promise we were given with DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. The entire film is a bloated and dull calamity. It is misguided at every turn. The direction, poor writing, and uninspired performances lead us to yet another third X-Men film that unintentionally tries it’s hardest at undoing the smart entertainment from its former two films.
The setup, is yet another rehash of the idealist Professor X uniting with his former best friend and now arch nemesis, Magneto, to save humanity from yet another unstoppable force. There is little to like about this film. Evan Peters as Quicksilver is the best part, but even his slow-motion scenes become a mundane walk-through. Hugh Jackman shows up in a forced and out of place cameo that leaves you wishing he wasn’t even in the film.
Unlike the previous two X-Men prequel films where each story capitalized on it’s time period, APOCALYPSE does absolutely nothing to remind us that this film takes place in the 80’s aside from Jean Grey having shoulder pads and a trio of them seeing RETURN OF THE JEDI. There is not any character progression for an of the existing characters, or any of the new ones. They just exist.
FIRST CLASS wasn’t a great film, but it built a solid foundation for the epic and remarkable DAYS OF FUTURE PAST that brilliantly and organically rebooted the entire X-Men franchise. This new film completely squanders the fresh start we were promised. I loved DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, but pertaining to X-MEN APOCALYPSE, there ain’t nothing good about this shit at all.
Swordfish tries so hard to be cool, and save for a few moments of smirking silliness, it is pretty goddamned cool. The early 2000’s still carried lingering, reminiscent elements of the 90’s, the super cyber hacker archetype included. The cyber hacker is played by two types of people: basement dwelling, Mountain Dew drinking chatter boxes and virile, sexy supermodels. The latter is employed here, personified by Hugh Jackman as Stanley, a sly devil who can hack into almost anything effortlessly, but has been caught and never allowed to touch a computer again. Enter Gabriel (John Travolta), a silver tongued arch villain out to steal all the money and priceless artifacts he can hope to ever own. Although Travolta isn’t as truly off the rails as in some of his villain roles, the amiable charm he puts forth here is but a ruse to cloud the monster beneath. He’s a very bad man, putting Stanley’s loved ones in jeopardy and forcing him to work computer wizardry for ill gotten riches. Gabriel has a girlfriend named Ginger (Halle Berry, never sexier) who walks a moral tightrope between the two alpha males, torn between roguish indifference and and her conscience. Stanley is also hounded by an FBI Agent (Don Cheadle), with whom he has a tumultuous past. The film resists goin completely by the motions, lulling you just to the border of entropy and then throwing something surprising from a direction you didn’t look in. My favourite scene of the film shows Travolta giving a monologue on bank robbery etiquette, complete with a reference to Sydney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon, confirming the fact that this flick has a strong script to go with its pyrotechnics. He flexes his sonic directorial muscles in an especially extraordinary action sequence involving a bus and a helicopter that will seriously make your finger hover over the replay button. Vinnie Jones is an ambassador of cool, in a lively turn as Gabriel’s head thug. Sam Shepherd has fun as a corrupt Senator. There’s also fine work from Zachary Grenier, Tim Dekay, William Mapother, Rudolph Martin and Drea De Matteo. Director Dominic Sena comes from music video land, having also helmed the priceless Nic Cage Bruckheimer-fest Gone in 60 Seconds, as well as the fallout brilliant psycho road thriller Kalifornia. Here he doses the flash and sizzle of 60 seconds with the hard hitting violence of Kalifornia, presented in a story guaranteed to raise a pulse. It’s also got pretty much the coolest poster of 2001. I dare you to find a cooler one, go ahead. Oh, and Travolta’s manscaping here deserves its own spinoff film.
Podcasting Them Softly 