Today's Review: Logan

Weinig filmsterren zullen hun doorbraakrollen zo trouw zijn gebleven als Hugh Jackman. De acteur kruipt in Logan voor de negende keer in de huid van de mutante mannetjesputter Wolverine. Hij heeft deze rol zo'n zeventien jaar lang gedragen, te beginnen met X-Men, de film die de aftrap vormde voor het niet meer uit de bioscoop weg te denken superheldengenre. Sindsdien hebben we zo veel superheldenfilms voorbij zien komen dat de beperkingen van het genre zich opdrongen. Logan bevestigt die beperkingen maar haalt ze eveneens hard onderuit, in een film die het 'super' uit haar superheld haalt, maar daarmee paradoxaal genoeg een nieuw hoogtepunt vormt voor de superheldenfilm. Hugh Jackman speelt de onsterfelijke mutant voor de allerlaatste keer, als nooit tevoren. Hij bewijst daarmee dat we Wolverine zullen missen.

Anno 2029 is de maatschappij er niet al te best aan toe. Postapocalyptisch is het nog net niet, maar fijn is anders. In deze naargeestige wereld slentert een gebroken Logan door het Texaanse landschap. Hij zuipt, hij vloekt en heeft weinig op met de wereld om hem heen. Hij slijt zijn dagen met een lullig baantje en het zorgen voor een stokoude, dementerende Charles Xavier (die andere grote X-veteraan, Patrick Stewart). Zelf is hij fysiek niet veel beter af: zijn genezingsgave geeft langzaam de geest, de ouderdom haalt hem rap in. Vechten voor de goede zaak is niet meer aan de orde, de andere X-Men zijn dood en het mutantenras is vrijwel verdwenen. Als het mysterieuze meisje Laura zijn hulp nodig heeft, wijst hij haar nors de deur. Wanneer Logan geconfronteerd wordt met de Reavers, een groep cyborghuurlingen onder regie van een schimmig geneticaconcern, blijkt dat het kind behept is met bovenmenselijke krachten die beangstigend veel op de zijne lijken. Vervolgens slaat het trio op de vlucht met de onvermurwbare schurken in hun kielzog, die vastberaden zijn ook deze laatste mutanten uit de weg te ruimen.

Wolverine was altijd al een ruige kerel, maar in Logan is hij lomper en asocialer dan ooit. Hugh Jackman speelt diens laatste aria met meer bezieling dan ooit. Al die jaren heeft hij zich feitelijk moeten inhouden, maar nu mag hij helemaal los gaan dankzij een voor de X-franchise ongekende leeftijdskeuring. Die 'R rating' (tot en met zestien jaar uitsluitend toegang onder begeleiding van een volwassene) is volkomen terecht. Liefhebbers van het explicietere hak-en-snijwerk komen ruim aan hun trekken; de ledematen vliegen ons om de oren en het taalgebruik is grover dan ooit. Zelfs de altijd zo correcte Xavier maalt niet om een krachtterm meer of minder (tot zichtbaar plezier van Stewart). Logan lijkt wat dat betreft geïnspireerd door het vorig jaar verschenen anarchistische Deadpool, met het verschil dat hier een serieuzere toon wordt gehanteerd. Ouderdom is immers niet om te lachen en in deze grauwe toekomst is sowieso weinig ruimte voor relativerende humor. Laat staan voor superhelden.

Regisseur James Mangold heeft weinig op met de stereotiepe superheld. Ook in voorganger The Wolverine toonde hij meer affiniteit met de menselijke kant van Logan dan met diens krachten. Als Laura hoop put uit X-Men comics - een originele sneer naar het bronmateriaal - spot Logan hiermee door te beweren dat het allemaal een verzinsel is, geen realiteit. Superhelden bestaan niet. Toch werpt hij zich op als haar beschermer, in een parallel met de meermaals geciteerde klassieker Shane. Logan voelt inderdaad meer als een western dan als een superheldenspektakel, wat nog onderstreept wordt door de zuidelijk-Amerikaanse setting vol stof en kogels. De twee genres laten zich onder Mangold treffend kruisen. Uiteraard kent Logan de nodige shootouts met de bad guys, hoewel de eenzame strijder gewapend is met klauwen in plaats van een revolver. Die booswichten laten zich overigens erg makkelijk in stukjes hakken. De Reavers zijn dan ook bijzaak voor Mangold, die niets opheeft met clichématige malle schurken zoals cyborgs.

Logan is bovenal zijn eigen ergste vijand. Zijn haperende genezingsfactor zorgt voor een langzame adamantiumvergiftiging en zijn eigen bloed wordt tegen hem gebruikt door hem te klonen. Het is dit diep persoonlijke conflict met zichzelf dat Logan zijn meerwaarde geeft, want de film weet met haar plotlijn over een bedrijf dat gekloonde mutanten als supersoldaten wil inzetten een gevoel van déjà vu niet te vermijden. Dat gegeven zagen we alleen al in de X-films tig keer voorbijkomen. Logan teert niet op het wat voorspelbare plot, maar vooral op de menselijke personages. Beide generaties gooien hier hoge ogen, want de jonge Dafne Keen geeft formidabel tegengas aan Jackmans heerlijk onsympathieke ouwe knar. De verwantschap tussen Laura en Logan is onmiskenbaar, het stokje mag gelijk aan het jonkie doorgegeven worden. Toch is het Jackman die de meeste indruk achterlaat, voor het laatst in de rol die hem groot maakte, maar hier zo anders gespeeld dan gebruikelijk. Schrijnend, dat we juist dankzij diens zwanenzang toch meer van Wolverine willen zien.

Today's Triple News: sequels, fairy tales and super heroes

New news keeps pouring in on a daily basis, faster than I can discuss it here. Doesn't stop me from trying though:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154509/sofia_coppola_regisseert_mogelijk_the_little_mermaid_

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154508/disney_maakt_cars_3_en_incredibles_2

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154488/mangold_terug_voor_wolverine_2

People who think Coppola might not be suited for directing a fairy tale are overlooking the fact that the basic contents of The Little Mermaid are much like some of Coppola's earlier work, they're just packaged differently. Stories about teenage girls living in a fantasy world all their own and trying to have things their way which backfires on them doesn't sound so different thematicaly from the likes of The Bling Ring, Marie Antoinette or The Virgin Suicides to my mind. They just appear dissimilar on the surface. That said, the notion of doing a "kid-friendly" family film is probably what deters most people who prefer to see Coppola tackling more (young) adult oriented material, as she hasn't done a project like this yet. However, that's not to say she is not capable of making such a movie. Let's face it: Coppola's career as a director of feature length films spans nearly two decades but has only spawned five movies in total. That's not enough of an output to judge a director's capacities on, it's only an indication of what type of films he/she is particularly drawn to. As I have stated before, directors need change, and I'd say here's a chance for Coppola to prove her directorial versatility. She has two young kids of her own, for crying out loud; why wouldn't she be interested in a fun movie for the whole family, that still allows her to incorporate her signature themes to some extent? Even though I'm personally not all that stoked for this project - which definitely has something to do with the fact the Disney version of The Little Mermaid is the first movie I ever saw in theaters, and the second too - I think the studio might just have made the perfect choice with Coppola.

Speaking of Disney, they're steering Pixar, formerly known for their sublime creativity, into a rampant case of suffering severe sequelitis. Currently, the studio is working on only a single original project, The Good Dinosaur, which was already put on hold for a whole year. Other than that, it's all sequels for the next few years: Planes 2, an alleged Toy Story 4, Finding Dory, Cars 3, The Incredibles 2. People used to praise Pixar for doing something new every time, while their competitor DreamWorks was maligned for milking itself dry completely. They won't be doing that anymore, as by now the situation seems to have reversed entirely. It appears Disney decides to play it safe by counting on established multi-billion dollar franchises instead of letting original ideas take precedence. And if those sequels weren't enough, there's a few more 3D re-releases slated too, making the studio more money by pushing the same stuff on us again, just at higher admission prices. That said, I prefer a re-release, so we can all enjoy those classic Pixar movies again before they're totally spoiled by their unneccessary and undesirable sequels. However, Pixar proved with Toy Story 2 and 3 that they can do justice to the originals be making sequels that manage to actually surpass the quality of their predecessors, but ever since Cars 2 and the terribly uninspired spin-off Planes - at a point when Disney had taken over the company - the odds of that happening again are not in our favour. Let's hope The Good Dinosaur will at least live up to its name.

And the X-universe just keeps on Xpanding cinematically (see what I did there?). Ever since the mind boggling success of Marvel's The Avengers, rival studios that own a piece of the Marvel Universe have taken a hint as to how they ought to approach handling their properties to achieve similar success. Unlike Sony, which only manages a single big name and its various supporting characters, Fox has the luck of owning a big name tentpole franchise, X-Men,  that consists of a lot more characters and therefore a lot more possibilities for sequels, spin-offs and such, making for an easily growing cinematic legacy. Apparently the 'Avengers approach' is already applied in full swing with X-Men: Days of Future Past, a storyline which will continue into X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), the latter of which might actually deal with the infamous Age of Apocalypse mirror universe, or else with a variation on the established cinematic X-routine. Days of Future Past might end with its broken time line fixed or not, and still able to pave the way for coherently branching off into multiple temporal directions. X-Force (2016 or 2017) for eXample will certainly pick up where Apocalypse left off, as it deals with Apocalypse's primary nemesis Cable and his merry band of young mutant acolytes, but it can still take place alongside the regular X-storyline that we last saw in last year's The Wolverine, either being interwoven with characters we already know, in various possible iterations (future/present/alternate universe) no less. And now The Wolverine is getting a sequel too (2017/2018?), which most likely will continue on the events of Days of Future Past - as those were already foreshadowed in its mid-credits bonus scene - but could skip over Apocalypse altogether, while still relating to X-Force in a minor capacity. And if things aren't complicated enough by all these Xses being thrown around, Fox still has to think of how on Earth they're going to incorporate their other Marvel franchise, the Fantastic Four, into all this too, as they have stated to be their intention. Because of all the time travelling and alternate reality possibilities, directors working on this corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe might face a tougher job that those who work on Marvel's own, which is served more straightforwardly on a narrative level. James Mangold might just have his job cut out for him. Or he may ignore Days of Future Past, Apocalypse and X-Force completely and just have The Wolverine 2 follow his previous movie directly, focusing only on its titular character. For Sony, such a reliance on a single character is kind of a curse, but for Mangold it just might be a luXury.

Today's Mini-Review: The Wolverine

The Wolverine: ***/*****, or 7/10

Hugh Jackman returns to the role of Logan, the X-Man with the healing factor and adamantium skeleton and claws, for the sixth time (after only a brief but hilarious cameo appearance in X-Men: First Class (2011)). Several years after the cataclysmic events of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), that witnessed the death of his beloved Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) at his own hands for the greater good, Logan is still in agony, travelling through Canada aimlessly in search for something to believe in again. When young female ninja Yukio (Rila Fukushima) finds him at a bar picking a fight with irresponsible hunters, she offers him a chance for redemption, of sorts. Her employer, the powerful Japanese clan leader and major industrialist Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi), is dying and wants to thank Logan for having saved his life back in 1945, when an atom bomb was dropped on both their heads at Nagasaki. Logan haphazardly accepts the invitation but is dismayed to learn the old man's offer of taking his “curse” of “immortality” – not wholly accurate, as Wolverine isn't truly immortal, he just ages much slower than everybody else – for himself so he won't have to die,and Logan can live a normal life if he so chooses. All too soon, Logan finds himself immersed in a complicated web of intrigue in the clan's affairs, revolving around Yashida's legacy and his decision to leave everything to his granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) upon his demise. Before long, the girl has to run for her life, dodging Yakuza bullets and ninja swords, but fortunately Logan has taken a liking to her and aims to protect her from harm. Matters turn worse when Yashida's shady physician, a sexy mutant poisoner named Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova), manages to disable Logan's healing abilities, thus rendering him vulnerable. 

Credit has to be given to Jackman for sticking to the Wolverine character for so long, which prohibits the use for a reboot at some point as most other superheroes with movie careers have already experienced. It also allows for Logan's emotional and sensual side to be explored, something director James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma) doesn't amply succeed in. It seems odd for this typically 'loner' character, who finally found a family with his fellow mutants, to just go and get himself caught up in what's basically a very private affair in a family he doesn't know, in a culture he hardly understands, even though he had nothing to lose. The various family ploys and their ramifications for Japanese and Yakuza politics hardly feel coherent, as everybody has his or her own motivations for gaining power, some of them underexposed, others needlessly complicated and layered so their bigger picture proves difficult to grasp. Logans romantic entanglement with Mariko is a typical Hollywood love plot, except for Logan being plagued by inexplicable, pointless visions of dear deceased Jean: of course her death still haunts her, but apparently her mental powers have left some sort of astral imprint upon Logan, or so I surmise since the writers never bother to fully explain this aspect of the plot. It just seems like an overly simple, lazy excuse to get Famke Janssen back for a few short sequences. Whatever the movie lacks in character logic it mostly makes up for in action, with a knife fight on the roof of a high speeds train as the most intense moment in that category. Otherwise however, the action scenes seem somewhat repetitive with their focus on samurai and ninja clichés, culminating in a big action piece between Logan and a mecha-warrior with a burning sword, which is this movie's take on Marvel's original Silver Samurai character. The make-up of some featured characters sure deviates from their original comics counterparts, as was to be expected but necessarily appreciated. Similarly to Silver Samurai now being a robot-armour instead of a kinetically charged mutant in shiny, traditional Nippon warrior garb, Viper has transformed from a typical assassin dabbling in assorted toxins to a full fledged snake like mutant, complete with silly forked tongue, the ability to spit poison and skin shedding issues. The only character who stands out next to the ass-kicking Wolverine himself is the tough, lite and wise-cracking Yukio, both dangerous and playful, who brings some much needed lightheartedness in an otherwise all too dramatic and emotionally heavy superhero film. The Wolverine is only a minor improvement over Logan's previous solo adventure X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). Though more room is given for Logan's personal turmoil, the side characters for the most part aren't as colourful and compelling this time around, nor is the action delivered in a diverse manner to keep capturing the audience's imagination. Nevertheless, the short teaser for the next X-flick, next year's X-Men: Days of Future Past, wedged in halfway into the end credits, sure makes the levels of anticipation rise tremendously, considering what other popular characters make a comeback.