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Logan: A Movie Review (Of sorts)

The Wolverine Retirement Home for Mutants

I will attempt to do this with as few spoilers as possible, but for those of you who expect some glimpse of nudity in your R rated movies, the only bit comes in a bit of a false start, where the movie seems to begin, but we see Ryan Reynolds in his Deadpool character, (FYI, he's not in the movie) press his or a butt-double's cheeks against the frosted glass of a phone booth for a funny trailer for his next movie.

The R rating is for language and violence. Lots of violence. The movie is set in the not too distant future. (Allowing, I suppose, room for one last Wolverine picture if the cash and box office of this one is enough to entice Hugh Jackman for one more go round, which apparently he said was his last) We see Logan, who  has retired from superheroing and derring-do, as the owner/operator of a limo service. Logan, who was born before the Civil War, has to be around 200 by now. They would have shown the cake with 200 candles, but even in the future, fire marshals won't allow that much open flame in a structure!

Logan isn't healing as fast as he used to. His beard is turning gray, he needs reading glasses and was coughing so much throughout the movie I wanted to give him a lozenge. He's taking care of Professor X, who, let's just say it's best for everyone if we keep the old guy sedated. Unfortunately, the kind of drugs the professor needs are not covered under Medicare  part B. Everyone tells the professor that when he's hearing voices, he's just "hearing voices", so no one believes him.

Turns out, he really has been communicating with a young girl mutant, threatened by an evil corporation making mutants to use as weapons. (When mutants are outlawed, only outlaws will have mutants!) The rest of the movie is the body count of taking this girl to some haven that may or may not exist, from whence they can flee to Canada. (I'm not sure if Trump is still president that far into the future, but if liberals see themselves as the good mutants, this may be their last best hope!)

Logan cusses a lot. If you are not a fan of, or don't like to hear foul language, then I'd say wait 'til they edit it for TV, where the language will be cleaned up and some of the more graphic violence removed. As you may know, I do not object to all violence in movies. Hacksaw Ridge one of my new favorite movies, is extremely violent, some of it graphic, in the depiction of showing the hell of war. I felt, however, as if a lot of the violence in Logan was gratuitous, and that we did not need to see how many different ways the Wolverine could stab someone through the head and see the blades come out the other side. Kudos, though, to the special effects guys!

Adult language is natural among adults. But, as I have stated elsewhere, if everything is worthy of an "f-bomb", then what do you say when you get really angry?? In my opinion, profanity was overused, particularly by one who could be considered a role model for the young.

Long portions of the movie tried to be philosophical, pondering the meaning of life, death and everything. Some parts were unbelievable, as we see Xavier sitting in his room at the hotel/casino watching Shane, when he could have been reading the minds of every player at the blackjack table and counting cards!

Don't get me wrong! It wasn't a terrible movie! There were some really nice touches in it. Logan coming to the defense of a beleaguered small farmer's water rights struck the right note, although it was literally short lived. Towards the end, you see one of the kids carrying a Wolverine action figure, in its blue and yellow Spandex, but they don't make a big deal of it. Just a nice touch.

The movie could have been subtitled "The Good Son". They posed as father and son to the farmer and his family, and it is a good metaphor for the movie. Logan treats Xavier as a father, putting him in a crappy home (an abandoned water tower) when he gets too old to care for himself. I kid. They're hiding from the authorities. Apparently Xavier caused some horrible tragedy years before and is a wanted man. Still, the tenderness with which Logan cares for the old man suggests a filial relationship and Xavier treats Logan as the son he never had.

Spoiler alert: The mutant little girl seems to be mute through the first half of the movie. Then we discover her real superpower: a high pitched, whiny, nasal voice that makes you want to kill yourself. Logan has a very high threshold for pain, but even he could only take it in small doses!

The plot, what little of it there was, seemed to wander. The acting was up to the task, although Jackman's vacillated between brooding and wincing in pain from being stabbed/shot/kicked/impaled by various objects. The special effects were good, in that they didn't call attention to themselves, but reinforced the storytelling. There was no profound message, IMHO, and no reason to want to see the movie a second time, (as opposed to say, Hacksaw, where my Blu-Ray just came in).

It's rated "R" for a reason. There were more beheadings than an ISIS family reunion. Some of the reviews I've read like it better than I did. But then, everyone likes their toast a different color. Just my POV. I predict no Academy awards, unless it is for something technical.

Two and a half stars out of five.

Big Head? Tiny Hands? Huuuuge Coincidence!

"This week's Spider-Gwen Annual #1 features an unexpected twist on a familiar Marvel supervillain: M.O.D.O.K. as Donald Trump.
In a short story about an alternate universe Captain America, Samantha Wilson, the huge-headed M.O.D.O.K. is reimagined as M.O.D.A.A.K., standing for Mental Organism Designed As America's King."

Equal Opportunity for Norse Gods: Thor to Become a Woman

Not since the death of Archie, gunned down in his prime protecting his gay, newly elected Senator best friend, has an announcement shaken the comic world. Well, it might have shaken Asgard. Well, it might shake Asgard every 28 days...


Marvel announces sex change for God of Thunder


We are told this will not be "Thora the Explora", but the genuine article Thor. I'm not quite sure how this happens, mythologywise, but I suspect that like Bruce Banner, belted by gamma rays, this is all about the green. And, after all, it is the world of comics, where people routinely return from the dead, and people like Nick Fury, a white sergeant from WWII, becomes a black man, who routinely asks: "What's in your wallet?"

What Makes Us Human?

Did Descartes have it right? “I think, therefore, I am”? Or maybe Twain’s observation that “humans are the only creatures who blush…or need to”? Fairy tales and speculative fiction are awash with the theme, of what it means to be truly human. Wooden Pinocchio wants to be a real boy. Silicone and steel android Data longs to know what it is to be human, despite the irony that the longing is itself a human emotion. He is curious about what it means to be curious. Curiouser and curiouser! Strange visitors from another planet are raised by humans to embrace a code of decency and honor. Others come and fall in love... does love make us human?

And what of those who, became somehow more than human? Radioactive spider bites, bombardment with gamma radiation, mutations of the human genome…at what point can it be said that a human transcends humanity and becomes homo superior?

Now imagine having those philosophical musings, discussing and arguing the respective points over the course of ten years. College boy conundrums? Speculation at a seminary? Meditations at a monastery?
No. A discussion about...the level of taxes on...toys.

The forthcoming Avengers movie, directed by Joss Whedon and expected May 4 from Walt Disney Pictures, depicts the Marvel superhero group teaming up to save the Earth from utter destruction.

Saving the world is ordinary fare for superheroes, especially teams like the Avengers and the X-Men. But one of the biggest battles ever fought in the Marvel universe took place in the real world, a historic fight that lasted 10 years and crossed America.

The clash ended quietly in 2003, with a monumental, six-figure legal ruling by the U.S. government: The X-Men and many other superheroes simply aren’t human.

Or more precisely, they’re not dolls, which, according to the U.S. Customs Bureau, represent “only human beings.” They’re toys, which represent “animals or non-human creatures.”

What’s the difference? Gazillions of dollars.

Even though it sounds like the sort of discussion the nerds on The Big Bang Theory might discuss, this was big business.

The U.S. government waded into the “mutant or mortal” battle 19 years ago at ports in Los Angeles and Seattle after Customs officials there classified several large shipments of action figures, including the X-Men, as “dolls” instead of “toys.”

But labeling the figures as “dolls” made importing the X-Men nearly twice as expensive as they would have been as “toys,” facing a 12 percent tax rather than a 6.8 percent tax.

...Recognizing the difference between toys and dolls, international trade lawyers Sherry Singer and Indie Singh saw an opportunity to save Marvel a lot of money by getting the X-Men, along with Marvel’s other action figures, including the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Iron Man, reclassified as toys.

At this point, one is hard pressed whether to laugh or cry. To think that for ten years lawyers have been working, on both sides, and expert witnesses have been testifying whether Barbie should be taxed at a higher rate than Wolverine, reminds me of another Bizarro world I read about when I was younger.

Does the government really have a vested interest in whether or not the Human Torch is more human than torch? I know it is in the DNA of every bureaucrat to micromanage every aspect of our lives, but at some point, can't we decide that the government we have is more than we really ever needed? When our toys are categorized, not by weight, or the amount of polystyrene or paint, but by the philosophical backstory of their characters???

I suppose I could have titled this "What is a doll?" But, would that have piqued your human curiosity and caused you to read this far? And would you have had as much of a surprise making the hyperspace leap from comic book heroes to taxes and tariffs?

This is but one more illustration of the bloated bureaucracy that nibbles away at our economic freedoms and attempts to regulate every aspect of our lives. It's way past time to start taking our country back from our wooden headed, would be masters and their arbitrary rules and regulations.

Equal rights for G.I.Joe! In the meantime, before we can roll back this overly burdensome and somewhat ridiculous over regulation, I suggest that Mattel put out a comic book where Barbie, Ken and Skipper all get bitten by radioactive spiders...

The folks at Mattel can show their gratitude to me with a small percentage of the tax savings realized...


Cross posted at LCR, Lady Cincinnatus , Say Anything.