Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.5

Logan Blu-ray Movie Review

Logan's (final?) run.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 23, 2017

Though it’s probably easier to do so with long running television series than with a feature film franchise, there are any number of actors who are closely associated with a single role. David Suchet? Why, Hercule Poirot of course. Raymond Burr? Perry Mason , without objection. But there have certainly been film franchises that featured an actor who, if not solely associated with that role, owe at least some part of their success to that very franchise. Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter or even long ago efforts like Mickey Rooney’s Andy Hardy series spring to mind, but there are many, many others. It’s probably too soon to tell if Hugh Jackman will be remembered mostly for his portrayals of Logan in many of the X-Men films, including two that bear his character’s alter ego’s name, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine. It’s perhaps easy to think that Jackman, whose credits on stage and in film are beyond versatile, will escape the Adamantium shadow that Logan has cast on film audiences for some time now, but it’s also probably just as easy to foresee Jackman’s epitaph (may be it long in coming) headlined with some reference to the now iconic Marvel character. Logan has been widely touted as the final appearance by Jackman in what has now been a nearly two decade long stretch playing the role, but some cynics may look at Logan’s amazing box office receipts (well over half a billion dollars) and come to the conclusion that there are probably Hollywood bean counters ready to pledge their firstborn children or whatever else Jackman requires to return to the role. But for now, anyway, this is Jackman’s swan song as the character, and it’s a suitably elegiac but nonetheless almost celebratory outing that offers a mythic storyline while also providing Jackman more character beats than are typically at the forefront of superhero tentpoles.

Note: I've attempted not to post any out and out spoilers in the summary below, but those who can read between the lines may be able to guess a plot point or two. For those good guessers and any others wanting to save surprises for actual viewing, you're encouraged to skip down to the technical portions of the review.

There’s a famous aphorism which states “old age ain’t for sissies”, and that could well be an epigram defining much of what’s at play in Logan. It’s 2029 and Logan himself is feeling the onset of his accrued years, with his famed healing abilities starting to falter and various other aches and pains adding to his difficulties. Those difficulties don’t even include being shot repeatedly and having the hell kicked and beaten out of him, which is how Logan begins, more or less in medias res, with the character awakening in the back seat of a stretch limo that has apparently been hijacked and which a group of (apparently) Mexican toughs is trying to strip it. It turns out the limo belongs to Logan and that he has been getting work in Texas as a driver, and he is very protective of his wheels, which at least gives him the energy to vanquish these particular enemies.

As hobbled as Logan is, he’s at least more or less mentally sound, which is sadly not the case with Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). Charles is now quite ancient (he brags about being a nonagenarian at one point, which is a “youngster” when compared to Logan), and he is suffering from dementia, something that has made his telepathic abilities unstable and which has forced Logan to keep Charles sequestered and heavily sedated at an abandoned industrial site in Mexico, where Caliban (Stephen Merchant) is on hand to assist with nursing duties (none too happily, it should be added). When Logan is approached by an apparently unhinged Hispanic woman one day, a woman who recognizes him and begs for help, he demurs, wanting nothing to do with anything even remotely attached to any supposed superhero duties. Meanwhile, Logan is also blithely threatened by an enforcer named Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), a security guy for a company named Transigen, who tells Logan that the mystery woman’s appeals are no mere coincidence and that Pierce wants to be kept informed of any further contact between her and Logan.

The mystery woman turns out to have been a nurse named Gabriela Lopez (Elizabeth Rodriguez) who has more or less escaped from a top secret Transigen lab in Mexico where a horde of “killer children” have been cloned from mutant DNA, with the kids kept isolated in the facility under a strict regimen which is kind of weirdly reminiscent of some presentational aspects in the recent quasi-zombie thriller The Girl with All the Gifts. Gabriela’s desperation to enlist Logan’s help turns out to be related to Gabriela’s supposed daughter, Laura (Dafne Keen), who none too surprisingly is revealed to have been one of the children at the south of the border Transigen lab. There’s another none too surprising thing about Laura which won’t be spoiled here, but which ultimately makes Logan willing (however unhappily) to help the little girl, whom Gabriela wants to get to Canada, where a coterie of mutants are supposedly holed up in a place perhaps wishfully called Eden. (Newcomer Keen, who barely utters a sound throughout the film, is an astounding presence, one who has a slightly demonic air about her, whether naturally or "induced" by director James Mangold.)

The upshot of all this intrigue is that Logan, Charles and Laura hightail it out of Texas once Pierce and his henchmen show up, trying to get north to hopefully help Laura escape the clutches of a “research” organization that at best wants to capture her and at worst wants to eliminate her. It turns out the killer kids aren’t the only project Transigen has been working on (in another none too surprising plot development), with the pieces in place for both an extended chase and (of course) several exciting showdowns.

As rote as some of these plot formulations probably sound in their recounting, it’s quite remarkable how artfully director James Mangold (who also contributed the story) has assembled the pieces here to craft what is one of the more emotionally devastating entries in the by now almost absurdly burgeoning superhero genre. One of the things that has tended to be make a lot of superhero entries emotionally distant is the fact that the focal character ultimately can’t be harmed, let alone killed, but all bets are off in Logan, and not necessarily limited to only that character. There’s a definite emphasis on mortality in this film which gives it a really unique (super?) power of its own, and which kind of ironically ends up beautifully humanizing the mutants at the core of the story.

Logan Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Logan is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1. Shot digitally with the Arri Alexa XT and finished at a 4K DI (all according to the IMDb), this is another stellar looking high definition presentation in what has generally been a problem free X-Men experience on Blu-ray. The film in its original theatrical version (more about the Noir iteration in a moment) has unsurprisingly been graded at various moments, with a lot of the early footage bathed in a kind of sepia tone which brings out the dusty, gritty quality of the isolated site where Charles is being kept. Other moments, though, are graded toward cool blue tones, something that becomes even more prevalent later in the film. None of these stylistic flourishes materially affect detail levels, which are uniformly high throughout the presentation. Fine detail is exceptional, offering precise looks at elements like the muslin looking fabric that Caliban wears or even some of the grotesque wounds suffered by various folks (mutants and humans) over the course of the film. Shadow detail is typically quite satisfying throughout as well, despite quite a few rather dim or downright dark moments. Some intentional softness is introduced in what might be termed the "seizure cam" moments when Charles' affliction goes out of control, but generally speaking this is a sharp and well detailed presentation which should easily please fans.

As someone who's old enough to remember the controversy when "colorizing" first reared its (then) unnatural looking head, I find it downright odd that there's now this trend toward "reverse engineering" (so to speak), by delivering "new, improved" black and white versions of color films, as is the case with the so-called Logan Noir version included with this release. I'm not quite sure what the supposed point of Logan in black and white is, but I personally found it kind of a yawn, frankly, at least in terms of investing the material with anything new or very remarkable. Some individual moments are quite striking in black and white, to be sure, but as can be seen by comparing screenshot 12 and 14, a certain amount of visceral impact is lost in black and white, at least in my estimation. Contrast and black levels are solid throughout this version, and detail levels are at least generally in the ballpark of the color version, though I oddly found shadow detail a little less pleasing in black and white for whatever reason.

Logan Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Logan's DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix is a consistently immersive affair, one that surrounds the listener with excellent placement of effects even before any actual imagery shows up, courtesy of some of the sounds of Logan's limo being stripped. As might be expected, the action sequences provide a glut of activity, including everything from gunfire to near calamitous accidents on the freeway. LFE is forceful, incredibly so at times when Charles' seizures are psychically oppressing Logan. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly and is typically very well prioritized even in noisier action scenes. Fidelity is spot on an dynamic range appealingly wide on this problem free track.

Logan Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One: Logan

• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 7:45) feature optional commentary by James Mangold.


• Making Logan (1080p; 1:16:05) is a well done and in depth set of featurettes that cover a number of subjects, but which at least give fans the opportunity to clarify that Dafne Keen is not the devil child she appears to be in the film.


• Audio Commentary by James Mangold is an excellent overview of some of the writer-director's aims with this film, and includes a frank assessment of how repetitive some of these superhero outings have been over the years.


• Theatrical Trailers (1080p; 6:32)

Disc Two: Logan Noir

• Audio Commentary by James Mangold is the same Commentary contained on the theatrical version.

Logan Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Knowing an actor is saying goodbye to a character after a long run of playing him (or her) is enough to make any viewing experience bittersweet, but Logan is kind of stuffed to the gills (or Adamantium claws, as the case may be) with a melancholic, elegiac aspect that is quite emotionally affecting and which some fans may find downright devastating. James Mangold has crafted a really viscerally exciting but still authentic feeling experience with Logan, and even those not fully up to speed on the whole X-Men mythos supporting the character should find this film uniquely satisfying. Bidding goodbye is never easy, but Logan at least makes it worthwhile. Technical merits are first rate, and Logan comes Highly recommended.