Thursday 23 March 2017

Logan


Well, how's this for a comic book movie? It's like Peckinpah re-animated. Taking a cue from the altogether different, Deadpool of last year, Logan has been made with the letter R virtually flashing in the corner of the frame. They've gone as far away from the X franchise as possible, even dropping the name Wolverine from the title and suggesting the comics are mostly bullshit. It's a morosely fatalistic film, with a few of the characters seemingly aware of the reaper behind them and slowing down for him to catch up. Oh, and I think it's a peach.

There's a great intro for the third point in the Logan-Xavier triangle, Laura (or X-23). The director, James Mangold, keeps all the initial action hidden, aside from the noise. When we do get to see her in full flow, it's Wolverine on speed - with more blood and gore than previous Marvel films. Pretty ballsy to have a 10 year-old kid deliver a severed head like a bowling ball to the feet of her tormentors.

There are so many things to note in Logan that I'm not sure how to knit them all together. Seeing the legends, Wolverine & Xavier, in unstoppable decline is sad but inevitable, I guess. Huge Action, Patrick Stewart and Dafne Keen (Laura) are all superb. There are few chuckles and any that do occur are played black and bittersweet (Logan and Xavier swearing at each other or bickering in a public toilet). Stephen Merchant's Caliban ('glorified truffle pig') is surprisingly subtle and Richard E. Grant has a few nice moments as nasty doctor Zander Rice. His reaction to Logan telling him he killed his father is just about perfect.

Around the middle of the second act there's an excellently tense sequence where Xavier has a brain degeneration in a hotel. I didn't breathe out until the needle went in. Some immense snail-pace slaughter here too. Nice and confronting.

There's a recurrent motif of Logan waking up. The first shot of the film is him waking up in the back seat of his work limo and I noticed about 3 or 4 more of these where he opens his eyes to a surprise or a new setting. I'm sure this isn't incidental - must have something to do with his impending death (he says at the end - "So this is what if feels like"). The adamantium bullet that he has designs on putting into his own brain kind of foreshadows that his number is up in this film, one way or another.

If there are any negatives, I'd say it got a bit baggy in the middle and the Shane reference is somewhat mug-handed, though poignant.

Oh, and it shares a lot with Mad Max 2 - dystopian landscapes, big vehicles kicking up dust, main character being lifted up a ridge in a makeshift winch.

Right, I reckon that's about all. As far as comic book films go, Logan must rank in the top five, not only for its complete bleakness and contrast to the regular comic film fare, but also because it stands up as a meditation on aging, immortality and hopelessness. And is a lot of fun too. Not many films can carry that off.

Tuesday 14 March 2017

T2 Trainspotting


My sister and I went to the Luna cinema in Leederville to see T2, about 21 years after seeing the first Trainspotting at the very same venue. A quick scan of the punters showed a similar demographic - middle aged, probably fans of the first. No surprises really. For me, Trainspotting is one of two films (along with Pulp Fiction) that epitomise the 1990s, so there was always going to be an audience. Danny Boyle, Andrew McDonald, John Hodge and the principal cast all return and there's a buzz seeing the characters again, in much the same way that people of my generation punched the air when Han Solo appeared in The Force Awakens.

T2 is funny and sad in equal measure (my sister thinks it's funnier than the first but I remember a few chuckles back then too). The 'reunion' scenes are mint - especially Renton and Begbie - and there are loads of Boyle-ish visual flourishes that show how good he can be when he's not making soap. There's one showstopper of a sequence where the lads go looking for some easy money and end up doing a bit of sectarian karaoke. Probably the edgiest moment in the film and also where it shows it's shared DNA with the first.

It's very well handled and it the filmmakers know exactly what they're doing. In fact, it's possibly a bit too clever - showing the flashbacks from the first film and having loads of visual and aural references (Renton starts Lust for Life on a record player but stops it almost immediately, he gets 'hit' by a car, looks into the windscreen and smiles, Diane (Kelly McDonald) tells him that a girl he's with is "too young for him", THE toilet, and so on).These are nice but they do push the film towards nostalgia porn. Sick Boy even says it when Renton tells him a visit to Tommy's grave (?) is a commemoration - "This is nostalgia. That's why you're here!" Could only have been clearer if he'd broken the 4th wall to deliver it.

To be honest, it has more of a story than the first. I've always thought Trainspotting was more a collection of superb vignettes than a narrative driven film. The subsequent T2 is built on the characters' attempts to reconcile with the past, face up to middle age and imminent death and, of course, get some tasty revenge. The only main character NOT to return from the first film tells Sick Boy and Renton (in Bulgarian) that they are in love with the past - and each other - and T2 itself sometimes echoes her sentiments.

Don't get me wrong, it's a ball-tearer, with excellent performances all round and crackling dialogue - Begbie's familiar greeting of "C'mere ye cunt, ye" is a peach and Renton's re-imagining of the 'Choose Life' speech is suitably gnarled and bitter. I'd gladly sit through this again, and probably will soon enough.