Logan

4 Stars (out of four)

So, it's finally here. The last time Hugh Jackman will play one of the most iconic roles in cinema. There has been a lot of hype surrounding this film, and for once, the hype lives up to itself.

Logan takes place in 2029. Our hero Logan (Hugh Jackman in his career-making role) is still angry and bitter. The film opens up with him walking in on some car thieves trying to steal the tires of his car. After a couple tense words, Logan is shot by them and he proceeds to literally tear them apart. This sets the tone for this incredibly brutal, very R-rated romp. It turns out Logan has been hiding in Mexico and caring for an ailing Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart). The world hates mutants now and has hunted them almost to extinction. Professor Xavier realizes there is a young mutant Laura, (Dafne Keen) who they must help before she is killed, and there is something eerily familiar about her...

i know now my description is not very good, but there is a lot to this movie and I want to keep it spoiler-free. I will first say, this is probably one of the finest superhero movies yet, an example of truly great storytelling that surpasses its pulpy roots. The themes are simple, but run very deep: loyalty, redemption and the importance of family in whatever form. I warn those with more delicate sensibilities that this is NOT a film for children. In the first post-Walking Dead superhero yarn, Logan definitely earns its R-rated stripes with its incredibly brutal story, violence and language. However, like Deadpool, the adult material fits the subject perfectly and is not gratuitous. That said, the movie can be hard to watch, particularly with its violence toward and wreaked by children. If I didn't know better, I'd say there was a subtle message regarding what happens to children who grow up surrounded by violence their entire lives, whether they be Syrian refugees or African child soldiers.

The movie deepens Marvel's most enigmatic and complex character. Logan is by nature a loner, yet he always has a soft spot for those who can't help themselves, particularly little girls. In the comics and movies, he usually becomes a protector and mentor to them, despite all of his instincts not to be. In this movie, he is a reluctant protector both to Professor Xavier and and a surrogate father to Laura. Despite his well-wrought cynicism to a very cold and cruel world, he can't help but obey the better angels of his nature and protect those who need it. This selfish/selflessness dichotomy of his nature makes Logan one of the most interesting characters ever committed to the page or screen.

The genius of the film is that it does not infantalize tha characters or the audience. Gone are the colorful costumes and black-and-white morality of most superhero movies. Instead, we have a cynical, bleak and evil world that uses our berzerking protagonist perfectly. This is the Wolverine story that I have always wanted to see in print or in the movies, one that does not dance around the brutality of a character who has long claws in his hands. That said, I hope that this will not be a harbinger of more R-rated superhero movies which fans have been clamoring for since the success of Deadpool and The Walking Dead. All three of these shows have taken great care to present well-rounded characters whose arcs lend themselves to this type of story. But superhero stories, for the most part, are meant for kids. They are modern-day parables or fables designed to teach morality in a simple way. Most of them do not need an R to get their point across. In fact, I think only Captain America: The Winter Soldier would have benefited from a more adult storyline, and yetit did quite well within its boundaries.

In the end, Marvel continues its astonishing ability to produce movies that far exceed the medium they sprang from. Like Pixar movies in the past, they have proven what good, complex characters and stories can accomplish. Just because the stories spring from a childish medium does not mean they have to stick to dumb, simple plots and spectacle. This is what DC movies have yet to understand with the possible exceptions of 1978's Superman and 1989's Batman. DC, instead of mining their great and extensive material to make compelling stories, feel they can win over audiences with flash and dazzle, and fall flat almost every time. If they want to compete with Marvel on this level, they certainly have the tools. DCs characters are older and much more iconic than anything Marvel has to offer, they just need the patience Marvel has in building a cohesive world. That will not be accomplished in two or three movies with Heath Ledger in a purple suit or Margot Robbie in hotpants and fishnets. They have to go beyond the superficial.

Once again, parents, be warned. This is not your X-Man movie, but something much more brutal and harsh. You may want to think twice before allowing your kid to see this one, as if the R-rating wasn't enough of a clue. Yet I can't recommend the film more highly.

Fifty Shades of Grey

0.5 Stars (out of four)

So, the worldwide publishing sensation became an erotic movie, but I have never seen an erotic movie that was so unerotic in my life. It's a lot like Showgirls in that it tries to be a very titallating film that transcends its obvious erotic overtones into something greater. And, also like Showgirls, it fails in truly spectacular fashion. But unlike Showgirls, a film "so bad it's good," Fifty Shades of Grey is one of those singularly bad films you hear about occasionally. There is absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, remotely redeeming, entertaining or even arousing about this film.

The movie opens with our heroine, Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson, daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith) an oh, so lovable and precocious young college girl who ends up interviewing Christian Grey (Jaime Dornan) for her college newspaper. After what is probably one of the dumbest and clumsiest meet-cute scenes ever, our hero Christian MUST have our heroine Ana. What then follows is over two hours of some of the dullest and silliest crap ever committed to celluloid until Ana realizes she's not happy and SPOILER ALERT leaves Christian.

For a movie that is ostensibly based on one of the more sexually-charged novels of our time, the heat and excitement level of the film is pretty flat. For those who grew up on the late 80's/early 90's, this movie is almost a caricature of every Zalman King softcore movie you ever saw on Cinemax after midnight. This movie evoked images from everything from 9 1/2 Weeks to Wild Orchid to Two Moon Junction to The Red Shoe Diaries. But unlike those that came before, Fifty Shades is too pompous and grandiose for its own good. The Zaman King ouvier was beautifully shot, but ultimately dumb sex fantasies that never really took themselves too seriously. Fifty Shades is actually trying to be something more, a feminist sexual manifesto perhaps? The books make constant references to Ana's "inner Giddess" that was set free when Christian takes her virginity. She is a big girl now, a member of the sisterhood of the sexually active in good standing. The movie tries to replicate this with visual clues, the most striking is how much better her wardrobe gets the more sex she has. Her dresses get nicer and tartier the further down the rabbit hole she goes. These are not dresses a well-adjusted woman wears, but rather one who is advertising she is ready to have sex, almost like a prostitute. Ana goes from a clumsy, frumpy girl in a ponytail to a smoldering, confident object of sexual lust because of the virile man. But the funny thing about it is that if you take Christian's youth and billions away and put the character in a trailer park, this is just another episode of Law & Order: SVU.

Now, I understand there is a fantasy element at work here. When I was in my 20's, the big panty-burning story was Indecent Proposal. Every woman I knew wanted to be Demi Moore in that movie, to be Robert Redford's whore. But the basic story is exactly the same. Once you strip away the veneer of beauty and money, it comes down to a man treating a woman as a hooker. This is not healthy.

Beyond that, Dakota Johnson is chewing the scenery so badly I'm surprised there weren't bite marks on the drapes as well. She seems to take her cues from a Jennifer Aniston's Rachel character from Friends: constant fidgeting, coy sideways glances mixed with direct dead stares; combined with an incessant need to coquettishly clear her throat. 50 Shades has all the drama of an after-school special with boobies. Dornan isn't much better. All he does is blankly stare with a hint of a frown. I think it's meant to convey a mysteriousness or even a little danger; but in reality, he just looks like he just smelled a bad fart and is trying to figure where it came from...FOR THE ENTIRE MOVIE. I actually don't blame him for this. This is just bad writing and direction. I guess the movie is trying to tell us that Ana needed to become a sexually active WOman, and with this new-found confidence mixed with innocent naïveté, she finally knows that Christian is a horrible person. But, in the end, she can't let go because we now have the sequel...

Finally, this movie can't figure out what it wants to be. Is it an erotic fantasy or a feminist declaration about a woman exploring her budding sexuality on her own terms? Either way, I have never seen an erotic film go so far out of its way to be unerotic. The sex scenes are campy and laughable. The only one with some tepid warmth to it is actually the first, "vanilla" sex scene. Everything else comes across as staged and flat, devoid of any passion or heat. Compare this movie to Unfaithful, Body Heat or The Last Seduction and you will see the difference. Instead, we are treated to red hot scenes of drawing up a contract to define the terms of their dom/sub relationship. The scene where our heroes sit in a boardroom to discuss the terms of acceptable limits is supposed to be hot, I think, but just comes across as being unintentionally hilarious. So, I can find absolutely no redeeming things about this movie. It is not erotic. The characters are two-dimensional and boring. The story is told at a breakneck pace that resembles on snail overdosed on Valium. I was looking at my watch around 95 minutes in and realizing, with horror, I still had 40 to go. The story is contrived, disjointed and fragmented. And worst of all, there is absolutely nothing endearing about either of the leads. He is creepy, a stalker, damaged and a bit rapey. She is empty-headed and keeps coming back for more, which makes it hard to sympathize or empathize in her plight. Basically, this movie is, in a word...

DUMB. Avoid at all costs unless you are also masochistic like Ana.