TIRED LOGAN FINDS NEW LIFE
Everybody’s favourite mutant returns and appears to have his hands full with a new protege, Chris Lackner writes.
MOVIES
Big release on March 3: Logan. Big picture: America is a dry, Mad-Maxian wasteland, and sinister forces are hunting illegals hiding on the Mexican border. (No, I didn’t just get out of a time machine. That’s the near-future setting of the new Wolverine solo film, Logan.) Hugh Jackman is back, allegedly for the last time, to play everyone’s favourite mutant in need of a makeover. Maybe Wolverine (a.k.a. Logan) wouldn’t be perpetually angry if he had regular manicures and a decent stylist?
Deadpool blasted the way into R-rated superhero turf, and Logan doubles down. This movie is Marvel meets indie film fest cred. A dystopian, minimalist western, there’s no spandex in site — and no ancient creatures threaten the Earth (humanity seems bent on taking care of that on its own). The X-Men are long gone, and most mutants are dust. Logan himself is beaten up and broken, his heralded healing powers much diminished. He hides out on the Mexican border and kills time by working as a driver, drinking himself silly and caring for an increasingly unstable, elderly Professor X (Patrick Stewart). When a young mutant girl enters Logan’s charge, he’s forced to take action — and give a damn about something again. Forecast: Hmm. Grumpy, lonely old-timer given new spark of life due to his bond with a child? We’ve seen this before, but the recluse has never had switchblades for hands. What’s next for avant-garde superhero cinema? I predict a silent movie about The Hulk, and a new Superman movie in which the Kryptonian is played by 10, diverse actors and actresses (as usual, none of them will be any good in the role)
TV
Big events: Taken (Feb. 27, NBC); Chicago Justice (March 1, NBC/ Global); Making History (March 5, Fox/City); Time After Time (March 5, ABC/CTV). Big picture: Ever wanted to know how Liam Neeson grew up to be so gruff and perpetually frowning — or at least his film character Bryan Mills? Taken, the TV series, takes us down that body bag-laden rabbit hole. Clive Standen (Vikings) plays the young-and-future badass. After a personal tragedy, the CIA recruits Mills (and bad guys presumably start plotting elaborate kidnapping schemes to hash on his future family).
Meanwhile, Jon Seda (Chicago PD) joins a new team working for a special state prosecutor. Carl Weathers is at his side (which will come in handy if The Windy City is ever visited by a Predator). With Chicago Fire and Chicago Med already on prime time, aren’t the other U.S. cities going to start to get jealous? Expect lines you’ll never hear in Tuesday’s presidential address like, “Great Americans look to the law that binds us together as a people. That’s the only way a great country stays great.”
Meanwhile, the networks add two more time travel series to the mix. (Sigh.) Making History is an unlikely comedy, about an awkward shlep (Adam Pally, dearly missed as a regular on The Mindy Project) who keeps a time machine hidden in his garage freezer (inside a duffel bag). He travels to 1775, where his antics include trading cooked hams for favours, and singing Celine Dion ballads to woo Paul Revere’s daughter, played by Leighton Meester. (Great Scott! Amazingly, this wonky premise works — and works well.) Meanwhile, Time After Time answers an age-old question. What would happen if novelist H.G. Wells really did invent a time machine, was unknowingly good friends with Jack the Ripper and had to follow him through time to stop a modern murder spree? Wells (Freddie Stroma) must confront a Ripper at home in our world of nightclubs, liberal morals and endless “violence and bloodshed.” (The 1979 movie version stars Malcolm McDowell and David Warner.) In case you were wondering, the Wells time machine looks like partsubmarine, part gold-plated dishwasher. Forecast: Taken will benefit from being a prequel, and not a clone. Making History will win the time-travel battle. However, someone really needs to build a time machine to go back in time to 1895 and stop Wells from publishing his famous novel. Enough time machines plots already!