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A Tale of Two Monster Movies

review film/tv
Phil Chu
Author
Phil Chu
Making software since the 80s

Spoilers here, so don’t read this until you’ve seen Logan. And I recommend you see Logan. It’s the best movie I’ve seen in the theater the past year. OK, I’ve only seen three movies, but the other two were the John Wick sequel and Rogue One. Hmm, do I only see sequels these days? That’s a subject for another article.

I recently saw a twitter thread by Mark Waid where he maintained that story was not that important, or at least not as nearly as important as character. I’ve never quite agreed with that, perhaps because I grew up on mysteries and sci-fi that were great at plot and world-building but not memorable in the character-building department. And as an adult I developed a taste for spy thrillers.

However, the two most recent films I’ve seen in the theater are Logan and Kong: Skull Island, respectively, and I liked Logan a lot more. A lot, lot more. And that’s due mostly to the characters.

But after watching Logan, I would agree that is a great film, or at least a really good one, because of it’s characters and the story itself is unremarkable. Although I’m not sure it’s so much the character development as the compelling acting. Hugh Jackman was convincing as the somewhat noirishly cynical Wolverine (I’m mentally blending him with Thomas Jayne-played Miller of The Expanse), Patrick Stewart