Day 17 - What was the best film you saw during last year?
Answer: Logan (2017)
It took some thinking to figure out which film I considered to be the best I've seen from last year. The two choices that I came down to were Logan and Split. Ironically, the reason why I considered them to be the best films I saw are for the same exact reason. Both of them were better than they had any right being. Split was great despite it being a M. Night Shyamalan. He hasn't had a great track record in recent years, but it was a pleasant surprise even without the surprise twist connection. Logan was also better than it had any right being. The X-Men films haven't always been great and the quality of the films vary from film to film. Considering how awful X-Men Origins: Wolverine was and how just okay The Wolverine was, I was really skeptical about how Logan was going to be. The trailer did intrigue me, but I wasn't going to let myself get suckered in by another X-Men movie. To my surprise, and to the surprise of many others, this film was actually award worthy. That's right. A superhero movie might've been worthy of an Oscar nomination. It was crazy. Ultimately, I did find Logan to be the better choice over Split because it did warrant an emotional response from and that was an even bigger surprise to me.
Let's get into the plot. The year is 2029. Mutants have been pretty much going extinct. There hasn't been a new mutant born in years and the few that are around have been slowly dying off. We catch up with an aging Wolverine who is trying his best to take care of Professor Xavier suffering from dementia. A woman begs Wolverine to take of a young child mutant who shares the same DNA as him known as Laura. Wolverine is apprehensive about the whole deal because he wants to live a quiet life of solitude and doesn't really want to get into any trouble, but he decides he could really use the money. Trouble ensues and Wolverine ends up having to be a hero one last time. It's not going to be that easy for him because his powers are also waning due to the adamantium bound to his bones has been poisoning him. Wolverine is dying and he needs to try to protect Laura before it's too late.
Like I said, the film is better than it has any right to be. Hugh Jackman delivers his best performance as Wolverine yet. Surprisingly, the child actress that plays Laura wasn't too bad either. That would've hurt the film in a big way if the kid character that Wolverine is supposed to protect came off as more annoying rather than someone we want to be safe. It's kind of a shame that this will be the last time Hugh Jackman puts on the claws. I was really kind of hoping to see him make an appearance in the Deadpool movies or maybe a deal could've been made to see him end up in an Avengers movie too. Oh well. I guess he has been playing the role for 17 years. We finally get a Wolverine movie done right and I should just be glad we finally got a good one before it was all over.