There’s a certain sense
of finality surrounding Logan, a
sense of inevitability. That should come as no surprise as this is supposedly the
last hurrah for Hugh Jackman’s incarnation of X-Men’s Wolverine. Since the
timeline has been tampered with in X-Men:
Days of Future’s Past, rendering parts of the early 2000’s X-Men series
null and void, Hugh Jackman is starting to get too old to play what is
essentially the character that made him a star, and Deadpool has made 20th Century Fox a little less gun-shy
about making R-rated superhero movies, everyone agrees that if this is going to
be the end of this character, he might as well go out with a bang. I was a bit wary
about the hype surrounding this movie since Wolverine’s previous solo outings
have been less than stellar, (The
Wolverine was okay, and the less said about X-Men Origins: Wolverine the better.) but I figured I’d see how
this chapter in the X-Men saga goes
if for no other reason than closure.
Our story takes place in
a future where the mutant gene has been eradicated and mutants are on the verge
of extinction. The X-Men have disbanded, Professor X’s (Patrick Stewart) mind
is debilitating and his powers are becoming more unstable as a result, and even
Logan, (Hugh Jackman) who has resigned himself to a life of hiding while
working as a limo driver, is starting to feel death’s looming shadow as his own
self-healing powers begin to dwindle. He comes across a woman (Elizabeth Rodriguez) who begs him to escort this young girl Laura (Dafne Keene) from
Mexico to a mutant sanctuary in Canada where she hopes to reunite with her
friends who have escaped from a shady organization that’s been secretly
breeding a mutant army. As it turns out, Laura is Logan’s daughter, having been
spliced with his DNA, giving her his mutant power set and temper. With a
cavalry of gunmen in hot pursuit, Logan and Professor X accept the job, taking
Laura to an Eden that may or may not even exist.
Like I said, the
oversaturated hype of Logan had me
approaching it with a bit of trepidation, specifically since some outlets are
going so far as to call this one of the best superhero movies of all time. For
one, this is only a superhero movie in the loosest sense of the word. There are
a few bare-bone elements there, with the actual comics even being a significant
plot point, (Fun fact: In the Marvel universe, Marvel Comics exist as works of
nonfiction.) but it’s not so much about heroism, supernatural feats and saving
the world as it is about a grizzled loner coming to terms with aging, regret
and a legacy of bloodshed. It’s more like a post-apocalyptic western, having
more in common with Unforgiven and No Country For Old Men than
any superhero movie past or present. The apocalypse of this movie resembles the
barren Mexican-American borderlands of a Cormac McCarthy novel rather than the
ruins and storm clouds of X-Men:
Apocalypse, Hugh Jackman bears a striking resemblance to a young Clint
Eastwood, the violence is more gratuitous and visceral than is usually allowed
for a superhero flick, and if the horses, farmlands and shotguns weren’t
getting it through, there’s even a moment where Professor X is watching Shane on TV. While Unforgiven is its biggest and most obvious influence, the film is
also covered in the fingerprints of Lone Wolf
and Cub, Road to Perdition, Children of Men and The Last of Us.
This profound bleakness
is reflected in the acting. Jackman and Stewart especially give their best
performances as these characters ever. They’ve been playing Wolverine and
Professor X respectively for sixteen years now, and it feels like it’s all been
leading up to these two powerhouse performances. Both Jackman and director
James Mangold that Wolverine is the most mythic of the X-Men. He’s a Ronin, a
gunslinger, a loner with a trail of blood in his wake and the weight of souls and
misdeeds unresolved taking their toll on him. The invincible beast he once was
is now weathered, arthritic, calloused. He’s lived a long, battle hardened
life, waiting for its inevitable conclusion, keeping an adamantium bullet in
case he needs to do the job himself. Jackman truly understands what this
chapter of his character’s life means, and the gravity he brings to it is truly
palpable. Same goes for Patrick Stewart. Seeing the once dignified leader of
the X-Men reduced to a withered old man whose seizures create psychic shockwaves,
forced to rot away in a hut in the desert is tragic. But the true breakout star
here is Dafne Keene. There have been some badass roles for little girls out
there (see: Hit Girl from Kick-Ass
and Arya Stark from Game of Thrones),
but Laura takes the cake, which is especially impressive she doesn’t have a
single line of dialogue until well into the third act. Although she remains
quiet for a majority of the film, she still conveys the hardship of the horrors
she’s seen. She’s a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off, and when she goes
off, well, let’s just say you do not want to be on the receiving end of her
wrath.
I also have to commend
the studio for biting the bullet and giving this movie an R-rating. There’s a
nagging part of me that says that this choice was made in a vain attempt to ape
the success of Deadpool and Batman v. Superman, but it feels earned
this time around. There’s no conceivable way this movie could’ve worked with a
PG-13 rating. Compared to the rest of the X-Men
franchise, hell, compared to the superhero genre in general, this is also probably
the smallest, most personal movie you’re going to get. The stakes are smaller,
the tone is bleaker, the themes of regret, redemption, forgiveness and coming
to terms with past deeds are more personal, and in the end, it becomes a
funeral march to its own inevitable conclusion. If you’re coming in for
continuity nods, definitive answers or satisfying endings, you’re going to be
very disappointed. A lot of people have been complaining about some superhero
movies lately taking the “dark and gritty” route just for the sake of being
dark and gritty and failing miserably, but this is the first time in a while
where that kind of tone was not only necessary, but earned.
For longtime fans of the
X-Men franchise, Logan is the kind of
movie they’ve been waiting to see for years. While it does basically junk
everything having to do with the series, stripping away the spandex and
distilling it to its purest essence, it ends up working in its favor, almost
like a freak glitch in the system. Even if you’re not too big into X-Men or superhero movies, there’s still
a lot to be enjoyed here. It’s a cathartic, sobering bookend for this
character, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The only question left is
where will they go from here?
9/10
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