Dafne Keen, Patrick Stewart, and Hugh Jackman (Ben Rothstein/© 2017 Marvel. TM and © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)
After 17 years as mutant antihero Wolverine, Hugh Jackman is finally hanging up his adamantium claws and ridiculous coif. The Wolverine helmer James Mangold returns to give the character a proper send off, resulting in the most savage and depressing film in the franchise. That may seem like a criticism, but it’s the highest praise. At his core, Logan is an interminably dark protagonist, possessed of little more than self loathing and rage. It’s remarkable that it took two whole decades to create a vehicle that suits him.
Logan takes place in the year 2029, but this isn’t the post-apocalyptic sci-fi of X-Men: Days of Future Past. This is a future where no new mutants have been born in years and most of the recognizable X-Men we’ve come to know and love are all dead. Logan’s a limo driver now. Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) suffers from a degenerative brain disease and has to be heavily medicated so his seizures don’t level cities. Logan is saving up to get them a boat so they can live out the rest of their years together on the sea.
All that changes when Logan crosses paths with Laura (Dafne Keen), a young mutant who shares his powers and thirst for blood. He and Xavier are tasked with getting her to the Canadian border to a place called “Eden,” an alleged safe haven for mutants.
It’s a sullen set-up in with a drab tone, but it’s not the kind of grim and gritty take that’s ashamed of its comic book roots. Both the source material for this film, Mark Millar’s wildly overrated comic Old Man Logan, and the Deadpool film that inspired its R rating are examples of what a 13-year old might imagine an adult superhero film should be like. They’re profane and cartoonishly violent, and in the case of Deadpool, that’s at least true to the character, but Logan goes in another direction. The movie is so divorced from the absurdity of Fox’s cinematic X-universe that it feels like Children of Men by way of Clint Eastwood, with the laconic brooding of ’70s neo-noir.
The heart of this lies in Jackman’s bruised take on the title character. The actor’s best roles usually have him going loud (Prisoners) or sad (The Fountain), and Logan fuses these strengths. He’s beaten down, pathetic to behold, and difficult to watch.
By contrast, Stewart’s Xavier is deteriorating by the minute, but has grown a newfound comic timing and his big, bleeding heart pumps faster and louder than before. The duo’s chemistry is incredible, but anchoring it with the Lone Wolf & Cub vibe Laura brings takes it even further.
The final act drags, falling prey to the usual government experimentation tropes that have plagued the franchise. But along the way, this is a movie that grapples with the metaphor of otherness at the heart of the X-Men concept. Its startling pathos is genuinely earned, its blood and f-bombs not just empty shorthand for maturity.
At one point, Logan finds an actual X-Men comic in Laura’s bag and rants that it’s all bullshit, a cartoon approximation of what really happened. It’s meant to remind audiences that this is a departure from the Bryan Singer films, but it’s hard not to wonder if in the world of Logan, those other adventures really were just a fiction.
Pulpiness is dialed down to a tepid level, which doesn’t detract from the horror of racial erasure and institutional discrimination the franchise has always hinted at. Mangold doesn’t push such issues as far as he could, because he still needs to save room for copious scenes of Logan cleaving limbs from faceless goons and puncturing flesh with his claws. While it would have been nice if these themes had been more thoroughly explored, they still resonate. Besides, nerds have waited almost 20 years for uncensored slice and dice from the ol’ Canucklehead. Sometimes, compromise is necessary.
Logan
Directed by James Mangold
Written by Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green from a screen story by James Mangold
Starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Boyd Holbrook, Richard E. Grant, Stephen Merchant and Dafne Keen
Rated R for strong brutal violence and language throughout, and for brief nudity
137 minutes
Opens today at a theater near you.
