I’d also now say I finally buy Hugh Jackman in the role of Wolverine.
It’s taken a while be we’ve arrived. It’s not a happy place to arrive at, but there it is. Jackman’s no longer Wolverine; he’s Logan (Old Man Logan if you want to throw back to Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s comic run that writer director James Mangold has used as a loose framework for this). He’s a barely-held-together driver-for-hire in a world where his powers are diminishing and other mutants are all but extinct. He’s busted, broken and holed up in Mexico with a mentally deteriorating Professor Xavier to care for.
Mangold astutely steers clear of giving out easy explanations for any of this. The bleakness of the world and the downfall of the mutants is not something to be undone; it is something to be endured. Pain and deterioration hang heavy on every frame. The only whispers of hope come strained through Xavier’s madness – a young mutant he claims to be communicating with. When she arrives in the shape of Laura, a brooding 11 year old with a violent temper, things kick off.
It is here that Logan stands out from its predecessors. By eschewing pyrotechnics for character, Mangold claims immediate buy-in to his action scenes. They are viscerally violent and tightly choreographed, but their consequence is what thrills. Punches land on old friends, and land meaningfully. It is a space that superhero films have not really played since Nolan’s turn with Batman, which is a shame because both Jackman and Patrick Stewart thrive in the violent pathos. To the point of tears.
Shorn of its cartoonishness, the X-Men franchise is leaner and more emotionally appealing, something that could conceivably be carried on under Dafne Keen's Laura. And there's some clearly evident flame passing underway as Logan enters its Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome inflected third act. The film's most impressive achievement is that they've signalled that progression so intimately and in a manner that is sure to devastate.
Which is to say (and I'll rely on your inability to stay away from the superhero interview circuit here), Logan is an emotionally satisfying send-off by two fine actors to two characters they've devoted almost a quarter of a century to. They and Mangold leave the genre (or at least their formidable corner of it) in a much better place.
★★★★
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