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<\/a><\/p>\nI\u2019ve been wanting to write about \u201cLogan,\u201d Hugh Jackman\u2019s final go-round as Wolverine, since I walked out of a theater a week ago, stunned silent by James Mangold\u2019s film. It\u2019s the rare comic book movie to provoke a visceral, emotional response, one of the few that is about\u00a0something more than blue lights, shiny gizmos or franchise setups. It\u2019s not just a great superhero movie; it\u2019s a great movie, period. So, let\u2019s talk about it.<\/p>\n
Warning: From here on out, spoilers for the entire film.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n We first met Wolverine in 2000\u2019s \u201cX-Men.\u201d Teenage Rogue (Anna Paquin) was on the run after discovering powers that nearly killed her boyfriend, and she discovered him as a cage fighter possessing amazing healing powers. When provoked, sharp metal claws protruded from his skin, allowing him to slice and dice his opponents. Driving down the road in a truck shortly after a violent encounter at the bar, Rogue asks Logan if it hurts.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time,\u201d he remarks.<\/p>\n It\u2019s that hurt that has made Wolverine one of the most intriguing characters in superhero movies, even when the franchise devolved into a mess of colliding timelines and jumbled continuity. Logan is a tortured man. Unlike the other X-Men, who were lucky enough to find Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) as youths, he\u2019s had to navigate the world as a killer and freak. His healing abilities allow him to live decades longer than most people; he\u2019s a military experiment whose memories were stolen from him and who now seethes with rage. Throughout the X-Men films, he bonded with this family of rejects and found his place as a hero. But in \u201cLogan,\u201d those days are long gone.<\/p>\n The year is 2029. No mutant has been born in decades and the rest of the X-Men are dead. Logan\u2019s an alcoholic limo driver. The adamantium bonded to his bones is poisoning him and limiting his healing abilities. After he\u2019s done with his shift of chauffeuring drunk bridesmaids and over-privileged frat boys, he returns to an abandoned warehouse where he and albino mutant Caliban (Stephen Merchent) care for an Alzheimer\u2019s-riddled Professor X. Sometimes medicine calms the professor down. On bad days, he sits in his wheelchair and screams obscenities. On really bad days, he goes into convulsions that paralyze entire cities. Logan hopes to buy a boat for them to escape. He keeps an adamantium bullet on hand in case he ever feels like ending it all.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a stark place to find a superhero, but it\u2019s where violent men often find themselves. Like so many who spent much of their lives killing, Logan is haunted by his actions and wonders what it was all worth. The X-Men only live on in comic books that he derisively describes as \u201cice cream for bed-wetters.\u201d His friends are dead and his mentor\u2019s once amazing mind is quickly deteriorating. All he\u2019s left with are the memories of the people he\u2019s killed and the compatriots who died alongside him. It\u2019s no wonder he\u2019s taken up drinking.<\/p>\n But Logan finds a reminder of the hero he once was with the arrival of young Laura (Dafne Keen), a mutant created from Logan\u2019s DNA by the government, who now wants to wipe her out. As Logan and Charles attempt to get her to a Canadian sanctuary, the once-Wolverine wrestles with his place. Is he just a killer, \u201cGod\u2019s mistake\u201d? When he looks at Laura, he sees flashes of the rage that consumes him and the carnage he\u2019s capable of. But in helping her, he and Charles are reminded of the good they\u2019ve done, and the hope that they\u2019ve brought to others. Late in the film, it\u2019s revealed that Logan\u2019s enemies have gone one step further; rather than creating children bearing DNA derived from other mutants, they\u2019ve cloned him. Now, Logan is literally at war with himself, facing off against a younger, stronger creation designed to be consumed by pure rage. With every punch and stab, Logan must face what he\u2019s capable of, and see what he would have been without the help of others.<\/p>\n Sure, it\u2019s on the nose. And, honestly, Wolverine\u2019s face-offs with X-24 are the \u00a0film\u2019s weakest parts. But it never derails the story because, deep down, we can recognize this as the driving force in every redemption tale. We constantly fight ourselves, reminded of every failure and every destroyed relationship. Others come along, try to convince us of our worth and remind us that we\u2019re not lost causes. But they aren\u2019t privy to our memories. They can\u2019t feel the ache in our bones or the gnawing in our hearts. They don\u2019t stay awake remembering friendships destroyed or opportunities lost. They can help us on our fight, but they can\u2019t win it for us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was initially worried that \u201cLogan\u2019s\u201d R-rating was attempting to ride the coattails of \u201cDeadpool\u2019s\u201d surprise success in 2016. That movie, a sort-of spin-off of the X-Men franchise, wore its offenses proudly. From its first scene, it gleefully dropped f-bombs, dispatched villains with bloody relish, and reveled in dirty jokes. \u201cDeadpool\u201d is wittier and more enjoyable that it probably has any right to be, but make no mistake, it\u2019s an R-rated movie for teenagers, proudly juvenile and happily crass.<\/p>\n \u201cLogan\u201d is no less R-rated, but it\u2019s a more somber, weighty R. The violence in this film is never fun. In the opening scene, Logan dispatches of a group of would-be carjackers, and it\u2019s an ugly, disturbing moment. After 17 years of watching him get rid of bad guys in bloodless fights, \u201cLogan\u201d reminds us what his claws actually do. They gouge, dismember and decapitate. When people are shot, they bleed and die.<\/p>\n It\u2019s disturbing; even as someone who watches a lot of R-rated action movies, I winced and cringed. But to be honest, I find it more offensive that the majority of comic book movies sanitize violence and give everything a PG-13 gloss that distracts us from the consequences of destruction. Thousands, even millions, die in superhero movies and disaster flicks, but we never leave feeling shaken up because it\u2019s all off-screen and delivered with a wink. In \u201cLogan,\u201d a movie that\u2019s remarkably low stakes, we are constantly reminded that violence causes horrible things.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong; I don\u2019t want every superhero movie to now adopt an R rating. I don\u2019t want a grim and gritty Marvel world, and I think Batman and Superman need to lighten up. I\u2019d love to see a PG-rated Superman or Spider-man movie that appeals to kids. But every now and then, it\u2019s good for the genre to process questions deeper than \u201cwhat movie\u2019s next.\u201d The X-Men franchise, the longest-running one in our current superhero cycle, has always prided itself on asking deeper questions, invoking both the civil and gay rights movements. It\u2019s only fitting that it should be the first one to look in the mirror and begin asking what becomes of the heroes years after the killing\u2019s finished and whether or not they can find rest.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not always something that can be done with a PG-13. If you want to tackle real topics and depict the harshness of our world, sometimes the R rating is necessary. Anyone who\u2019s ever been near a loved one with Alzheimer\u2019s or dementia know how distressing it is to suddenly hear gentle family members bark obscenities. When Professor X., a character known for his compassion, erupts into profane tirades, it\u2019s genuinely troubling. Likewise, the film\u2019s depiction of violence hits harder than anything I\u2019ve seen in a superhero film. We\u2019ve seen Logan mow through lines of faceless bad guys before. To see him, let alone a little girl, rip opponents from limb to limb as blood splatters on the walls is shocking, a reminder of the true consequences of violence. But it\u2019s also exhausting; it helps us understand why Logan, who\u2019s been responsible for so many deaths over the course of a century, is so weighed down with guilt. The movie\u2019s themes of redemption and mortality wouldn\u2019t work if Mangold weren\u2019t willing to hurt and shock us.<\/p>\n \u201cLogan\u201d is very often ugly. But so is the world we live in. And there can\u2019t be any hope or redemption without understanding the depth of our own ugliness and the reality surrounding us. Whenever I look at Facebook or turn on the news, I\u2019m stunned silent by the harshness with which we treat each other. This world isn\u2019t sanitized. And the only way we begin to get better is by understanding how broken it is, feeling the weight of that, and realizing there\u2019s a need to move forward. In the real world, violence maims and kills. Racism devalues and degrades. Pride leaves others to die. Actions have consequences. To try to airbrush that reality robs us of any opportunity to move forward.<\/p>\n I worry that this description paints \u201cLogan\u201d as a dour slog. It\u2019s not. While I\u2019d wouldn\u2019t call it \u201cfun,\u201d and I\u2019d hesitate to even call it \u201cenjoyable,\u201d it\u2019s a movie worth seeing. Like \u201cThe Dark Knight,\u201d probably its closest comic book kin in terms of tone, it\u2019s a superhero story that feels more resonant than we might expect. It\u2019s a grown-up movie through a funny book filter, but one that\u2019s a bit darker than we\u2019re used to. It\u2019s more moving than these films usually are.<\/p>\n Much of that is due to the technical skill. Jackman and Stewart do possibly the best work of both of their \u00a0careers here; I wouldn\u2019t be shocked to see either of them honored in the next awards cycle. Keen gives a powerful debut and a brave performance. But in this end, this is Mangold\u2019s baby. The director\u2019s often mistaken as a journeyman, but his resume is littered with Westerns (\u201c3:10 to Yuma\u201d), police thrillers (\u201cCopland\u201d) and biopics (\u201cWalk the Line\u201d) that mingle genre with transcendence and humanity. I\u2019m far from the first to point out \u201cLogan\u2019s\u201d Western sensibilities \u2014 it repeatedly calls out \u201cShane,\u201d and there\u2019s a lot of \u201cUnforgiven\u201d in it too \u2014 and, like the best of that genre, it remembers to grace its narrative with moments of beauty and humanity.<\/p>\n For all the blood and violence in \u201cLogan,\u201d the films stops for some stirring moments. Caliban and Logan tenderly caring for the ailing Xavier. A humorous stop at a gas station, both when Charles refuses Logan\u2019s help in the restroom and when Logan has to stop Laura from doing something really wrong. Charles telepathically helping herd horses on the side of the road. A quiet respite with a good family, complete with a dinner prayer and a cross in the background (The AV Club\u2019s Ignatiy Vishnevetsky wrote a great article <\/a>about the film\u2019s religious undertones). The pre-Eden camp. Logan and Laura, fighting side by side. \u201cDaddy.\u201d The film\u2019s final shot. This is a movie that, in the midst of darkness and violence, remembers to breathe and take stock of its humanity.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a reminder of what I dislike so much about the recent DC movies and the works of Zack Snyder. They revel in their grimness; they\u2019re PG-13 movies that like to pretend they have R-rated sensibilities. But they confuse darkness with maturity. They\u2019re comfortable reveling in dourness, violence and \u201cedge,\u201d but it\u2019s beneath them to take a moment to ponder. Sincerity is lame, compassion a detriment. To slow down is to lose the cool factor. And in the end, they come off less adult and more like angry teenagers trying to convince everyone they\u2019re grown up.<\/p>\n \u201cLogan\u201d gets away with its darkness because it juxtaposes it with moments of beauty, compassion and love. In the end, its hero doesn\u2019t win by being dark but by defeating the darkness, both in the world and within himself. He doesn\u2019t pursue vengeance; he receives redemption. He\u2019s not a loner; he\u2019s healed by family whose final moments include holding the hands of his surrogate daughter. The ending doesn\u2019t have him vowing to be a vigilant badass but rather finally at peace, buried in the woods with a cross on its side marking his grave.<\/p>\n I hope we see more films like \u201cLogan.\u201d The current trend of comic book movies is now well into its teenage years; time to start acting more adult.<\/p>\nMy own worst enemy<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/h2>\nAn R-rated world<\/h2>\n
Grace notes<\/h2>\n
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