End of the Line: A Review of Logan

directed by James Mangold
written by Scott Frank, Michael Green and Mangold

Seventeen years after Hugh Jackman brought the fan-favorite X-Men character Wolverine to life, he finally brings his tenure as the much-beloved character to an end in the unrelentingly bleak, but surprisingly powerful depiction of mutant dystopia that is Logan.

It is the year 2029, just six years after the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past in which Logan, going back in time to 1973, prevented a cataclysmic event from destroying mutantkind, we find Logan (Hugh Jackman) living in Mexico in an abandoned facility with Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), a year after a cataclysmic event that has apparently destroyed mutantkind. Apparently mutants just can't catch a break; rather than killer robots, this time mutants, including most, if not all of the X-Men, have been wiped out by no less than Charles Xavier's uncontrollable mutant brain, which apparently has gotten more dangerous as he has aged.

Logan and Xavier would be more than content to live our their lives in seclusion with their fellow mutant/manservant Caliban (Stephen Mercant), with Logan working as a limousine driver and Xavier spending his days either lying down or tending to plants in a collapsed watertower while heavily medicated. Logan's great ambition at this point is to buy a boat where he and Xavier can live the rest of their lives, without posing a danger to anyone.

Things are turned upside-down, though, when the feral Laura (Daphne Keen) is dropped into their lives. A product of illegal experiments, she has more in common with Logan than he realizes, and he, Charles and their new ward soon find themselves on the run from the malevolent Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), his gang of Reavers, and Dr. Zander Rice (Richard E. Grant), the brains behind the project that created Laura.

This marks the second movie in a row I've watched with gut-wrenching violence and I have to say that I wasn't altogether too fond of all the gore. While there was something gratifying about seeing Wolverine go into his berserker rage in the first half of the movie or so, for me the over-the-top violence got pretty old pretty quickly. Also, the little-kid-as-a-murder-machine story device was played out as early as 2010's Kick-Ass. It lost its novelty quite some time ago. Logan's reluctant dad shtick was also better done when Jackman did Real Steel six years ago. Also, the third act final chase scene felt rather clumsily choreographed and edited, and while it was nowhere near as goofy as the climax of Mangold's The Wolverine turned out to be, it deflated quite a bit of the narrative tension.

On the whole, the movie is basically an extended chase scene, and to Mangold's credit his sense of pacing is quite good right up until the last act. His strength is that he evokes a genuine sense of peril. Mutantkind is on the verge of extinction, after all, and no one is safe here. This is the first superhero movie which actually puts lead characters in genuine mortal danger, with actual consequences. That's about as "spoilery" as I'll get.

Another thing I appreciated was the dialogue between Logan and Charles, and how a lot of their conversations about how they had longed to live out their lives. The most moving scene in the movie for me was the one where Xavier is lying in bed, in a farmer's house, and he says out loud that he's had the best day he's had in a long time, even if he feels he doesn't deserve it. It was a moving moment, and what immediately followed it made it all the more tragic. Jackman and Stewart are in top form here, and while awards bodies are notoriously biased against this genre of film I wouldn't be completely surprised if one or both of them snagged some form of recognition for their work on this movie.

For me, the movie's virtue lies in its reflections on growing older and wondering exactly what one has achieved with one's life. That resonated with me quite a bit more than the outlandish action sequences. I genuinely enjoyed the more contemplative moments of the movie where the characters appreciate the value of family, as Logan does at a crucial moment in the film when he says: "So this is what it feels like."

So long, Hugh. Thanks for some great times at the movies with Wolverine!

7.5/10