This review requires that I talk a bit about my history with the X-Men franchise. Like many other kids of the 1990s, I grew up watching the animated version of the “X-Men.” I never delved into the comics really, but I LIVED for those cartoons on Saturday mornings, many of those memories including my dad amusingly watching them with me. My childlike fandom extended to the video games and action figures as well, and if there was one character I favored above all of the others, it was Wolverine.
The character took a new definition for me when the first “X-Men” movie came out in 2000, introducing the new face of the character — Hugh Jackman. I was about 10 or 11 at the time, and remember wondering how the heck were they going to make that hairdo believable, and how would they make his claws work without looking hokey?
And most importantly, how could this actor I had never heard of, do Wolverine justice? It seemed like the claws were too big to fill, and I couldn’t imagine any actor worthy of the mantle.
Then I saw the movie, and Hugh Jackman became the only person I could now ever imagine as Wolverine. The years haven’t been kind to the original “X-Men” film, but Jackman’s performance definitely holds up. He carries the movie with some help from Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan.
That was 17 years ago.
Between the times there have been seven other X-Men films between “X-Men” and “Logan.” And in seeing “Logan” — Hugh Jackman’s proclaimed last performance as the now-iconic character — it is a strange, sad and wonderful goodbye to a fictional hero who’s always been a constant in my life. If you share a similar sentiment, “Logan” will hit you hard, but in the best way possible.
Presenting the previous X-Men movies as possibly just legend and ignoring all of the mishaps with continuity the series is known for, the time in which the movie takes place is not far off from what we are approaching, and some of the subtle social themes it deals with are equally as relevant. Immigrants are being hustled out of the U.S. at the southern border, Tigers are extinct, mutants have died out — and still nobody cares.
To top it all off, Logan has been living a pretty miserable existence just over the border, caring for a senile and angry Professor X (Patrick Stewart’s most heartbreaking, funniest and absolute best portrayal of the character) who is kept locked in a water tower (and fed unaffordable drugs that have to be acquired illegally) due to deadly psychic seizures the Professor now has.
His only other companion is Caliban, a mutant able to track anyone and who’s highly allergic to sunlight (ironically living in El Paso with them), who is watching Logan deteriorate day by day.
The Wolverine’s super-human healing power doesn’t work quite as well as it used to, healing at a much slower rate and now leaving scars. He binge drinks, can’t see quite as well as he used to and even his claws are having issues. In this western-like film, Logan is the retired gunslinger who has hung up his old life and now just wants to get away from world. He works by day and night as a limo driver, transporting drunks, nobodies, bachelors and bachelorettes, until he is approached one day by a woman, Gabriella, pleading for help to save her mutant daughter, Laura, who is portrayed so well by the young Dafne Keen. (I truly hope they somehow, someway bring her back in this franchise, or that she at least gets plenty of more work. She is just awesome here.)
Although he reluctantly agrees, Logan finds out he has gotten more than he bargained for when he finds out that a militarized corporate sleazebag (played awesomely by Boyd Holbrook) is after Laura. Through a brutal and incredibly violent sequence, Logan finds out Laura is not only a new mutant child, but is more like him than anything.
The rest of the movie is a road trip from hell for Laura, Professor X and Wolverine. Logan wants nothing to do with her, only hoping for the massive paycheck that awaits him at the end of the journey. Professor X is fascinated with Laura, perhaps wanting to relive his glory days of mentoring young mutants to be functioning members of society. And all Laura wants is to live — and maybe be part of a family.
The entire 2 hours and 20 minutes of “Logan” keeps you sucked in, completely immersed in a not-too-distant and bleak future that feels so possible that it’s scary. The movie is gritty and serious, and there are just as many emotionally and violently brutal moments as there are heartwarming ones, and the third act is heavy-hitting. “Logan” feels like what we would get if George R.R. Martin (“Game of Thrones”) wrote an X-Men movie.
Last but not least, it would be an injustice to not mention Jackman’s best performance of his career.
While part of the Wolverine you know and love from the movies is still there, Logan is a sad state of his former self, as if much of his compassion has deteriorated with his body, leaving behind his anger and savageness, like an old wolf who has been rogue too long. The movie is about him finding a shred of his former self, the part of him that was genuinely good and indignant in his X-Men days, with a practically feral urge to help people. Jackman goes beyond nailing it here, and I’m of the belief he should at least get an Oscar nod.
“Logan” may be the best superhero film since “The Dark Knight,” although maybe not quite as good by a couple small notches, and this can not be emphasized enough.
Director James Mangold (who directed the prequel and the very underrated “The Wolverine” in 2013) has made Logan/Wolverine’s final outing a movie that transcends the confines of being a superhero movie to being a legitimately great film. Watching any other X-Men movie cannot prepare you for the experience.
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“Logan” is currently playing at the Riverside Cinemas, 1017 S. Boone St. in Aberdeen.
George Haerle holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing for media and lives in Cosmopolis.
