Look, I know that getting old is a part of the program; just look at Han Solo, he’s now crashing planes and playing chicken with jumbo jet airliners with regularity, but superheroes are supposed to be invincible! They’re not supposed to get old and slow or get Alzheimer’s, that’s the kind of thing that’s supposed to happen to people like Tom Brady; Go Cowboys! Well in Logan, writer/director James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted and 3:10 to Yuma) shows us the mortality of two of our most beloved X-Men – Professor X and Wolverine.
They are in hiding near the Mexican border as the world is now almost completely mutant free and the two of them are slowly living out their last days due to the various ailments that seem to be taking their toll on them. And with the aid of the Albino mutant tracker Caliban, Wolverine is saving up money so he and his mentor can find a safer place to hide from society as the world has seemingly moved on from its once hallowed superheroes. They now only exist through the glorified stories of them that are written in comic books. That is until one day when a young mutant girl shows up in their lives needing their help to escape from a dark organization that’s trying to kill her.
Wolverine, or Logan, is resistant to helping her as his only concern in life at this point is protecting Charles (Prof X). But the ever positive and welcoming Charles sees this situation as not only a chance to help and guide a fellow mutant but also an opportunity to finally get Logan to buy into the concept of family and the joys that come along with it.
Thankfully Mangold doesn’t waste our time with any sappy storylines or cheesy long gazes into the sky to help take our characters there, something that you’ll find plenty of in the other Marvel movies; he instead takes full advantage of the film’s R-rating and gives us tons of blood, action, and cursing! After dropping about a hundred f bombs in the first 30 minutes of this movie, it felt as though Hugh Jackman was letting out 20 years of frustration with the PG-13 handcuffs that were thrown on him by the studio in past X-Men films. And I have to say that seeing his blades chop off random limbs or impale unsuspecting hitmen throughout this entire film, it gave me some hope that superhero movies could once again be cool and engaging.
The child actor who played the young mutant more than held her own with the big boys as she displayed a rage that has been unparalleled by fellow child actors who play significant roles in similar movies. They usually just bring the film down with their robotic reading of lines and their inherently bratty nature. "I hate you dad!" Oh please, just go somewhere and listen to your Iggy Azalea album while I drink my PBR! But in Logan, the young Dafne Keen comes across like a 30 year veteran as she uses her mutant ability to fend off and kill the bad men who are out to get her.
And that’s what I loved about this film, it took my initial complaint of showing the depressing mortality of superheroes and turned it into a key and touching differentiating factor that helped separate it from its counterparts. It shows you that while life can suck for even the strongest of us, we all can find something that can give us a new lease on life, no matter what we’re going through. Oh, and it also provided us with some of the coolest scenes you’ll ever encounter when it comes to seeing Professor X’s powers going haywire. All I have to say about that is I don’t think you’ll ever see me go to a casino in Oklahoma again; and trust me when I say it has nothing to do with their fat hookers.
Logan was moving, refreshing, and violent and that’s all you can ask from an R-rated film these days. It gets a rating of TIGHT!
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