With the mega-success of Deadpool last year, an R-rated superhero film that was both gory and funny, and with a gross that positioned at is the 9th best-earning comic book movie of all time domestically, it was only natural that soon after we would be getting more gory, R-rated superhero offerings. And first out of the gate is Fox, once again, this time with the third and best solo-Wolverine movie, Logan.
Set in the near future, in 2029, Hugh Jackman once again returns to the role of Logan a.k.a. Wolverine, the character that catapulted him to stardom. Jackman has aged over the last 17 years, and so, naturally, the invulnerable Wolverine is also showing his scars, his self-healing powers slowing down and his body self-destructing. A limo driver in El Paso, he tends to a 90-year-old Xavier (Patrick Stewart), whose brain is aging and powers going haywire. Through a series of circumstances, Logan is called upon to shepherd a young girl, Laura (Dafne Keen) to safety in North Dakota, and so he, Charles, and Laura embark on a road trip while mercenaries looking to recover Laura pursue them.
The film earns it's R-rating; never on screen has Wolverine's claws dealt so much gruesome, brutal damage. It wouldn't be that startling for a seasoned-gore movie viewer, except that all previous iterations of Jackman's Wolverine has been toned down PG-13 violence, where the real impact of those adamantium claws isn't felt. Laura also possesses claws, and does her fair share of dismembering, but the movie balances the excessive violence with the weight of how much killing weighs on the soul. Unlike, say, Hit Girl from Kick-Ass, who glibly jokes and cusses, this littler girl kills because she must.
As far as R-rated superhero offerings go, this one is really effective and very good. With a rather long runtime (137 min.) it takes it's time to let the characters talk and express their grievances; the problem in general with the X-Men films is that they are so full of characters that you barely get any time to make them interesting beyond their defining superpowers. By honing on this smaller story, the film is probably the best the series has ever been at developing characters. It does't hurt that Jackman and Stewart wear these roles comfortably, as they have for nearly two decades.
While I don't want all my superhero films to be grounded in reality, this approaches it's realistic and dark tone in a way the DC movies have been trying to do since Christopher Nolan helmed Batman, and failing to do. The inherent problem with making the DCEU serious is that Batman is the only character who feels like he could possibly exist in our reality. Once you add Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aqua Man to the mix, things get really silly, and the tonal mesh doesn't work (it also doesn't help that Zack Snyder is a terrible storyteller).
X-Men is also a pretty silly premise; various people also possess godlike abilities (telekinesis, teleportation, and a whole host of other improbable powers). Yet Logan is able to make all the outrageous powers feel like they carry weight; or maybe it's just because the director, James Mangold (The Wolverine, 3:10 to Yuma), has a more assured hand at balancing the tone with the characters.
Logan is not without it's faults; a video documenting children in a hospital contains footage no one could ever get, and edited in such a way to elicit the most emotion (the woman who is delivering this video has some dynamite cutting skills); and there is a stopover at a farm in the middle of the movie that drags a little and leads to a fairly predictable conclusion.
But, overall, this is probably the best X-Men film. Not because it's ultra-violent, or is probably (hopefully?) the last time we see Hugh Jackman in this role; it's because it takes the time necessary to make us care about the characters. Too often that is something overlooked but major Hollywood films, and in particular superhero films. Marvel's heroes (and I mean the Disney division, as I know Wolverine is a Marvel character) are all defined mostly by smart-ass quips; while Logan also contains that edge, there is a deeper layer of hurt and humanity that comes out over the course of the film. In many ways, Logan is a character study dressed up in superheroes clothes.
