The Mutant Formerly Known As Wolverine
Can a movie about ubermenschen punching one another also be thoughtful and endearing? Marvel’s new movie, Logan, seems to think so. And it damn near almost succeeds. For it is neither the fight choreography nor the special effects that make Logan surprisingly watchable. It is the quiet moments, when dumb violence cedes the stage to a story about two men struggling against age. Even superpowers are no match for time itself.
The two men in question are Logan (formerly Wolverine and played Hugh Jackman), and Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), both former X-Men. The spandex has become dirty jeans and sweatpants. HQ is no longer an underground high-tech command center but an abandoned water tower turned makeshift hospital room for the Professor, who suffers from seizures so powerful they nearly gave me a headache. Being a little younger, Logan can still cut through a bushel or two of henchmen with his “adamantium” claws (and does), but not without more blood, puss and grouching than we remember. He prefers to live the quiet life – getting loaded and chauffeuring around drunk border hoppers in a limousine. He also limps and curses a fair amount which is how we can tell that this is a serious comic book movie, not one of those silly ones for kids that aren’t “about” anything.
Of course, Logan isn’t about anything in particular. And all the swearing and bloodshed in the world can’t make it so.
The story is that Logan and Professor X must elude a villain (a doctor whose exact purpose I had forgotten before the credits had even rolled) to deliver a child – a mutant, the last of her kind – to North Dakota.
Yes, the mutants are all gone. Nor do we miss them much, if at all. Rather than getting bogged down in the lazy cameos, clin d’oeils, and parade of absurd side characters that these movies usually serve us, Logan has a chance to aim a bit higher and let its actors dig a bit deeper. Jackman and Stewart the seize the opportunity to imbue their fantasy avatars with something resembling a real bond. There is tenderness somewhere in those quiet minutes between fight or flight. Too bad the movie doesn’t stay there.