Fitting farewell for flawed hero
Across nine movies – including his memorable foul-mouthed secondslong cameo in X-Men: First Class – Hugh Jackman has ripped up the big screen as sharp-clawed mutant Wolverine.
Logan marks the Australian’s final appearance in the role that made him a mega star and sees him re-team with the director of the antihero’s second solo adventure, James Mangold.
They go down the Deadpool ‘R’ rating route – or for us Brits, a 15 certificate – but don’t go in expecting the witty asides and dark hilarity of last year’s surprise shot in the arm for comic book movies.
Instead the tone of Mangold’s screenplay – co-written with Scott Frank and Michael Green – is an altogether more sombre affair and sees Logan battered, bruised and aging in the year 2029.
The cigar-smoking mutant is caring for ailing former mentor Professor X (Patrick Stewart) when young Laura (Dafne Keen) shows up to shatter his hopes for a quite life away from the world.
Smashing Wolverine’s previous two standalone films out of the water, Logan is a fitting finale for one of the most recognisable characters in modern cinema.
Mangold has already admitted taking influence from classic westerns and it come across on screen; the dusty colour palette, showdowns in scorching sunlight and the aging gunslinger making his final stand all apparent.
Jackman has never been better in the role and seems to relish playing a Wolverine past his prime, and shares several tender moments with Stewart and Keen.
Stewart also claims Logan will be his farewell to the X-Men universe and it’s heartbreaking to witness his transformation from the allpowerful mind manipulator of earlier movies to the dementia-riddled patient here – although his fondness for straight-talking results in a few belly laughs.
Newcomer Keen suggests she has a very bright future ahead of her by tackling her ‘mini-Wolverine’ status with gusto and Boyd Holbrook (Pierce) deserves special mention too for creating a villain brimming with caustic comments in his relentless pursuit of Logan and friends. There’s no skyscraper-destroying carnage ala X-Men: Apocalypse here; instead Mangold tightly frames smaller-scale confrontations that are no less effective for it.
This doesn’t quite extend to the final face-off, however, which lacks the focus of Logan’s earlier escapades.
Thankfully, though, Mangold gifts Jackman a wonderfully touching final goodbye in what feels an appropriate farewell for the character.
Here’s hoping rumours of another, younger star pulling on the claws in the future don’t come to fruition; Hugh Jackman is – sorry, was – Wolverine.