A GORY SEND-OFF
Hugh Jackman’s time as the wisecracking, claw-wielding mutant Wolverine hurtles to an ultraviolent and ultimately satisfying conclusion in “Logan,” a down-to-earth title for a movie that holsters comic book camp and draws instead on classic Westerns.
As a rumination on loyalty and legacy, “Logan” has more in common with the unflinching “Unforgiven,” the conflicts of “Shane” and the world-weariness of “The Wrestler” than anything Stan Lee ever envisioned. Old Man Wolverine, a character conceived in the comics by Mark Millar, is presented here as a Clint Eastwood trope, in all his squinting, snarling glory.
Director and co-writer James Mangold, who teamed with Mr. Jackman on “The Wolverine” in 2013, has splattered the screen with the results of berserker rage while also paying homage to the character’s place in the X-Men canon — a comic book with a hidden message; a boy who holds tight to his action figure of a Wolverine clad in blue-and-yellow spandex. But that superhero bares no resemblance to the Logan we encounter as an alcoholic limo driver whose healing abilities are failing and who may be facing his own mortality.
After 17 years and nine movies, Mr. Jackman does craggy well, even though he’s probably more ripped than the unknown who was cast in the 2000 movie “X-Men.” Now 48, the Australian star of stage and screen has a firm grasp on the burden of Wolverine’s murderous past and his grief for those loved and lost.
Early on in “Logan,” it is revealed that it is 2029, and no new mutant has been reported for 25 years. With the help of the albino Caliban (an almost unrecognizable Stephen Merchant), old man Logan’s raison d’etre is as caretaker to Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier — Professor X, erstwhile mentor to mutantkind.
The men have traded roles, as often happens with grown children and their parents. They live just over the border in Mexico, in a compound meant to keep Charles from hurting, well, everyone. The man who put the “X” in X-Men has become a profanity-spewing nonagenarian who isn’t in control as the Professor X of old. As an evil henchman — hey, it is a comics movie — notes, brain damage in the man with the world’s most powerful brain is pretty scary.
Into their midst arrives a fullcircle twist to Logan’s tale. As in the original film, a mutant girl arrives unexpectedly to set potentially catastrophic events in motion.
In “X-Men,” it was Rogue. In “Logan,” it’s Laura — EnglishSpanish Dafne Keen, who was 11 when the movie was made. The girl possesses Wolverine’s deadly adamantium claws and a super-soldier’s will to survive.
The term “heads will roll” is meant to be taken literally when she’s around.
Laura (based on the comics’ X23) is the product of an experiment using Wolverine’s DNA. She has become separated from
other children who were born to create a mutant army, and when she meets up with Logan and Charles, the three head out on a road trip for a mutant haven that may or may not be a fictional place.
Biological father and daughter are slow to warm to one another, but the more compelling relationship is Logan and the feeble, dependent Charles. It is here that it matters most to have seen previous movies and chart the evolution of their connection.
In hot pursuit of the girl is mad scientist Richard E. Grant and his army of baddies. For them, collateral damage knows no bounds, and the bodies begin to pile up. The violence is sometimes hard to take, but more offensive is having a woman passenger in Logan’s limo flash her breasts at him. It was as if someone said, “Hey, we have an R rating, so why not give the fanboys a cheap thrill?”
This is a movie that conversely demonstrates girl power — Laura is a female Wolverine, with retracting claws and a compulsion to use them. Ms. Keen plays her tough and cool in a remarkable turn for one so young.
Mr. Jackman has said this is his swan song in the role that propelled him to stardom, and he’s leaving on his own terms. The wellearned R rating and all-toostingy moments of humor may keep away some fans, but “Logan” has plenty of heart to go with the carnage.
Still, a Wolverine moment in the next “Deadpool” film would be a nice send-off, too.