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Marvel’s swansong to X-men series often forgets it’s a superhero film – which is exactly what makes director James Mangold’s Logan a fine piece of cinema. With a voluminous amount of hoopla on how fitting a closure will Marvel’s most accurate (arguable!) comic book embodiment gets, we tend to be a wee bit liberal in evaluation. Because fanboys we are first, lest the film turns up extremely embarrassing – case in point being 2016’s Batman vs Superman. So, how satisfying is Logan?
Well, Logan is decidedly different. This isn’t the comic book prototype many might have expected. It is R-rated for a reason. There is gore and in massive extents. You see a fatigued Wolverine, who is clearly awaiting a sunset. Exhausted, reflective, and elemental like never before, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine builds the canvas for a swansong from early reels. Through bitterness reeks in some sort of a survival instinct, all of it reaches a palpable point upon discovering the mysterious little mutant Laura (Dafne Keen). Unlike Logan, she is skilled to be callous. Mute for a considerably long time, she makes her revelations towards the end leading to a finale that makes you hold on firmly to your seats.
Yes, the film ends in a mound of emotions. Not many would associate with X23’s sudden spool of affection to her “dad”. There are sequences long-drawn and oversimplified making them borderline tedious. The occasionally wicked humour doesn’t really excite given the legacy and also the peculiar character sketches here. The film is, also, a tad too long for what they are trying to say. The defining moments, in particular, seem lengthy, This could be a matter of joy to absolute fanboys and that’s about it. Having said that, unlike various other superhero flicks, Logan doesn’t mandate an average viewer to have followed the series religiously. It helps, definitely, but ain’t an absolute necessity.
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As said before, for an everyday (or passive) viewer, what works are the ‘limitations’ projected in the way Wolverine’s part is constructed. Logan‘s road to the closure is, thus, organic. He is visceral, not to blinding levels. That one odd scene of Logan taking his anger out on his broken-down vehicle post Profession X’s death is invigorating. Speaking about the latter, his confession on how the warmth of being in a family setup is comforting is yet another knockout moment in Logan.
Yes, the grounding is simple. The antagonists are of minuscule impact. Despite that, Logan consistently works. The drama is brisk, certain moments thought-provoking than riding on comic-book tropes. The film doesn’t catch you totally off-guard or make you teary-eyes like The Dark Knight Rises. Still, Logan, armed with capable performances, decent execution based on an interesting foundation, is honest, dark, and empathetic. This, clearly, is the most fitting goodbye Wolverine and his fans could have ever asked for. Jackman, you too shall be missed.
