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Logan (2017) Analysis: Hugh Jackman's Swan Song

toshea217

Updated: Jun 7, 2020


I love this poster. So much.


Oh Logan, Logan, Logan. The often brilliant, often shocking, often “what the heck were they thinking?” Logan. Somewhere in this film is one of the greatest superhero movies of all time. Somewhere. But for every piece of this that is incredible, there is a piece that is heartbreakingly unfortunate. Which is why I have to say it is truly one of the most frustrating films I have seen.

But before we get into that, Let’s talk about what I thought was good! First off, it’s gotta be Jackman! Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is easily one of the greatest casting decisions…ever. And he turns in yet again another incredible performance, this time as an aged Wolverine; a man who has seen so much violence, suffering and death, much of which has come from his own hand (or claws I should say). A supposedly immortal man, weary of life, all 150 or so years of it. Sure, most of this life he doesn’t remember due to his suffering amnesia, beginning shortly after the Weapon X experiment (Which gave him the adamantium skeleton) taking place back in the 80s. But he doesn’t need to, not to know how the world sees him. As William Stryker (who headed Weapon X) barks at him in X-Men 2: “You were an animal then, and you’re an animal now!” Jackman fantastically portrays this broken figure; our favourite of the X-Men (well, mine anyway).


Patrick Stewart also turns in a fine performance, as the icon of hope: Professor Charles Xavier. At the ripe old age of 90, Charles is battling with a neurogenerative disease, for which he has to take regular doses of medicine. If not, he erupts into a seizure, and due to his power of telepathy, unwittingly harms those (even in some cases to the point of death) those around him. In fact, we learn through clues given throughout the movie that this is what happened to the rest of the X-Men. The film is set in the future, the year 2029, with Logan and Charles the only two of the original team left. Supposedly, mutants are more or less a thing of the past. No mutants have been born for 25 years, due to the organisation known as Alkali-Tranisgen, who through genetically altered crops, have more or less eradicated the mutant gene globally. I also appreciate how the story unfolds, not telling the audience everything at once, but allowing them to infer what happened as the story progresses.


I also for the most part love the tone (when it isn’t problematic that is, but we’ll get to that later). I really enjoy films that are dark, as long as there is convincing redemption. It’s because to me they feel the most real. And this movie nails that setup particularly well in the first half. It makes us feel Logan’s pain; we care about him. I’ll also say that this film is incredibly well crafted! It's easily the best of the X-Men films on this front; some of these shots are just awe-inspiring. The western sort of setting is also brilliant. What about the music? Wow! The score is hauntingly beautiful, particularly those piano melodies.


But what about the narrative? I’ll be honest I thought the first half or first 2/3 was pretty good in terms of story (apart from a few of the caveat’s and disclaimers which will be mentioned at the end of this review). But herein lies also one of my minor issues. I think this film should have been a complete standalone (which technically it already is) set in another universe or timeline. Some have said it is, but the film makes references to the first X-Men film from back in 2000…so it clearly has that and other events in its timeline, presumably including X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). People have said it’s not a sequel to that film, and that’s fair enough; it’s its own thing. But those references convince me that it’s still set in the same universe (perhaps someone can correct me about this). I said already that I like the tone established in the first half of the film. But it’s one of the reasons I wish it was a standalone-alternate universe kind of affair. But before i expound on why I think this timeline issue is a problem, let me give a brief overview of what’s happening in Logan’s world.


As mentioned earlier, the year is 2029, and there are next to no mutants left worldwide. Logan is taking care of Charles, with the help of fellow mutant Caliban, who is able to track other mutants. A young 11-year old girl, Laura, comes into their life (I’m not going into all the details) and behind her a hoard of agents (The ‘reavers’) from Alkali-Transigen, led by the robot-handed Donald Pierce. After escaping from a bloody battle, Charles convinces Logan that they should take Laura across the border to North Dakota, where there is an alleged safe called “Eden”. It is revealed during the former chaos from which they escaped, that Laura has the same basic powers as Logan, including an infused adamantium skeleton. Only she has two claws in each hand, as well as foot claws. Charles informs Logan that she is his daughter, created from his DNA by the evil Alkali-Transigen, who were creating mutant children for the purpose of turning them into biological weapons. However, these children (including Laura) were discarded when the company no longer had any need of them, having found a more “efficient” and “effective” way of growing biological weapons. With the help of nurses who worked at the site, many of the children escaped, including Laura. Through some mishaps which I won’t get into, she ends up out at the abandoned smelting plant where Logan was taking care of Charles. Fast forward and we’re on the road with the three mutants, on their way to North Dakota.



I’ll also say this: I’m not a fan of gratuitous violence, and in this film there’s a lot of it. Like it is crazy insane. This film is definitely not one for the family. I guess I just don’t see the need for it. The other films managed just fine without it (whilst still being able to portray Logan as aggressive and animal like), and I think you can still have a dark and gritty film without it. The Dark Knight comes to mind. There, the Joker performs some really gruesome acts, but it doesn’t go into the gory details. To me it’s cheap and uncalled for. Also, the fact that half of the violence is carried out by and towards an 11-year old girl…it just doesn’t sit particularly well with me. There's also a crazy amount of F-bombs. But again aside from these and a few caveats, narratively speaking I think the story is really quite good in the first half or so. Protect the child!


So in saying this, why do I think it should be officially set in an alternate universe? Well…because of everything that’s come before it in the series, particularly Days of Future Past. The beginning of Days of Future Past showed us a bleak future for both mutants and humans, which through a fun time travel adventure they are able to avert. The movie has a beautiful message about hope, all in the person of Professor Charles Xavier (this is his character, after all). The ending of the film is really touching. Not only that, it rewrote the damage that was inflicted on the franchise by X-Men the Last Stand (2006), bringing back Cyclops and Jean Grey who were previously killed off. Everyone is all well and good. Happy times! But…in this movie they’re all dead again. Mutants are basically no longer a thing. It’s like…so much of what that film achieved...doesn’t matter. Now, the future of 2029 is nowhere near as grim as the one at the beginning of Days of Future Past. It’s just kind of a bummer that that happy ending just feels totally thrown away. You bring back characters just to kill them off again (off screen too!): Bruh…! Of course if it was set in an alternate universe, I wouldn't want this story to be Jackman's swan song, but just a cool one off event. Again it’s just a minor gripe I have, and perhaps I’ll even change my perspective on that one day.


But…there are a few narrative choices in the film that I see as serious problems, whereby the film really shot itself in the foot in terms of the story it was trying to tell. And it all starts on a nice farm. A nice farm with nice horses. After helping out a family on the road, Logan, Charles and Laura are invited to their farmstead for dinner, and later for the night. The family are deeply committed Christians. Finally, after so much running, we finally have a scene with some down time. Over dinner, Charles pretends that Logan is his son, and Laura is his granddaughter (can I just say I love the relationship between Charles and Laura, it’s really heart-warming). Charles is lying of course, but it also gives us a sense of the hope that he has never let go of. A hope that Charles reiterates to Logan that he (Logan) “still ha[s] time”. After all that they’ve been through, Logan should never give up the ideal that a good life is still in reach. One of the things alluded to earlier, and one that is persistently being echoed in the film, is the notion that someone can never really change. That people regard Logan as an animal, and that that’s all he’ll ever be. It’s something that he wants to be free from. There were times in earlier films that he tried to turn from violence, but it found its way back into his life, whether that was prompted by himself or others.


But we all know that deep down, he is a softie at heart. But at this point, he has just dealt with far too much loss; more than most would be willing to bare. Perhaps this is why he is depicted as being largely uncaring of Laura and seems to be quite fixed in this regard. As he explains to her in the last act of the movie, bad things happen to people he cares about. He thinks its “for the best”, and I would assume this is why he doesn’t attempt to share any affection towards her for the majority of the film. But in this one scene, at the dinner table, something remarkable happens. Logan, for the first time in the entire duration of the movie, smiles. It’s beautiful. It’s hopeful. Here, he’s not the animal that everyone says he is. Redemption is in reach.



Well Tim that’s fine and dandy but didn’t you say that there was a problem? There is indeed! A couple of scenes later, they proceed to take this hope that they’ve given us, stab it, throw it on the ground, stomp on it, burn it, take it’s ashes to a cliffside, and release it to the wind…So um yeah look Transigen show up they uh…to this thi..whe…shnmnm…Huh? What’s that Tim? You…you’re mumbling again. Oh, sorry, my heart is just in pieces. Because umm…Transigen show up with their special project X-24, the thing that they replaced the children with. It’s basically a clone of Logan only faster and stronger.

Is that really your “big problem”? Well no, but…he brutally murders everyone at the farm. The family…. dead. The husband, wife, and their teenage son. And…and…Ch…. Charles…. whose story we have followed for years…who always gave us hope…dead. He is the first to go. In his final moments, he reminisces on what was, in his words, “the most perfect night” in a long time. But then it’s followed by the memory of what he did years ago…when he accidentally killed 600 people through one of his seizures, including many of the X-Men. He thus concludes that such a perfect night he doesn’t deserve. He says this to Logan’s clone, whom he presumes to be the real deal. X-24 approaches Charles; turns him on his back, and stabs him in the chest. Professor Charles Xavier, the beacon of light in this franchise, whose journey we have followed since 2000, is abruptly done away with. MOVIE!!! WHY!!!?? Surely, I’m not the only one who can think this is extremely unsatisfying? I mean, he’s already died once before, and I’m gonna go out and say it: his death in the Last Stand is less frustrating to me than this. At least there he died trying to help someone. I’m at least glad that his dying moments (with the real Logan) were not out of character. As sad and remorseful as he was at the end, with his dying breath he never lost hope, especially in Logan (despite being "disappointed" in Logan in the film's beginning). I knew that Charles had to die in this movie, but did he have to go out in such away?

But just as criminal is the needless murder of the family. The movie’s symbol of Christian hope. “The Lord will provide”, the wife says. They provide the film with a moment to explore the main characters humanity (well, their mutants, but you get what I mean). The audience in my opinion has seen enough of the death and destruction that is left behind by Logan. Not necessarily always because of him, but also because of the people who want him dead.

We have had maaaaany films exploring this. Why destroy such a beautiful moment? It’s super uncool. I don’t have this problem in the Dark Knight because in that film, there is considerably more goodness and light to keep it from being a constant pit of despair. Logan as a movie doesn’t have enough of this. This is what I mean when I say that the dark tone becomes problematic in the second half. Because there is just not enough light to compare the darkness too. It takes far too many of its beautiful moments (not all of them, though this is the primary one) and chokes the life out of them. First, it’s Charles, then the innocent family. It leaves such a bad taste in the mouth. But it also has implications which also make the ending for me unconvincing. I’ll get to this towards the end (coming soon).


This scene actually somewhat reminds of a very similar scene in another film…X-Men Origins Wolverine (2009). After escaping the Weapon X experiment, Wolverine seeks refuge at a nearby farm…the old couple take him in…treat with hospitality…and the bad guys who are after him eventually find him…and kill the old couple…very similar…though that one isn’t as graphic, nor is it as plot destroying.


SO, taking that into account, there’s only one practical thing I can take away from this sequence. Only one thing that I learned. Logan + Farms = BAD. And that’s it. So far, every time that Logan ends up on a farm, the host family dies. Killed by evil companies. Therefore, if you own a farm, do not under ANY circumstances show Logan your charity by inviting him to stay the night. Evidently, it is too great a risk! Actually, scratch that. It’s not a risk. There is a 100% chance that your family will be killed by an evil company. Of course, if you happen to, I don’t know, have a giant mansion in Westchester, New York, which you have transformed into a “School for Gifted Youngsters” and wish to show Logan charity by giving him a family in the X-Men, then be my guest. That is one of many acceptable instances that such a course of action would be acceptable. But after doing this, under NO CIRCUMSTANCE, after many years of adventures convince him that it’s a good idea for the two of you, along with a young girl, to stay over at a grateful family’s farm. You’ll just get yourself and everybody who isn’t nearly indestructible killed. Granted, this time the evil company were trying to get to Laura, so maybe it’s broader than that. DO NOT LET WOLVERINE’S ONTO YOUR FARM!!! DEATH AWAITS YOU.


After escaping from Transigen, Charles is buried. At this stage, Logan is utterly broken. After fainting, Laura takes him to hospital, where it is revealed that the adamantium in his body is actually slowly poisoning him and slowing down his ability to heal effectively. He is getting old, tired, and is not as effective as he once was. In other words, he is vulnerable to death. Moreover, he won’t accept any help in this regard. There are wounds on his body that aren’t healing, a nice metaphor for the wounds in his very soul. Wounds that won’t heal. The wound that tells him that all he is, is an animal, and that is all that he will ever be. Logan wants to die.


He and Laura eventually arrive near the border of Canada, where other mutant children (that also escaped from Transigen) have gathered together to plan their crossing. Considering his part in this finished, Logan tells Laura he won’t be going with them. It is here that he confesses that bad things happen to those he loves, to which Laura heartbreakingly responds: “then I’ll be fine”. Ouch!


Waking up the next morning, Logan discovers the children have gone, off to make their escape. As walks around the cliff edge homestead, he notices Transigen drones…they have found the children and are in hot pursuit. Logan, taking a Transigen serum given to him by one of the children (which enhances his strength and speed) heroically rushes off to save them. I told you, he is a softie at heart. With help from Laura and some of the other children, they are able to defeat the Reavers…before X-24 comes back onto the scene. Eventually, Logan tells the children to run and not engage the clone (some had been helping him), knowing that he has no chance of winning this fight. He is sacrificing himself for their sake, particularly Laura’s. X-24 plunges his claws in to Logan’s shoulder, and finding a tree stump, impales him on it. Luckily, Laura is able to kill him (the clone) with an adamantium bullet. She rushes to Logan’s side, the once immortal man, now dying. With tears in her eyes, she looks on as Logan tells her to not be the weapon that they made her, and echoes “Laura, Laura…” as she echoes “Daddy”. He can’t help himself, of course he wants to care! The film ends with the children burying Logan, and Laura mourning the loss of her Father, before they all eventually make their escape to the border.



Ok so there’s some neat sacrificial scenes that come here at the end, and Logan dies a hero. I like that. But there are things that stop this from being as satisfying as it could have been both narratively and emotionally. And I’m going to bring back the murder of Charles and the family. I think if they had been left alone, and it had simply been a glimpse into a normal and hopeful life, it would have added so much more richness to the final 30 minutes or so. If this had been this case, it may have played out something like this:


Logan would have awoken with the children gone, as he did. Charles at this point would still have died (but in a more satisfying way, that doesn’t utterly disrespect the character). Logan sees that Transigen are in pursuit of the children. What I am about to say I think would have made his sacrifice far richer and emotionally resonant. I feel that in what the film did he is only quasi redeemed. If instead, he had that normal encounter with the family where nothing went wrong, he may start to believe and hope for a normal life for himself. After all of this bloodshed and suffering, there may (as Charles always stated) hope for him. Hope to be more than just the animal brand that he is tagged with. To be healed of these wounds. But he knows that if turns his back on the children, particularly Laura, she will never get that chance. His daughter will be doomed to live the rest of her life as he did. Therefore, out of love for her, he sacrifices his life to give her that very chance. Now this is more or less similar to what actually happens. But if you keep the family alive, it would make more sense when Logan tells her to not be the weapon she was trained to be. Why? Because Logan believes it’s truly possible. It makes his sacrifice more meaningful, because he finally accepts that he truly can have a good life (based on that night at the farmstead) but gives that up for her sake. In doing so, he is simultaneously given a proper redemption. It is a sacrifice in every sense of the word. Instead, his character isn't properly redeemed because he doesn’t seem to have this hope for himself, only for Laura.


My problem in the film is that when he tells her this (not to be a weapon), it’s not particularly convincing, because the rest of the film is unrelentingly bleak. Everyone dies. Why should we expect Laura’s fate to be different than Logan’s? There’s no light to compare it too other than these words. The family provided that source of hope, which the film extinguished. I can’t say that I have particularly high hopes for Laura’s future. But then again that's just how I see it. What do you guys think? Was it better that the movie played out the way it did? If so, why?


Also, I have to talk about the film’s final image. After he has been buried, Laura takes the cross that had been placed on the grave, and then turns it into the shape of an X. I see what you’re going for. I see you’re trying to make a call back for emotional purposes. But…you've literally just attempted to redeem Logan…and followed that up by subverting the very symbol of Redemption. In my eyes, it not only hurts the narrative but is also maybe even sacrilegious? If the final image was Logan’s grave with that cross, we might conclude (even if it’s just ambiguous, and without having to say it) that Logan united his sufferings to Christ’s in those final moments of self-sacrifice. I think it would fit in really well with some of the movie’s themes. And it wouldn't be forced in any way, and the audience take away from it what they will (many graves have crosses after all). The world had a picture, an idea of Logan, and they never let him forget it. I think it’s like that in real life; the world will not give you the peace and redemption you desire (quite the contrary!) It would drive many to despair. But that’s because redemption cannot be found in anyone but Christ. Even though we still of course have to make amends for the sake of justice, we should never be tempted to despair, no matter how much the world might hate us, or be unforgiving in regard to the things that we’ve done. As Christ says, “be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Or as St Paul say’s “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans, 8:31). And what he wants is our Redemption more than anything. If He’s our Creator, we should probably take His word for it :D In the actual movie Logan found something close to this redemption, but it could have been so much more than what it was.


VERDICT:

Overall, this is a movie that I have mixed feelings about. So much to love about it, but I think there were some missed opportunities that kept it from being entirely satisfying. If not for these, as well as some of the finer details I mentioned, this could easily have been not only up there with the Dark Knight and Spider-Man 2, but one of my favourite films of all time.

CAVEATS:

· Brief nudity

· Gratuitous Profanity

· Gratuitous cussing/swearing (high level frequency F-bombs)

· Extreme graphic/gory violence (many performed by or towards characters who are children. Self-harm, attempted youth suicide)

· Disrespect fo a grave cross.

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