Classic American films: Logan – Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine swansong may be best superhero film since The Dark Knight
- Far removed from other superhero movies – lit like a neo-noir, sweary and often startlingly violent – Logan is not afraid of embracing the darkness
- Director James Mangold’s gritty, Oscar-nominated screenplay ensures you won’t mix it up with The Avengers movies
In this regular feature series on some of the most talked-about films, we examine the legacy of classics, re-evaluate modern blockbusters, and revisit some of the most memorable lines in film. We continue this week with Logan , the 2017 film by James Mangold.
“They tell us Logan is a great movie,” said actor Ethan Hawke to The Film Stage recently. “Well, it’s a great superhero movie. It still involves people in tights with metal coming out of their hands. It’s not Bresson. It’s not Bergman. But they talk about it like it is.”
On the one hand, you can see where Hawke’s coming from. It must be galling to try to make serious movies like First Reformed – an intense, Oscar-nominated drama in which Hawke stars as a troubled priest – in a world that deifies Marvel fluff. On the other, Logan, which does its best to present itself seriously, seems like the wrong target to pick.
Directed by James Mangold (Copland, Walk the Line), the third solo outing for ex-X-man Wolverine finds our hero (Hugh Jackman) old, broken and at the end of his rope. It’s 2029, no new mutants have been born for years, and he and the decrepit Professor X (Patrick Stewart) are hiding out in a derelict Mexican factory with Caliban (Stephen Merchant, from the UK Office), dreaming of escape.
It’s not going to happen. Instead, they encounter Laura (Dafne Keen), a young girl, and vow to drive her to North Dakota, where she’ll be safe from the evil Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) and his heavies.
She has escaped from a secret Transigen facility where mutants are “raised in the bellies of Mexican girls, girls no one can find any more” to be weaponised for the US government.