Logan:: Weapon X's Kingdom Come

James Mangold's second and final entry to the Wolverine movie series, Logan, is for all intents and purposes, an X-Men/Wolverine story told with the themes and story conventions of a Western. And to be honest, for a swan song to the character, there's no genre more appropriate.

The X-Men Western

Aside from its primary comic book source material (the Old Man Logan storyline), Logan borrows heavily from many films of the Western genre, especially the 1953 movie Shane, directed by George Stevens. (It's the western that we see prominently during some of Logan's scenes.) In both films, a wandering man, accustomed to the ways of killing, is given a task to protect someone or something. In Logan's case, it's young Laura Kinney (Dafne Keen), a mysterious girl with ties to Logan. It's a story that has been told numerous times before, not only in westerns, but also in films from other genres such as Lone Wolf and Cub, The Professional, and others. 

And it's clear that the protagonists of Logan are no longer the heroes they once were. Logan himself, now decades old, struggles with a weakened healing factor. He takes care of an elderly, senile Professor Xavier and is basically waiting for his time to die. Our protagonist, like many a Western anti-hero, is a troubled individual with a checkered past, but with a solid code of honor that he applies to those he protects - and that plays into the story in a big way.

And here's where the Western influences help. Logan takes places in a post-post apocalyptic world where mutants are almost extinct; there hasn't been a new mutant born in 25 years. The film is bathed in near-apocalyptic music and imagery: the vehicles in the desert reminds one of the first Mad Max film, and the film ends appropriately with Johnny Cash's The Man Comes Around, which is chock full of references to the book of Revelations:**

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts,
And I looked and behold: a pale horse.
And his name, that sat on him, was Death.
And Hell followed with him. 

In comparison, the Western itself has dealt with such imagery, to envision a decline of the old world, where the notion of Cowboys and the Wild West become obsolete. You see it not only in movies, but also in Western-themed video games like Red Dead Redemption. In the same way, Logan heralds of the end of mutant heroes like the X-Men, in a world where they are nothing more than legends in comic books.

A War for the Future

In his book Supergods, prolific comic book writer Grant Morrison once said that he thought of mutant culture "not (as) a single monolithic ideal, or the warring ideologies of "evil mutants" and "good mutants," but as a spectrum of conflicting viewpoints, self-images and ideas about the future," and Homo Superior's struggle against Homo Sapiens as, and I paraphrase, the tendency of the parents to fear being co-opted by their children, and thus try to kill them off. This undercurrent of fear undercuts the motivations of Logan's antagonists, because people fear less that which they control.

In the same way, this war for the future drives our protagonist forward, if only thanks to Logan's code of honor. That's a part of what made him a hero in the first place, and that's what Marvel did so well with their characters during the Silver Age of Comic Books, where superheroes were not perfect gods, but people like you and me with their own notions of doubt and weakness.

Hugh Jackman brings this sense of humanity out in spades, delivering his franchise best performance (and a pretty memorable performance overall.) Jackman and Dafne Keen make their scenes work, developing their characters in effective ways. Patrick Stewart's last turn as Charles Xavier is heartbreaking and masterful as well.

Breaking the Mold

Aside from the obvious Western influences, the film does a good job distancing itself from the action spectacle of other Superhero films. In fact, it's a Superhero film that doesn't feel like one. Instead of bloated, briskly edited, CGI heavy action sequences filled with dozens of characters, Logan gets its job done with simple, cleanly edited, brutal action choreography. The film earns its R rating with the number of decapitated limbs and heads flying around at any one time.

Logan delivers a level of tension that I haven't felt in a Superhero film in a long time. While it could be trimmed a bit for time, none of the scenes were boring or unnecessary. It's a bit sad that this will be the last outing of Wolverine in this particular cinematic universe, as well as Hugh Jackman's last turn as the beloved character. But its sheer quality and craft make me hopeful for future X-Movies in a franchise that has grown less relevant in the shadow of other comic book movie franchises.

**even more relevant considering Mangold directed the Cash biopic Walk the Line in 2005.