Movie Review
★★★
LOGAN
Directed by James Mangold. Written by Scott Frank, Mangold, and Michael Green. Starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant. At Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs, Jordan’s Furniture IMAX in Reading and Natick. 137 minutes. R (strong brutal violence and language throughout, brief nudity).
As juicy a character as Wolverine might be, it looks as though we may never see a flat-out great movie devoted to Hugh Jackman’s claw-popping Marvel mutant. But credit director James Mangold for trying his best to give us one. Twice.
Mangold (“Walk the Line’’) first teamed with Jackman on “The Wolverine’’ (2013), an imperfect but often thrilling reboot that managed two tricks: tackling a definitive comics story line and its unlikely Japanese setting, and making amends for the botched “X-Men Origins: Wolverine’’ (2009). The pair reunite for “Logan,’’ an even more grounded installment that takes the action and drama to unprecedented dark — and R-rated — places.
This look at our hero in later years clearly lured both Jackman and fellow franchise vet Patrick Stewart by giving them enormous latitude to do something different, to play with their well-established roles. The film can’t sustain the novelty throughout, but for the lengthy stretch that it does, Jackman and Stewart’s creative riffing makes for crackling entertainment.
The story opens with ragged Logan kicking around near-future El Paso’s border scene, lying low as a limo driver and holing up with albino Caliban (intriguingly cast Stephen Merchant) as they care for Stewart’s near-senile Charles Xavier. (And we always thought the Japan backdrop was unexpected.) Then a genetics corporation’s dirty-work specialist (Boyd Holbrook) comes calling, searching for a Mexican girl with gifts (read: powers) no longer seen in a world now virtually devoid of mutants.
It’s not long before Logan reluctantly connects with unspeaking wild child Laura (newcomer Dafne Keen), and he and Professor X set out to escort her to sanctuary. It’s an X-Men road movie! It’s Wolverine as de facto middle-aged family guy, complete with feeble elderly pop! And it couldn’t feel any fresher for these characters, after 16 screen appearances between them.
Jackman and Stewart’s fond, easy dynamic helps to balance some very provocative brutality, as the movie pushes Wolverine’s berserk nature to graphic new extremes. (A word of warning: Keen gets in on the act, too.) There’s dramatic validity — and, of course, genre-geek fulfillment — in exploring the character’s capacity for violence in a way that the print stories typically only flirt with. But all the harshness makes the lighter elements awfully key, and it’s noticeable when the film gets away from them in the mayhem-overloaded later going.
Don’t let it be said, though, that Jackman ever looks bored here. Even when we almost can’t bear to look.
★★★ LOGAN
Directed by James Mangold. Written by Scott Frank, Mangold, and Michael Green. Starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant. At Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs, Jordan’s Furniture IMAX in Reading and Natick. 137 minutes. R (strong brutal violence and language throughout, brief nudity).
Tom Russo can be reached at trusso2222@gmail.com.
