Logan

“There's no living with a killing. There's no going back from it.” Deadpool (and before it, for example, Kick-Ass) used an R-rating for infantile silliness. Logan is an adult drama with Oscar ambitions (which are overly obvious in places) in which someone occasionally gets their head ripped off. Symbolically, Wolverine, which seventeen years ago was instrumental in getting Hollywood to take comic-book movies seriously, now graphically exemplifies the evolution that the genre has undergone over the intervening years. Only time will tell how much of a game-changing film Logan will be as it closes one phase and opens another (as was the case with westerns such as The Wild Bunch). ___ Despite its sweeping runtime, the film stays much more grounded than other superhero flicks. It tries to win viewers over with a small cast of believable characters with understandable motivations rather than with epic action (the action scenes are not only very raw and “earthy”, which is aided by the low camera position, but unfortunately also rather chaotic). Unlike Nolan’s Batman movies, the narrative is very straightforward, as it stays with the main character’s point of view throughout, which, however, it manages to use to its advantage. ___ Logan is a portrait of a world that has stopped believing in heroes and happy endings. People distrust each other and consider a loaded gun to be the only valid argument. Power is in the hands of corporations involved in the military-industrial complex, for which people (especially poor people) are just another deductible cost item. Jackman’s burnt-out renegade, who no longer cares about anyone or anything, gives a face to this social lethargy (or bad mood, if you prefer). Like Clint Eastwood in more than one role, all he has to do is look irritated and say the words “shit” and “fuck” between his clenched teeth. The film adheres to the slogan that children are our future, but these children are characteristically the offspring of immigrants and, furthermore, mutants (i.e. “others”), which is to say people who are doubly unwanted in today’s America. The promised land, then, is naturally Canada. ___ James Mangold is probably the first director who has been able to fully exploit the potential of superhero narratives to comment not only on the universal battle between good and evil, but also on the times in which we live (again, there is a parallel with westerns, which began to be used for the purpose of commenting on the present sometime in the 1950s, when Shane, which is quoted in Logan, was made). Unlike earlier films such as The Dark Knight Rises and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Logan involves more than just a few allusions to the current political situation; Logan is riddled with social malaise, which is apparent in the melancholic tone and the meditative pace of the narrative (which, however, is always kicked up a gear by the next action sequence). ___ I don’t recall ever experiencing a comic-book movie so intensely, let alone having it resonate within me for so long. Perhaps that’s because of my current mood, or maybe because of this day and age in which such sincere stories about the fact that we have to help each other make sense. In any case, I would not be angry (or surprised) if this uncompromising settling of accounts with the genre became the kind of classic that, for example, Unforgiven is today. 90% (02/03/2017) (less) (more)