Logan – Angry (Recommendation)

Year: 2017

Director: James Mangold

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Richard E. Grant, Dafne Keen, Elizabeth Rodriguez

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Div0iP65aZo

 

When life gives you lemons, you’re supposed to make lemonade. Though we’re only human, and it is natural to become consumed within our own pain, blinkered to the suffering of others.

In 2017, James Mangold created a powerful final addition to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine saga, Logan. This one of the grittiest and most compelling Marvel films to date, loosely based on the comic books, Old Man Logan. We find a bitter, battered, and aged Logan.

Mangold transports us to a dystopian future that closely resembles the Wild West, where mutants are all gone, including Logan’s loved ones, so he has reverted back to his animalistic instincts and abandoned his compassion. The only person remaining from this bygone era is Charles Xavier, his mentor and friend, who has slowly been ravaged by illness. Through coercion, manipulation, and chance, Logan finds himself reluctantly transporting Laura (Dafne Keen), a mutant child, to safety, running from government officials meaning to hurt her.

Logan’s Achilles heel has always been children, for example, Rogue in the original X-Men (2000). He initially refuses to help her, though becomes fiercely protective, treating her like a younger sister. This makes it easy to surmise that Laura will be his salvation, especially when we discover that she is his daughter.

Logan is an artistic embodiment of anger. Our protagonist has become resentful of the past and his mutation, which is presented through a single silver bullet intended to end it all. In the opening sequence Logan is awoken by a gang of car thieves: he tries reasoning with them, though once they cross the line, Logan sees red. This is a visceral display of pure fury, and as an audience you find the adrenaline from your own frustration being transferred onto the action found on screen.

The use of metaphors and imagery is an unexpected, yet highly gratifying addition, one not often seen in a superhero film. Throughout the picture, Logan is unable to adequately heal his injuries and is visibly aged, often being told that he has a “poison killing [him]”. This “poison” could be a side effect of the adamantium, however, his illness could be a physical manifestation of his anger, which has been left to fester and slowly kill the Logan we remember. Similarly, later in the film we see Logan fighting a clone of himself. He is wearing white, while the clone is in black. This is an obvious, yet effective way of symbolising the change in Logan. He represents the chance for repentance and love, whereas the clone is a reflection of him from the beginning of the film, a man intent on hatred and rage.  At the end we can see a dying Logan whispering “Don’t be what they made you” to Laura, telling us that anger and violence isn’t the answer. Moreover, we realise that his “cure” is found through love, as he smiles looking up at her with pride, and utters his last words “This is what it feels like.”

Fundamentally, Logan has transformed from a drunken anti-hero who would steal money and refuse to help save his own child, to a man who would sacrifice his own life to ensure that children could have a chance at one. Through choosing to love and abandon bitterness, he was finally able to find someone who loved him. He became Laura’s true father.