Here we are contrasted with one of my favorite superhero movies: Logan (2017). Logan won one Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor (Patrick Stewart) and was also nominated for one Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. It took home 28 wins from 2017 to 2018. Directed by the same person who directed Girl, Interrupted (1999), The Wolverine (2013), and Ford v Ferrari (2019), James Mangold took on the visual, tonal and thematic inspiration of a classic western and noir movie. Mangold stated that Logan's influences included "visual reference points" of cinema, citing Shane (1953), The Cowboys (1972), Paper Moon (1973), The Gauntlet (1977), Unforgiven (1992), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), and The Wrestler (2008). While the storyline is primarily original, the film does take inspiration from the "Old Man Logan" comics storyline by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven. Currently, the film stands on the 221st spot on IMDb's Top 250 Films list.
The film stars Hugh Jackman in the titular role of Logan. It includes a solid supporting cast consisting of Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, and Richard E. Grant. While principal photography began in Louisiana, the film was mostly shot in New Mexico and Mississippi. The movie is set in the future, where mutants are nearly extinct. Logan, elderly and weary, leads a quiet life. But, when Laura, a mutant child, comes to him for help, he is obligated to get her to safety. While aging is a problem in the world of mortals, Logan and other mutants seldom have to worry about it because of their regenerative abilities. However, when he begins to feel the effects of the adamantium in his body, he begins preparing for the worst. How does Logan come to terms with his inevitable death throughout the movie?
It is revealed early in the film that both Logan and Professor X are near their deaths. In Logan's case, the adamantium that has been grafted to his body is poisoning him, thus limiting his powers and slowly killing him. In Professor X's case, he is having devastating neurological episodes which, left uncontrolled, could kill hundreds of thousands of people. Logan, at its core, is a movie about two old farts waiting to die. Ultimately, the two die doing what they were meant to do as superheroes: saving poor and at-risk people from the evil forces in the world.
Logan reveals to Laura that he kept a bullet with him at all times. The bullet was made from adamantium, the poison that's inside his claws right now, the poison that's making him die a slow and painful death. He tells Laura that he was planning to kill himself with it but was waiting for the right time. On a darker note, it looked like he didn't have to wait. He dies as a mortal, pierced by a jutting piece of tree bark, and the bullet was used by Laura to kill X-24 (the rabid Wolverine clone). He dies only when he hears that the kids have made it out safely and that there weren't any more imminent threats. He dies in the most gut-wrenching way possible: with a smile on his face (Rengoku from Demon Slayer, anyone?).
He tries to brush Laura off on numerous occasions and get back to his peaceful life near the train station. But, through Laura's perseverance and Logan being a colossal pushover, he gets Laura to the border to meet her friends (the other mutants who were freed from the clinic in Mexico). We get the sense that Logan was desperate to save Laura. She validated him in a way that no one else had before. Even though they've got all sorts of bad guys hunting them down, it's all lost on Logan because he's making sure that Laura is safe. That's his priority. We learn through hints of dialogue that the rest of the mutants have died or are suffering the same fate as him. Through Laura, Logan's trying to live the glory days as Wolverine. And he does. Wonderfully.
Unlike other Marvel movies, Logan doesn't feel like a superhero movie. Even though the main character has claws coming out of his knuckles and the plot centers around the mutant children being hunted down, it still didn't feel like a superhero movie. I saw the characters as they were, past their "superhero-ness," they were given depth, emotion, and connections. Something that I didn't really see in other MCU movies.
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