'Logan' Plays Better Outside the Theater

Its a lot easier to admire Logan than to enjoy it.

Having played the surly Marvel mutant Wolverine for 17 years, Hugh Jackman clearly wants to make his final turn as the character count. He and director-co-writer James Mangold also want to make a superhero movie that doesnt play like one. As a result, its a film thats a lot more rewarding to mull over than it is to watch.

From the beginning, Mangold throws expectations out the window. For one thing, his mutants may be powerful, but they are as vulnerable to Father Time like the rest of humanity. Logan a.k.a. Wolverine (Jackman) is living under an assumed name and eking out a meager living as a limo driver.

Now that its the year 2029, his ability to heal instantaneously has weakened. Heavy drinking doesnt seem to help. While he may be hundreds of years old already, a series of maladies (including a cough that would kill Doc Holliday) have rendered him a mere fugitive.

Not only is Logan living incognito, but hes hiding former mutant activist Prof. Charles Xavier (Sir Patrick Stewart), who is also wanted by the authorities, who dont like mutants they cant control. Professor X still has his psychic gifts, but in his 90s, he now has a degenerative brain disease. If he skips his seizure medicines, everyone near him gets debilitating headaches because his ability to enter others minds.

Trying to help both men stay alive is an albino mutant named Caliban (Stephen Merchant), who is unable to withstand the slightest exposure to sunlight, but he can track other mutants easily. The three cant stay holed up near the Mexican border long because Logan has reluctantly taken on a client with odd demands.

A Mexican nurse named Gabriela (Elizabeth Rodriguez) is willing to play five figures for Logan to take her and quiet uncommunicative girl called Laura (Dafne Keen) all the way to North Dakota. The trip sounds suspicious, but Logan and his crew need the cash. The trip sounds even fishier because an aggressive fellow named Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) seems unusually eager to know about Logans fare.

Logan might prefer to simply be left alone, but hes irked that someone seems intent on hurting a child. He might not need to worry about Laura. He and Professor X quickly learn that she is, in the words of Sylvester the Cat, as helpless as a porcupine in a nudist colony.

Laura is quick and nimble and easily takes out assailants four times her size. She bounces back from injuries in an instant and has retractable claws made of the nearly indestructible medal adamantium.

Of course, shes Logans long lost daughter and has all of her biological dads hot temper to go with the powers. As much as hed like to deny it, Lauras gifts and his own amnesia make plausible deniability impossible.

While there are several frenzied battles that elegantly sidestep the laws of physics, Logan is more of a film noir than a typical Marvel movie. While Mangold and co-writer Scott Frank (Out of Sight, The Lookout) come up with plenty of cliffhangers, they seem more interested in making the mutants seem human than superpowered.

Keens taciturn performance is astonishingly expressive and more than a little scary. She never slips into hey, look! Im cute! poses and holds her own against Jackman and Stewart who are in peak form.

Stewart has a knack for playing someone who is physically fragile but vibrant inside and effortlessly switches from groggy to lucid. Having played several benign authority figures like his captain from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Its inherently heartbreaking seeing him struggle to maintain his once commanding bearing.

Jackman took a pay cut to play Logan his way, and its a good thing Mangold and the studio have let him. No, his now scruffy looks arent an excuse to let himself get out of a workout. Jackman also plays an evil clone of Logan who has all of the mutants peak abilities and none of the real Wolverines new infirmities. With people to protect, Logan also has to put aside his natural grumpiness because it doesnt keep Laura, Caliban or Professor X safe. As a result, the super-anti-hero has never been more compelling.

In an interview that came out around the time of his second turn as Wolverine, Jackman said he was amused that Logan could stab people repeatedly in the X-Men movies and never hit a vein. Its almost as if drawing his claws simply caused bad guys to fall by osmosis.

Logan, on the other hand, is far grittier than its predecessors, which makes it more in line with the current crop of comic books but might through audiences who didnt realize that Deadpool wasnt intended for preschoolers. The violence in Logan has consequences, and it makes the film seem more consequential as well.

Having seen the movie nearly two weeks ago, it plays better in my head than it did while it was on the screen. Mind you, Mangold makes fine use of the I-Max format. Nonetheless, when I left the theater, I thought Logan was unusually somber, but now it gives me hope that stories involving people who can do things that are biologically impossible can actually say something about those of us who are stuck with reality.

Logan: 8/10

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Richard E. Grant, Eriq La Salle, Elise NealDirector: James MangoldRating: Rated R for strong brutal violence and language throughout, and for brief nudityRunning Time: 137 minutes