DVD Review: Logan

Full review on Starburst.

The X-Men film series has become a mess. It has tried to juggle a huge amount of characters, and as well as the resultant continuity clusterfucks, instalments like Apocalypse have ended up as unfocused and dull CGI-heavy smash-ups, big on epic spectacle but low on character stakes.

This year’s Logan attempted to remedy that by focusing on a small number of characters and telling a different kind of story. Tasked with protecting a young girl with powers similar to his own and with the ailing Professor X in tow, the man who was once Wolverine takes a journey across America that uses the visual cues of the modern Western much more than those of the typical superhero movie. In Logan’s worn-down settings, fights are violent and bloody, and heroes need to be tough and brutal rather than stylishly super.

What’s important, though, is that Logan uses its grim aesthetic to serve poignant character stories, the strongest in the entire X-Men franchise. Xavier’s Alzheimer’s is a particularly clever use of the superhero genre to tell a human story, but this is Hugh Jackman’s movie, really, his send-off to the franchise that has defined his career, and his performance here channels every hard-drinking, gruff-talking gunslinger you’ve ever seen. 

Logan, then, is low on epic spectacle but high on character stakes – the opposite of the X-Men franchise at its worst.