Logan’s Lost Grittiness

Logan, the new X-Men installment, was marketed very well. In one of its trailers, a tired and miserable Wolverine fights to protect a little girl while Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” plays. It was marketed as gritty and dark — the tragedy of a man who can’t die and who’s tired of living. It was sand and dirt and harsh sun, cracked leather and cracked lips.

It was marketed as real.

And it is, up to a point. (If you haven’t seen Logan yet, look away. It’ll be nothing but spoilers from here on out).

The beginning of the film is everything that I wanted. It’s an examination of the old and the tired, of desperate characters just barely holding it together. Professor X is aging and senile. Logan is trying to keep him comfortable as he himself falls apart. Caliban is atoning. Everyone here is living out of a sense of obligation, living only because life demands it.

It’s a sublime embodiment of that Johnny Cash song.

It’s also a fine opening for the introduction of Laura, motivation for our tired characters and a purpose to set these last strands of their lives to. It’s a good premise, and it works well up to a point. Laura’s introduction as a shrieking, violent bundle of rage fits well with the mood. In fact Laura, Xavier, and Logan mesh together well.

Xavier is especially moving — a man who’s lost everything and is now losing his grip on his memories and sense of self, he still finds delight in the simple things like a new hat and a beloved old film.

And in the big things, of course, like the first sign of hope in years.

The nature of hope in despair is one of the film’s nicer touches. When Logan explains to Xavier that the GPS coordinates they’re headed toward mean nothing, Xavier counters that they mean something to Laura, as if that’s enough. It’s reminiscent of Logan’s own plan to buy a boat and live with Xavier at sea, where his essential medicine is bound to be a lot harder to come by than in El Paso. Just like Laura, Logan has his own goal, his own baseless hope. His own vague sense that if only he can get to the next level, things will be better.

The difference, of course, is that Logan’s goal is simply “the ocean.” It’s the epitome of vague. Laura’s goal, on the other hand, is a set of GPS coordinates — it’s clear and precise, and repeated in writing not once but twice. It’s focused and concrete, a way forward. But Logan’s despair is so deep that he can’t see the distinction.

It’s a striking but subtle demonstration of conflicting ways to hope, and it’s the sign of a strong guiding hand behind the script.

But it doesn’t last. At some point the film loses its footing — motivations become muddled, plot points become unexplained, and next moves become transparent. It becomes, in short, a regular old Hollywood blockbuster.

I think the exact moment comes with Xavier’s death, the last instance of surprise, disorientation, and pure, desperate rage. There are a few aftershocks of truth — Logan’s breakdown burying Xavier, the revelation that Laura can talk — but for the most part the last act plays out in a woefully predictable way that feels hastily put together.

The introduction of the rest of the children brings up so many questions that it distracts from the end of the film. How the hell did these kids get this far? The oldest is about 14. Laura’s had superheroes throwing themselves on bullets for her, and she just barely made it. Did they charter a plane? And why do these Mexican children all speak to each other in English, half with American accents?

And maybe most unsettlingly, why are they so happy? We know Laura well by now, and she’s created expectations: she’s half-wild, desperate, full of rage. These kids are… kids. Logan hasn’t found a pack of hunted renegades. He’s found a theater camp.

Plot holes aside, the last 20 minutes of the film are unsurprising, an exercise in waiting for Chekov’s guns to fire. The motivation is tenuous at best — it turns out the Canadian border is actually a legitimate goal, and this team of underground child killers really does respect international asylum laws. (Never mind that their very first interaction involved the crossing of a border, instilling the idea that no matter where Laura and Logan went, they would be followed).

Just before he rushes to help the kids, Logan picks up his Adamantium bullet and his vial of mutant enhancer and, with the anticipation of their use, the drama of the chase is negated. We know things will get bad enough that they’ll have to be used, but not so bad that they’ll have no effect. The rise and fall of action plays out exactly as expected.

And the only possible surprise, Logan’s death, just can’t carry the necessary weight. It’s true that a good amount of emotion comes from Laura, who reveals herself to be, finally, a lost little girl who just wants her daddy.

But Laura doesn’t know that she lives in a franchise. We do. From what I hear, this is supposed to be Hugh Jackman’s last X-Men movie, so maybe Wolverine really is gone. But nothing is set in stone. Maybe Hugh Jackman will decide he wants more money. Maybe Marvel will decide it wants more money and revive him with a different actor. Maybe they’ll split the difference and give him the Grand Moff Tarkin treatment. Wolverine is not an easily killable character, and he could reach up out of that grave with so little prompting.

There’s hardly ever been a character more tenuously dead.

And that’s a tough way to end a film that’s meant to be hard and gritty and realistic. It’s the nature of the beast, to a certain extent — Logan can’t help that its protagonist is effectively immortal and at the head of a franchise. But it could have helped itself a lot by keeping its tone steady. I was sad when Xavier died, because his death came at the end of the part of the film that felt true. It was at once sudden and expected, heartbreaking and fitting.

If they’d managed to keep up that desperation and realness through the end of the film, I just might have felt the same way about Logan.