the good (X2, Days of Future Past, a cameo in X-Men: First Class)
the 'meh' (The Wolverine)
the bad (X-Men: Apocalypse)
the ugly (X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Last Stand)
We also bid farewell to Harry Dean Stanton, one of the greatest character actors ever, in September last year at the age of 91. One of the most consistent staples of cinema over the past several decades, who began his career with bit parts in Oscar-friendly films like In the Heat of the Night and Cool Hand Luke, moving onto slightly more substantial, though still relatively minor, supporting roles in stuff like Straight Time, to his iconic run in the 1980s where he would steal the show in everything from loopy cult classics-to-be like Repo Man to a starring role in the fantastic Paris, Texas.
What both films do so beautifully is create a fitting love letter or farewell, one to the character and its portrayal, and another to the character actor. In Logan's case it is director James Mangold crafting a neo-western around the character of Wolverine, and applying this very particular type of vibe to emphasize the weary, downtrodden nature of this desolate individual, a man done with life who can't die, in a bleak future where majority of the mutants have been killed off, and he's forced to hole up with the somewhat useless Caliban (Stephen Merchant) and his mentor Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) who's suffering from a sort of dementia that renders his psychic powers extremely dangerous and uncontrollable.
Logan, too, has lived a long life, and Hugh Jackman's physical portrayal of the character is quite marvelous. Just the way he shows how tough it is for him to heal his wounds, pushing his claws in, is outstanding in showing just how much the years have worn out his body and mind, and forced into a pattern where all he can do is care for the weakened professor and try to forget the somewhat happier days of the past. In the film, Logan is very much the old gunslinger of the Wild West whose best days are behind him, and who finds no pleasure in thinking back to the glory days, as well as contemplating thoughts of suicide which could only be attained by means of a single adamantium bullet. With Stanton's Lucky, the realization of mortality comes about when he collapses in his home one day. He treats it as no big deal, and indeed his doctor doesn't seem to think it's anything serious in terms of his health, but neither can he truly explain what's happening to Lucky except that he's, well, getting old. The frustrations in Lucky come not from a grief over what is happening to him, but rather not knowing what exactly is happening to him, or whether anything is happening to him at all. Whether he is simply existing, and will one day cease to exist.
Logan soon encounters a young girl, Laura (Dafne Keen), who at first just seems to be an exceptionally quiet orphan, but soon reveals herself to be a very deadly sort of 'clone' of Logan with similar adamantium claws, and a penchant for killing when necessary. After an utterly fantastic action sequence, where the two combine forces to protect Charles and escape from the clutches of the Revers, a bunch of nasty sorts sent to track her down for the facility she was housed in, the film turns into something of a road trip. The action sequences continue, of course, including a particularly great one in a hotel where Logan has to fight both henchman and Charles' uncontrollable psychic powers. Well it is here that Jackman's performance becomes a beautifully calculated bit of interactive work, where he brings out the rich history of Logan and Charles' relationship where the latter gradually finds inspiration in this new mutant, and encouraging Logan to take on a mentor, even fatherly role, to Laura, and Logan's gradually crumbling stoicism. The cynicism is still intact of course, in the scenes where he irritably tells his two travelling companions off, but in scenes like a dinnertable conversation with strangers where they ruminate over the past, this sense of a true friendship is beautifully drawn upon. With Dafne Keen, Jackman also finds something rather special in the gradualt development of his brutish insensitivity to her, to something of a genuine care and warmth that was always there, but which he tried to hide because those he cares about always get hurt.
Stanton, too, finds such a richness in his various interactions with the film's townsfolk, whether it's the more casual offhand conversations with the bartender or the bar owner, to his more deep yet never unpretentious philosophical musings about some higher ideas, his indifferent wisecracks to the doctor, to a truly haunting scene where one of the waitresses at the cafe comes to visit him at his home, where he briefly yet so hauntingly shows a real fear at life at some point ending, and him simply being gone from the earth. The interactions with his real-life good friend David Lynch, too, is remarkable, as Lucky's genially cranky nature plays off so well against his friend Howard's (Lynch) kooky and good-natured love for his tortoise. Lucky is a bit of a mess, not in a bad way, but simply a man just trying to get his bearings on what life, death, and the very nature of existence means, and means to him specifically. This frustration is released in scenes where he angrily confronts a lawyer seemingly trying to lynch off his friend (from Lucky's point of view), and the outburst of anger and sadness in this moment is rather amazing, as he finds a sadness in the plight of Howard's missing tortoise but an indignant, somewhat hilarious, anger at those trying to 'profit' off it.
Things don't go all that smoothly for our characters as the film's pave their way to their conclusions, though. In Logan's case, some truly tragic events occur in the prelude to the third act, which lead to some absolutely phenomenal acting by Jackman in the scenes where he must handle a death and its fallout, as we get such a mesmerizing portrait of a man at the end of all things, unable to handle or contain his grief and finding it possible to express himself. With Laura, he expresses the sort of love one would expect from a father figure, but with the right amount of pain and anger at not her, but himself, in refusing to join her on her trip to escape across the border with her clone friends. The heartbreaking, haunting portrayal of Logan's grief in these scenes thus amplifies the subsequent action sequences all the more. These actually aren't the most imagintively staged action sequences ever, but they are some of the most memorable through Jackman's physical portrayal of the emotional and physical traumas he undergoes in making this final run, and clashing against a 'younger' version of himself in a battle to the bitter end.
