Children of X Men - a fitting finale for The Wolverine

Rating: 9/10 (27 March 2017)

When you have seen the world imperilled by blue lasers shooting into the sky for the millionth time and motley crews of superheroes destroy as much of the city as they save, we finally get a film that looks at what the humanity of being a superhero feels like. In so doing, James Mangold has created a masterpiece. "Logan" is the third film in the Wolverine trilogy but depending on the count, the 10th film that Wolverine has appeared in the X Men universe.In saying that, this film gains all the history and the depth that the viewer feels in seeing an actor like Hugh Jackman playing the same character for 17 years. This is important. When the film scales down to a relatively small gritty story one of the reasons it can operate so lean is that a lot of the hard exposition has already been done. It allows the film to focus on story and character and to do so beautifully. The setup is that it is the year 2029 and Logan is succumbing to years of adamantium poisoning. Despite his healing factor, he is slowly succumbing to the effects. Holed up with Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Caliban (Stephen Merchant) they try to make ends meet and prevent Professor X's telepathic power ravaging the world as he slips into dementia. We also realise that it has been 25 years since the last mutant was born. As a species they are facing extinction. Logan is called upon to protect some children who were genetically altered to create a new form of X Men. However, they were an interim step to a wholly born lab creation, the X 24. One of these children needs protection and it soon becomes apparent that Laura (Dafne Keen) has a much more personal connection then first thought. James Mangold co-writes and directs and if you know Mangold's filmography the difference between the works he has written and the ones he just directs is light and day (I nearly wrote Knight and Day, one of his poor directing efforts). Mangold scales down the action but ups the reality - for the first time you see what those claws on a superhuman fighting machine would actually do to a human body. Mangold has taken direct inspiration from westerns, in fact there is a whole in film homage to "Shane", and that is the boldness of this film. It smashes the genre because it tells a story which could be told in a million ways but with superheroes, thus avoiding many of the usual clichés. If anything, it is when it falls back on them that the film missteps, such as the second act event when they take refuge at a ranch. The action which follows is not as resonant because we have not had time to connect with these characters. Jackman was born to play Logan/The Wolverine and being brave enough to show his degradation and every wrinkle just adds to it. Stewart is brilliant as Professor X and if this was November, it would not be too much hyperbole to think Academy Award. Caliban is a character I have seen a few incarnations but Merchant makes him his own and steals every scene he is in. But, ultimately the real star is Dafne Keen as Laura/X 23 who is amazing as li'l Wolverine. The attitude and physicality she exhibits is exhilarating. I only hope they make a sequel and allow her to bridge this to a more mature career. There is a resonance in this film that is beyond X Men. A film set in 2029 which opens on boorish Americans heckling Mexicans as they try to cross the US border and The Wall that Trump finally built, sets up a feeling of despair beyond the X Men dying off, like the great westerns it marks that the US is also withering away. It is why it is no fluke, that the next generation of superheroes are all born of Mexican mothers. Mangold is making a statement of what happens to cultures who don't embrace change. The closest analogue is the great Eastwood western "Unforgiven" in which at some point all the violence must present a price but I also loved the echoes of Children of Men. Great and interesting films often have lots of mothers and that is the case here. It is no exaggeration to say that this is not only the best X Men film ever but arguably competing with "The Dark Knight" for greatest superhero film of all time.