Logan (2017) ****

I had read that the Wolverine spinoff movies from the X-Men universe, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “The Wolverine” weren't very good, so I haven't seen them. Then “Logan” came along and started getting great reviews. I was pleased at the excuse to watch it, because, really, who doesn't like Wolverine? Turns out the reviews were right. “Logan” is excellent. It's also the most atypical comic book movie I've ever seen.

The story picks up in 2029, a near-future in which mutations have stopped happening, and almost all of the existing mutants have died off. Wolverine, aka Logan (Hugh Jackman), is a physical and mental wreck, arthritic and alcoholic. He survives as a limo driver, and secretly has an aged, demented Professor Xavier hidden away down in Mexico. Logan and an albino, photophobic mutant named Caliban care for Xavier, whose condition is even more heartbreaking than Logan's. Xavier often fails to recognize Logan and is wracked by epileptic seizures during which his psychic powers radiate out uncontrollably. We eventually learn that the first of these seizures killed several civilians and most of the remaining mutants in New York, which is why Logan keeps the Professor out in the middle of nowhere.

It has been years since any mutants were born, or so everyone thinks. Xavier, as befuddled as he is, has made telepathic contact with a child mutant who has a lot in common with Logan. Reluctantly, Logan is drawn into an effort to help this little girl and get her somewhere safe.

“Logan” is the grittiest, saddest, and most real comic-book movie I have ever seen. Logan, the aging warrior, no longer seems the least bit invincible. Based on his fast-healing genetics, Logan seemed potentially immortal, but we see that that is not the case. It took him longer to age, but age he did, and now he faces the fight of his life, with a body that he doesn't recognize. Xavier, of course, is in even worse shape, which puts the remarkable Logan in a very unremarkable position: dealing with his own loss of health while caring for a decrepit parental figure. This is sober stuff for a comic-book movie. It takes the concept of depicting superheroes as real people to a whole new level.

The fight scenes are better, too. Most superhero fights look like carefully choreographed martial-arts katas, and with the outcome never in doubt, the spectacle just becomes numbing. Wolverine is still a badass, but when he fights in “Logan”, it looks real and it looks like he could lose.

“Logan” isn't perfect. The plot is fairly thin, and the story only obliquely explains how the characters wound up in this disorienting, mutant-free world. Still, it's a step or two above the usual comic-book film, and in its depiction of a broken-down warrior, it reminds me of John Wayne's epic final film, "The Shootist".

In depicting a post-X-men future, the film begs the question of whether any of that superhero stuff was worth it, a similar theme to that of 2009's "Watchmen". While the film doesn't tackle this head-on, there is some deep, existentialist food for thought here. The X-men formed, they fought evil, and now they are gone and evil still exists. Perhaps Wolverine, who starts the film wondering what the point is, comes to learn that victory lies not in defeating evil, but in fighting it.

4 stars out of 5