Logan is the first super-hero/comic book blockbuster of 2017 and boy does it set a high bar for the rest of the movies coming this year!
The latest entry in the X-Men series, Logan is Hugh Jackman’s swan song as Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine, the character he has played in nine films, starting with the first X-Men movie in 2000. The film also makes the last appearance of Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier (Professor X), the founder and leader of the X-Men.
In my not so humble opinion (along with those of many fans) Stewart’s Professor X and Jackman’s Wolverine are the heart of the X-Men films. The first X-Men movie was released in 200o, and represents the birth of the modern supper-hero film. Since 200o, there have been 13 X-Men films, with various casts and varying quality. One thing that all of the movies have in common is a political theme.
The political themes of X-Men stem from the comic on which it is based. X-Men was one of the first comics to use the super-hero story as a vehicle to explore political and social themes. Years before Civil War, the Watchmen and other politically-themed comics (which later become politically-themed movies) X-Men was examining the question of how society and the government would react to the presence of human begins with super powers, and telling stories that reflected “real world” concerns about the role of fear and prejudice in public policy.
One of the big villains of the first movie was a Senator seeking government action to stamp out the mutants, and a vaccine to “cure” mutants was a major plot point of the third movie. The theme of seeking a “cure” for initiation was also a theme of 2013’s Days of Future Past, while 2001’s “reboot” X-Men First Class was set against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Logan is the best of the series. The film takes place in 2029, 25 years after the birth of the last mutant. Logan has given up the super-hero business to work as a driver for an Uber-like business in Texas.
Logan lives in Mexico (we see him crossing the border and yes, there is a wall) where he is held up with Professor X, who is suffering from a degenerative brain disease which can cause massive tremors.
