As is the case with any genre, there exists a certain few motion pictures that have risen above the rest to be true achievements in that particular niche. When it comes to superhero movies, specifically, I believe that upper echelon includes The Dark Knight Trilogy, Iron Man and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with 2017 adding two more to the club in the form of Wonder Woman and Logan. And even if you disagree with a few of those to be mentioned, there’s no denying that we’ve been granted an embarrassment of riches.
While there’s much praise to be showered upon Logan, the topic of our current discussion, one quality in particular that made it so memorable was that it was Hugh Jackman’s final tour as Wolverine. Having portrayed the icon in a variety of movies since his series debut in 2000’s X-Men, it’s quite understandable that he experienced a storm of emotion when deciding to hang it up. In fact, he touched on that very subject in a recent chat with Cinema Blend:
“The moment I had the thought, I was super charged, super excited, absolutely sure I wouldn’t play it again and very nervous, because it’s 17 years.”
If anyone deserves a wholehearted “true dat,” it’s most certainly a guy who’s played a character on a recurring basis for a 17-year period. In fact, I’m probably not the only one to have seen countless memes pointing out just that in the past year, with many fans having become attached to the only man to play said mutant on the big screen thus far.
But as I said earlier, Logan wasn’t just a good superhero movie, it was a great film. According to Jackman himself, that’s what he and director James Mangold were aiming for, as he had this to say when appearing on Variety‘s Actors on Actors:
“I went home and I said to Deb on my way home in a cab, I said, ‘This is the last one.’ She goes, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I just know this is the last one.’ And I woke up the next morning with this very strong idea, which Jim Mangold and I had been working on, of treating it not like a comic book movie in any way. Treating him not like a superhero, but as a human being who’s lived a life of violence. And let’s make a movie about the ramifications of violence.”
So, while we savor all that was Logan for the immediate future, we can wish only the best to Mr. Jackman and whomever’s the next actor to inhabit the role of Wolverine. The internet has their picks, sure, but only time will really tell who Disney chooses.
