Comment on Superb ‘Logan’ unleashes fury on comic book movie norms

“Logan” takes its indestructible metal claws to comic book movie norms and destroys them, and it’s a wonderful thing. The new Wolverine film exists in an established universe, but it takes a massive tone shift from the relatively bloodless earlier X-Men films, going berserk in its own moody and ultra-violent direction. The success of the equally brazen 2016 hit “Deadpool,” and the quality of this adventure, bodes well for the artistic future of comic book films. The movie imagines the hero in a bleak future, his powers waning, his body poisoned, and most of his mutant brethren either missing or dead. The supporting characters include good people who die without honor or redemption, and (in a brilliant move by director and co-writer James Mangold) real world X-Men comic books, scoffed at by Logan as mostly fiction. Jackman, who reportedly took a pay cut to ensure the movie’s R rating, walks with a limp and successfully conveys bigger battles going on inside his indestructible skull. [...] “Logan” reaches action movie critical mass with the arrival of Kinney, who has the mute steeliness of Newt from “Aliens” (still the high water mark for bada— cinematic 9-year-olds) plus the fighting prowess of an in-his-prime Wolverine. Actress Dafne Keen is solid in the role, but the character’s success is a group effort, aided by the director, choreographer, stunt doubles and visual effects professionals who keep her action scenes close to seamless. If you’re in the rocket that escapes the Earth’s gravity for the first or second time, do you bother complaining about the astronaut food on the way back?