By Dru Barcelo
After playing the claw-slashing, blood drawing Wolverine for nine brutal films, Hugh Jackman’s last ride as the character is a depressing one in Logan. Graying, aging, drinking, and riddled with suicidal thoughts, Logan’s main goal is to stay off the grid, wanting nothing to do with his former self.
The rage-filled, self-healing, impenetrable savage we know as Wolverine is introduced in the movie staggering out of his car. Throughout the entire movie, he maintains a limp that reveals his weakness.
A sensation of helplessness and struggle is strongly implemented as every bullet wound brings him closer to death, demonstrating his diminishing healing powers and a powerlessness that Logan has never shown in any of his previous movies.
Death has never been one of Logan’s opponents, it has always been a fail safe in all his battles. The healing factor, now slowed, is literally eating away at him as the metal inside his body slowly poisons him.
The first taste we get at how much Logan truly has suffered is a gruesome scene showing his body slowly forcing the bullets from under his skin, leaving open wounds.
Unable to unsheath the claws that make him a formidable opponent, with one getting stuck and having to be pulled out, Logan struggles to fend off enemies that he would normally slaughter with ease as a crippled healing factor leaves him with oozing open wounds, limping from place to place, struggling to continue fighting as he aims to protect all that he has left.
However, this doesn’t stop him from relentlessly slaughtering and beheading those who oppose him. This side of Logan is often triggered by an emotional attack, sending more of a defensive than offensive message to the audience. Logan is no longer out to kill, he is out to defend what he cares about.
Then there’s the father-daughter dynamic between Logan and Laura that shows his soft side. The physically broken and now emotionally shattered Logan is forced to deal with a child who resembles much of him, a theme that is not common to him— he makes rash decisions in order to protect her, coming off as more of a superhero than the anti-hero that fans are accustomed to.
With Logan now living in hiding, retreating beyond the Mexican border to an enclosed private property, the scene contrasts that of the notorious X-Men Mansion that he grew up in and houses dozens of other mutants.
