Jul 19, 2020

Logan

Saw Logan, another episode from the extended Marvel universe. I generally don't like those Marvel universe films because while they are definitely not bad movies, they're very samey, not very surprising, and generally sort of upbeat and hurried and bland. Logan however is a very dismal film. Far from being a power fantasy, it confronts death and aging. Professor X, once gliding along in a metal throne, is now slipping into senility, becoming cantankerous and given to seizures which paralyze everyone around him.

Logan (the main character) must try to save the last few remaining mutants after mutant-ism has been eradicated from society at large. He must ferry a young, Spanish-speaking girl to the Canadian boarder, to get her out of danger. This film was released in March of 2017, when the US was just starting to see what Trump's America looked like. The Muslim ban and the Women's marches had just happened and everyone was arguing (in varying degrees of good faith) if things really were as bad as they looked. The mutants in this film can easily be seen as analogous to your choice of minority - Muslim, LGBT, immigrant. The idea of a balding, grim-faced man trying to eradicate these undesirables was uncomfortably close to reality. I recall this film generating some controversy when it arrived and this is why.

I generally liked the film. I feel it didn't fully overcome the bias against Marvel that I have, but it was timely and less obsessed with power fantasies than the other films (although, there is a mandatory magic-power-showdown at the end which is fairly satisfying.) I was not tremendously moved by the film, but I liked it.

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