Well fuck me dead, that was intense.

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting from Logan, now that I’ve seen it. Less, maybe. I think I was expecting less. Yeah, that sounds right. I mean, yeah, I thought this was gonna be bloodier than any of the Wolverine’s previous appearances on the big or small screen, but I wasn’t expecting quite so many limbs to go flying or quite so many people to get stabbed in the head. Certainly wasn’t expecting anyone to get shot with a harpoon gun.

I already knew the premise as well: Logan’s healing abilities are starting to fade. Injuries aren’t going away and his body is finally wearing out. He and Professor Xavier are the last members of the X-Men left. Bad shit, years of pain and trauma have left emotional scars if not actual ones. But mate, I wasn’t expecting the simple exhaustion that Logan seems to be feeling, the intense self-loathing and depression, the care he feels for the last person (and then people) he has left in the world.

There’s a compelling quietness to the film. Yes, the action is big and vicious and loud, but in between the violence is an outside view of normalcy. Laura, the young girl who shares Logan’s abilities and rage, is experiencing the world for the first time and she does so for most of the film utterly silent. Daphne Keen, the actress playing her, is spectacular, wearing a blank face devoid of expression (except when she’s gutting someone, of course) as she takes in the brave new sights. As a result every raised eyebrow or slightly wider-eyed stare stands out, becomes a vital clue in understanding her character’s development. Hugh Jackman is spectacular, old and tired and dying and drinking far too much. He looks old and tired and dying and like he drinks far too much, limping about in a bloody suit, hunched over and grey. He’s a man trying to isolate himself as much as possible from a world he very obviously no longer considers worth saving, waiting to die.

They’re two sides to the same coin. Or the same side to two different coins. One has seen too much of the world, the other not nearly enough. One is trying to enter the world and the other is trying to leave it. And then there’s Charles Xavier, wonderfully played by Sir Patrick Stewart, even older than Logan, his brain classified as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, haunted by events he cannot remember and Logan refuses to tell him about, but still so hopeful that Logan and Laura can find safety and family. He’s disappointed with Logan, and he’s disappointed with himself for not being able to help him. He sees in Laura that second chance, a final chance to help one Wolverine and perhaps prevent a second Wolverine from ever following that dark, bitter path.

Let’s be honest, I use the word deconstruction far too often when talking about films I like. I enjoy the word. More importantly I love tropes and archetypes, and enjoy any work of fiction that successfully pulls them apart and takes a deeper look. At first I thought that Logan was a deconstruction of the character. After all, throughout the X-Men movies it’s not the healing factor or the metal bones or the fucking romantic guilt-trips that define how his character acts (even my mum relieved there wasn’t any Jean Grey-stabbing nightmares like in every other fucking Wolverine film). No, what defined Logan was his constant primal rage, barely kept under control until it was needed and released. And here we see the results of a lifetime of rage and violence, how tired being angry all the time leaves you, and it ain’t pretty.

But he needs the rage, the anger, the violence. It’s as much part of him as his metal bones and claws, maybe in his genes. He needs it to fight and ultimately he needs it to win. He needs it to give Laura a chance to not need it herself. To be able to find peace and safety. Less a deconstruction, more of a confession and a trip through purgatory. This is who Logan is, this is the punishment for his sins, this is who Laura doesn’t have to be.

This isn’t the first time someone’s made a movie about a superhero worn down by battles and lost. The Dark Knight Rises tried it, Watchmen tried it, fucking The Wolverine tried it. Logan though, I think, is the first one to get right. A lifetime of rage is exhausting, but sometimes a person can’t go against their nature.