Logan (2017) and its Place in the Contemporary Action Film Genre

Logan (2017) is a blockbuster film starring Hugh Jackman, alongside Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, and Patrick Stewart. Logan, which opened in 4,071 theatres, collected $88,411,916 at the box office on its first day and grossed $619,021,436 worldwide during its theatrical run

The final instalment in the Wolverine trilogy, “Logan” follows Hugh Jackman’s iconic character in 2029, as he leads a quiet, retirement-esque life. In a world where mutants are nearly extinct, Logan’s life is turned upside down when he meets Laura, a mutant girl with the same adamantium claws that have plagued Wolverine for his entire life. Forced back into action, Logan must fight to protect Laura from the Reavers; those seeking to eliminate mutants, in an action-packed conclusion to the Wolverine saga.

At 1 hour 55 minutes in the film, we see a scene indicative of the violence and action that is prevalent throughout the movie. Dubbed « Logan’s Run », the scene follows Wolverine and Laura as they sprint through the forest, as bullets and blasts from the Reavers rain down around them. The scene’s breakneck, chaotic pace makes it feel raw and real, while still maintaining an impressive degree of clarity.

In contrast to most superhero movies in mainstream media, Logan is rated R for the darkness of the violence that occurs throughout the film. The sequence’s level of brutality is harrowing; at one point, Wolverine even impales one of the reavers on a tree, and we witness other shooters being shot and killed by massive, war-style machine guns. We see explosions and spectacle-based violence as well that do little to advance the plot but excite audiences and elicit reactions. The violence in the film does not discriminate by age, either. Moments prior to the reaver’s tree-impalement, a young boy sporting a backpack is shot to the ground, a gun then pressed to his head in hopes that he will respond to questioning. In this particular sequence of the film, there are far more men than women. In fact, Laura is the sole female in the scene. Undoubtedly, this was done on purpose to further isolate Laura, the Wolverine’s child, from the outside world. In addition to her mutant traits and the blades she has between her knuckles, she is ostracised due to her age as a young child and her gender. Seeing Laura as a tiny girl, wearing purple and pink, in the wild amid this violence is a stark contrast that evokes an emotional response in the audience.

The camera work in the scene often transitions between shaky and personal, and smooth and cinematic. The scene uses the shaking camera technique when the filmmakers want to enhance the viewer’s experience of the violence to make them feel like they’re right there alongside Wolverine as he fights off the Reavers. While using the smooth and cinematic camera work style when things are revealed – like when the boy is shot down to the ground, we see the camera smoothly and steadily rise to showcase who shot him. The shaky camera effect can make the camera seem invisible and create a real world atmosphere, consequently making the viewers unaware or oblivious to the editing and cuts that take place throughout the scene, because you are so immersed in feeling like you are there with the characters in the forest. However when you juxtapose that style with the use of smooth panning and steady camera work, the cut can be jarring and not as seamless. The viewer is also made aware of the editing and cutting of the scene because of the changes in who is at the forefront of the scene; the forest scene cuts from Logan’s struggles to Laura’s and their battles to fight off the Reavers in the forest.

The action film genre relies heavily on spectacle. While scenes featuring explosions, bullets, and “the chase” like the ones in this sequence from “Logan” are popular in the film genre and entertaining for fans, they also invite criticism and debate for prioritizing spectacle above narrative and storytelling. “We find that this contract between spectacle and narrative has to some degree expired when we look at the contemporary action film” (Soberon)

While age is a major element in Logan (2017), the experience of aging is tough to convey through action films. Hugh Jackman was 57 years old at the time of production, yet he sports a six pack and the endurance of a high performance athlete, making him seem much younger on screen than his character is meant to be. Incorporating aging into action films can be difficult to do well. The general audience of the action genre wants to watch a film with a hero that could take down swarms of armies, gunmen, and supervillains – not an old man who throws his hip out every few minutes. “Aged men are not normatively considered to fit the requirements of hegemonic masculinity and physical prowess commonly expected from the action hero”(Soberon). The expectations of action heroes might make it difficult to depict diversity, representation, and relatability in the genre. Undoubtedly, age diversity and representation are important inclusions of cinema, and portraying the older population in action films can be motivating; nonetheless, action heroes frequently develop inaccurate expectations and norms about aging, which can have a negative impact on viewers’ self-image.

Bibliography
Higgins, Scott. 2008. “Suspenseful Situations: Melodramatic Narrative and the Contemporary Action Film.” Cinema Journal 47 (2): 74–96.

IMDb.com. (n.d.). Logan. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3315342/trivia/?ref_=tt_ov_ql_3

“Logan.” Box Office Mojo. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3229320705/.

Soberon, Lennart. “The Ultimate Ride: A Comparative Narrative Analysis of Action Sequences in 1980s and Contemporary Hollywood Action Cinema.” Journal of Film and Video 73, no. 1 (2021): 18-32. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/781773.

Soberon, Lennart. “TOO OLD FOR THIS SH*T: Aged Action Heroes, Affect, and ‘the Economy of Exertion.’” Journal of Popular Film & Television 49, no. 3 (July 1, 2021): 155–67. doi:10.1080/01956051.2021.1957336.