My backlog of movies to watch has grown longer and longer by the month, but I finally got around to watching Logan, the final (?) chapter in the Wolverine saga. Look, I'm a big fan of the MCU, and the DC Universe . . . well, okay, not so much on the DC Universe. But rarely does a film, and never a comic book film, linger and resonate with me so long after watching it. I love the Marvel stories and characters, but they're popcorn flicks: entertaining and smartly-written, but entertainment. I love the Dark Knight Trilogy (the only DC movies I have finished), but they don't move me the way this movie did.
And I think that's because it wasn't a comic book movie. It was, rather, a movie about mending broken relationships, leaving behind ended relationships, and forging new relationships. It was a film about pain, hurt, fear, and longing. It was primarily a movie about family, and the superpowers and mutants really just felt like a side plot, an "Oh yeah, and they're mutants."
*Big old spoiler alert! If you haven't seen Logan, or Infinity War, or, perhaps any other movie (I'm not sure where this is going, so anything could get spoiled!), you might want to stop reading now.*
Maybe it was Patrick Stewart's broken, angry, confused Xavier. Maybe it was the fact that his death was so surprising - even anticlimactic - that it felt so incredibly real. Because death isn't usually neat, and never convenient. Maybe it's the fact that Logan's death was also Hugh Jackman's final moment as Wolverine, a character he spent twenty years developing. Maybe it's because these men spent two decades portraying these characters, and their Swan Song was the best performance - I think - we've ever seen out of either of them (and, yes, I include Captain Picard in that comparison).
It was definitely the girl. This young girl - I think she was eleven, but I'm too lazy to look it up - was so beautiful in her complexity that it easily got lost on me that she was holding her own with both Stewart and Jackman . . . and she did it for over an hour without saying a word. She didn't have to say anything. Her eyes told everything.
And her scream. That primal scream when she saw Xavier's body in the back of the truck . . . it was utterly heartbreaking. Without a single line of dialogue, her scream conveyed the intensity of losing the only person she trusted - losing her kindly old "grandfather" - and being left with this angry, terrifying, estranged father.
I was shocked when Loki and Heimdall were killed. I even teared up when Gamora was killed. But this film has moved me and disturbed me in ways that most movies don't. And I'm not even sure I liked the movie, to be honest.
I can tolerate some language in a film, even really profane language, but ten minutes into this movie and I was sort of wishing they had hired me to edit the dialogue a bit. I can tolerate violence - even graphic violence - to a degree, but by the end of the movie, I no longer wanted to know how many different ways people could be killed by metal claws.
And yet, it sticks. It sticks because it was so very real. It was so very character-driven, so very emotional, and - let's face it - if you've lived for close to two-hundred years, fought in every major war, lost everyone you've ever loved or cared about, you're probably going to pick up some bad language habits. And shoving metal through people's heads will be bloody. And a girl who was made in a test tube, raised as an experiment, trained to be an assassin, and lost her entire family . . . yeah, she's going to have issues. The movie was poignant because it was real.
Except, of course, it wasn't real - it was only a movie. Men don't have psychic powers. Girls don't have claws in their hands. No one has an adamantium-coated skeleton..
Which is what makes this whole thing disturbing. I am moved - to the point of tears and even some mild depression - by a fictional movie with fictional people. Logan isn't real. Xavier isn't real. Laura isn't real. The family dynamics were scripted and sculpted. The blood was fake, the deaths were lies, and yet the film moved not only myself, but so many other people.
My uncle died a few weeks ago and, believe me, it made me sad. Really sad. But not as sad as this film. A friend of mine just lost his brother, and that made me incredibly sad, but not as sad as Laura's loss made me feel. My wife's grandmother died last July, and I regret that we never made it one last time to visit her, but not as much as I regret Xavier's anticlimactic death.
That should terrify me. I think - I hope - it does, or I may not be writing this. Jesus says in Matthew 24 that as the end approaches, "the love of most will grow cold." I've always taken that to mean that non-believers will just get angry. But when we look at the context, it's actually far more disturbing:
"At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved" (24:10-13).
I think - and I suppose it's a bit vague here - but I think Jesus is talking about believers. I think Jesus is talking about people who, when they see the wicked prosper and they see the world's headlong rush into the depths of Hell, simply stop caring. I think He's talking about people who should be preaching the Gospel and loving their neighbors as themselves, but who, instead, simply grow apathetic to the suffering and plight of mankind.
And this brings up an uncomfortable realization: my love might be growing cold. When I care more about fictional characters in a movie than I do my own family. . . .
When I care more about drama on the latest episode of some television show than I do the heartache of my neighbor. . . .
When I'm more excited that they cast some big name in the next Marvel movie than I am the joy of a friend's newborn. . . .
Brothers and sisters, this is unacceptable. We cannot let our love grow cold. We cannot let cynicism and apathy harden our hearts. We cannot let distrust keep us from helping the poor, the widowed, and the orphans. People are dying and going to Hell, and we're crying over a movie.
Maybe it's time to do the hard thing and turn off the television, shut down the computer, and spend some time in prayer and the Scriptures. Maybe it's time to actually be obedient and take opportunities to love our neighbors as we love ourselves - and certainly to love them more than we love a comic book hero.
Logan may have died, but he didn't die for your sins, or mine. Xavier may have been executed, but he wasn't executed for your neighbor's sins. And, at least in the comics, they may come back from time to time, but only one Man had the power to actually resurrect Himself. And He is worthy of far more love than anything else we could ever invent.
