Why Logan might become the first superhero movie to get Best Picture nod at the Oscars

There are some franchises that refuse to go away. The Fast and Furious and Pirates of the Caribbean seem to be never-ending but X-Men, the movie that spearheaded the era of ensemble superhero movies is coming to an end. Of course, this is not the end of the X-Men, this is simply the end of Wolverine. Now reader be warned, the following article contains some spoilers and the author gets misty-eyed at times. Here are five reasons why Logan is the most heart-wrenching and tragic superhero movie.

Logan and Charles Xavier’s relationship

Pic Source: X-Men films

The mentor-student relationship is the hallmark of the superhero movie and Xavier and Wolverine have a rather complicated one. For starters, Logan is sixty years older than Charles but Xavier has spent his life trying to help Wolverine find a higher cause. After helping young mutants throughout his life, Xavier is almost bed-ridden, suffering a degenerative brain disease that makes him a danger to all those around him. Logan is trying to make ends meet as a chauffeur and care for Xavier along with Caliban and its Logan as the caregiver that really shows how far Wolverine has come. A man who had no one now has to care for Charles even as they ponder over all the damage they’ve done.

Till the very end, Xavier continues to urge Logan to be a better man and take care of Laura. It’s a touching relationship, and only Jackman and Patrick Stewart’s thespian super-skills allows us to start feeling so deeply for both these characters. 

The R-rated carnage

Deadpool’s success showed that the world was ready for an R-rated movie, beyond the fluff that we see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where the only ones being hurt are denizens of an unfeeling face-less army of aliens or robots, and the on-screen carnage shows just how messy things can get. In the earlier X-men movies, when Wolverine’s claws impaled someone, there was barely any blood but this time there’s a blood-fest which reaches almost Tarantino levels. There’s also a very explicit Western feel to the movie, and the homage is clear as Xavier explains Shane’s plot to Laura.

Laura – the daughter Logan never had

Pic Source: X-Men films

Throughout his near two-century existence, Wolverine has eschewed relationships and responsibilities of any kind, given that whenever he likes or loves someone they tend to meet a tragic demise. By 2029, he has almost given up on meaningful incident, hoping to squirrel away enough money to take Xavier to a safe place. That’s when he runs into Laura, a near-perfect clone who is technically his daughter. Even though Logan looks like he’d rather do anything else than looking after her, he is forced to when he finds about Laura’s childhood - which was even more hellish than his own. While Logan knew love as a kid, and even had a half-brother in Sabretooth, the only ones who cared about Laura were children who were grown in a lab.  

Their filial relationship forms the basis for Wolverine’s redemption as he fights with his might for the closest thing he will have to a daughter.

It eschews all popular superhero tropes

via GIPHY

Another thing the movie does brilliantly is to avoid all the popular tropes of superhero flicks of the last decade, much like Deadpool. There’s no face-less army of aliens or robots, no ensemble cast with each character getting 2 minutes of screen time, the kind of juggling act that drove former Avengers director Joss Whedon insane. This is a hit-you-in-the-gut Western/revenge flick masquerading as a superhero movie. There's almost no levity and you could cut the tension with Logan's claws. This is a movie made for proper fans, those that have followed the journey even the ones disappointed by travesties that were X-Men: The Last Stand.

A fitting end to Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of Wolverine 

Pic Source: X-Men films

No one knew how Hugh Jackman would change not just his own destiny by playing Wolverine in X-Men, which would catapult him into the A-lister bracket , but also show the world that superhero movies didn’t have to be campy or bad, and people were interested in heroes other than Batman or Superman. What’s ironic is that Dougray Scott was supposed to play Wolverine, but his schedule for Mission Impossible 2 went too long and we ended up with a hitherto unknown actor from Australia.  Around eight years later, Robert Downey Jr portrayed Tony Stark in the first Iron Man movie, as Marvel stole some of Fox’s thunder by creating a bigger cinematic universe but that doesn’t take away the fact that X-Men was the first superhero ensemble.

For seventeen years, Wolverine has held together the X-Men franchise, even at its lowest moments like The Last Stand. He has gone back in time to fix the timeline, to undo his wrongs, and it seems almost unimaginable that we won’t see him pull out those claws again. Or chew on a cigar or drink like there’s no tomorrow. In a world of mutants with abilities far more powerful than his own, Logan has survived. The series looked dead and buried after The Last Stand, but a new generation of talented thespians including James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence turned up in X-Men: First Class to save the franchise.

As far as tying up loose ends go, Logan is the movie that every Wolverine and X-Men fan had been waiting for, the no-holds-barred-punch-in-the-gut superhero movie that we deserve. When I went to the theatre, I went with the a huge burden of expectation but coming away, I know why some claim that Logan might fetch superhero movies it's first Best Picture nomination.  Heath Ledger's immortal portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight earned him a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Maybe Hugh Jackman and Logan could go one step further.