Following up on Wednesday’s release of the new Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 teaser trailer, the next superhero film on the movie calendar also provided fans with a first look at what’s to come. The first trailer for Logan, the third film featuring Wolverine from the X-Men, was posted online Thursday morning. And it gives off a whole different vibe from the humorous, fun preview we saw from Marvel’s galactic outlaws one day earlier.
From its initial stages of development, the third standalone Wolverine film was viewed as the final adventure for the character. At the very least, it will almost certainly be the last time Jackman portrays the character on screen. (Will Fox decide to reboot with a younger actor, as producers have with the other X-Men characters such as Mystique, Magneto, Professor X, Cyclops and Jean Grey? That remains to be seen, though Wolverine’s popularity seems to make such a direction inevitable.)
Logan takes place approximately 10 years from now with the badass mutant broken down and battered. His mutant ability to heal his wounds has diminished, leaving Wolverine scarred and in constant pain. He’s gone into seclusion, but as often happens with stories like this, something happens to bring him out of his self-imposed exile. Take a look at the trailer:
The use of Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” in the trailer is an entirely appropriate choice, given the bleak, broken setting of the story. Many of the photos director James Mangold has released on social media echo the solemn, mournful tone of the music videos Cash filmed late in his career. The video for “Hurt,” directed by Mark Romanek, was sad and powerful in its imagery, showing a much different Cash than fans were familiar with, one who was facing the end of his days.
Mangold and Jackman have adopted a similar tone and worldview for this final Wolverine story, inspired by the “Old Man Logan” storyline, as demonstrated by the poignant black-and-white photos of various characters and settings from the film. The image of Logan, posted online Wednesday, looks anything but heroic and is notable for the visible scars on the character’s face.
That certainly applies to this trailer as well, with Logan’s hands shaking in pain, bleeding wounds that don’t heal as quickly as they used to, and a body ravaged by scars from all of the battles he’s been in over a long life that lasted through multiple decades due to his mutant power to recover. The X-Men and nearly all mutants are gone. It’s essentially the superhero movie version of what we saw from Johnny Cash in that “Hurt” video.
(Patrick Stewart’s Professor Xavier doesn’t appear to be in good health either, aged and feeble, perhaps in need of constant caretaking from Logan.)
But the trailer also makes it apparent that this movie won’t be a sad slog all the way through. There is going to be some action, with Wolverine unsheathing those famous metal claws and wreaking havoc on everyone who dares try to make his life difficult. Chief among those adversaries is Pierce (played by Boyd Holbrook, Narcos), who shows that he’s more than human himself with that robotic right hand.
Judging from the trailer, Pierce and his group of contract soldiers are tasked with retrieving the young woman whom Xavier says needs their help. (Also part of the group is Stephen Merchant’s Caliban, who is seen very briefly in the trailer with his face covered up by a scarf. You can get a better look at him in a photo from Mangold.)
According to several rumors, that girl is a clone of Wolverine, who has similar healing abilities and her own lethal set of claws. (The clone was likely created from the blood retrieved from Alkali Lake and the Weapon X program by the Essex Corp, as seen in the post-credits scene for X-Men: Apocalypse.) Chances are that Wolverine won’t be the only person slicing up bad guys with his claws in this story. And maybe, just maybe, this iconic character will get the lean, mean film that he deserves after two previous missteps.
Logan will be released in theaters on March 3, 2017.
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