Batman Begins And The Dark Knight Genre Analysis

The newest addition to the Marvel cinematic universe, Logan, may be the finest and most endearing ‘superhero’ film of the last 20 years. It is clearly the most violent film of its type—so violent it’s anti-violent—but like the best of the genre (Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are obvious examples) it is dripping with philosophy—X-23’s backstory is a textbook in bioethics, while Logan’s initial treatment of her, and Xavier’s arguments in favor of protecting her, gives us a resounding discourse in situational and value ethics. The entire plot of the film is a dissertation in political philosophy, and Logan’s deontological requirements to right action, which he ardently tries to circumvent before finally giving in, very much resemble
The unstoppable and uncanny Wolverine looks ancient, grandfatherly; and he’s very nearly stuporously drunk. A gang of thieves are brazenly trying to steal the tires from his car as he sleeps in the back seat! In a strange sense we feel like this is a laughable moment; a bit of comedy. But the jarring juxtaposition of our hero brought low by drink and age sucks all the humor away. In the theatre there is no movement, no sounds from the audience at all; the chew-chew-chew of popcorn and the steady susurrus undertone of slurps of Coke are caught in the in-between of a moment that none of us can process. Logan, who just wants to live in peace (he says as he exits the car) and perhaps leave his violent past in the past, pleads with the bandits to leave off and go. Their response is to shout obscenities and rudely advise the “old man” to “limp back to the nursing home.” Then they promptly shoot him in the chest with a shotgun and laugh about it as they go back to stripping the car. But wait! Here’s the Wolverine we remember and came to see: a growl and the snick-snick of claws extended…claws that then pierce skulls, sever limbs, and send blood spraying in violent red jets. What is this? Then, kicking away the jack, he jumps in and drives off, one hand on the wheel, one hand clutching a flask; the mournful and whisky-honey melancholy of Johnny Cash singing “Hurt” playing softy through the speakers. In this moment we see how
I cannot genuinely believe that any normative individual might not be perceptively affected by the depth of violence done to and by the film’s titular character. This is a level of close-quarters fighting never before experienced in this type of genre film—normally the bad guys (at worst) get blown up, which we really don’t see in any meaningful way; but fights between the heroes and villains end up with villains in prisons (from which they are destined to escape, one or two years later, and just in time for Memorial Day Weekend!). So, when we see our teflon-coated Sunday afternoon heroes very appreciably murdering the bad guys in Logan, not only do we begin to feel some sympathy for the devil, to wince in virtual pain for the severed body parts, but we begin to see our heroes quite differently: they become, ironically, more