Logan

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant & for some strange reason Richard E. Grant

Directed by: James Mangold

Rating: ★★½

After seventeen years, and nine films, Hugh Jackman is finally giving up the role of Wolverine. Due the varying success of his multiple solo outings, it’s hardly surprising that both fans and Jackman himself wanted the final film to be memorable. And it certainly is- although not always for the right reasons. 

Will Wolverine survive?

Other people might like the darkly cynically and grisly downbeat tone, but as much as I like an unsettling thriller, Logan just seems like a big middle finger to the audience. To me, it was like they took what we loved about Wolverine in the X-Men films and turned everything on its head- and not in the way Deadpool did. At least Deadpoolhad a fun and unique approach- Logan is certainly unique but it is not at all fun. 

An aged Professor X.

But I didn’t hate the film and neither did my Hugh Jackman loving friend Tracy- who found the film profoundly emotional. Logan has its moments, as well as a lot of twists and turns- both good and bad.

Set in the near future, Wolverine (Jackman) finds himself torn between caring for an ailing Professor X (Stewart) and a young orphan called Laura (Keen), who is being hunted by a militia group known as the Reavers. Essentially a road trip movie across America, with a lot of blood, guts and heartache, Logan is a slow burning psychological drama with a heady mix of extremely violent action sequences- and is not at all like any other X-Men film that came before it.

Logan and Laura get the chance to bond.

Receiving critical acclaim and becoming a huge box office hit, Logan is clearly beloved across the world- but not by me. I liked moments in the film, and I enjoyed watching a different interpretation of the character, but superhero films are supposed to be either exciting or fun or both. Logan is neither. It is disturbing, it is upsetting and it is brutal, but unless you want to watch a superhero movie mixed with social realism I wouldn’t recommend it. 

The villains will use any force necessary to get what they want...

The extreme violence is too much, and the film ends Logan’s run in a horrific and upsetting way, which I really didn’t feel was the best way to leave the character. In a sort of anti-climax for all the characters- who are brutally and uncaringly dispatched, I feel as if the filmmakers have forgotten that the audience has invested a lot of their time and money into a franchise that should have a satisfying conclusion. It doesn’t have to have a happy ending, but it could at least finish in a way that doesn’t make you feel as if you’ve been slapped across the face for daring to want something a little lighter.

The broken silo looks incredible...

Logan certainly is an ‘adult’ superhero movie, but is more like Prisoners than The Wolverine, which had a more mature tone but still retained a sense of fun and thrills. Unlike X-Men Origins: Wolverine, cheesy blockbuster moments are replaced with tough and uncomfortable scenes- it’s not exactly fun for the family to watch the lead character slowly die in front of you from beginning to end. 

Wolverine gets a farewell... of sorts...

In comparison, the ending of X-Men: Days of Future Past was upbeat, enjoyable, and a fitting tribute to the seventeen years that Jackman, and the rest of the cast, have put into the characters. It may have been clichéd, it may have been sappy and it may have been predictable, but at least it was enjoyable- unlike Logan. I’d rather just pretend that Days of Future Past is the official finale to the franchise- and pretend that Logan (and the sequels that followed) never happened.