If I was going to sum up Logan in one word then I’d probably go straight for “evisceral”. Make no mistake, this is not your mother’s superhero movie.
The final film outing for the phenomenally successful Marvel comics character (that pretty much made Hugh Jackman’s career) jumps forward to the year 2029. America has becaome a walled country and a no-go area for the very few mutants that are left (talk about life imitating art). After years hiding just over the border, Logan and Professor Charles Xavier find themselves on last mission of mercy: to smuggle a mutant child across the country to Canada while being persued by a band of cyborg mercenaries.
And that it pretty much where it stops being a comic book movie and becomes something a lot more viscious, both in terms of emotion and the sheer amount of blood-letting and dismemberment that takes place over the course of the film. Watching the despair endured by the two men is hard going. Time is catching up with them, and new America has left them behind. The child offers them redemption, but the film doesn’t try to fool you into thinking it will be anything but short-lived. It’s a credit to the acting talent of Jackman and Stewart that they’ve been given reign to carry most of the film by themselves and this works very well. Even though some of the quieter scenes are long, you don’t get the impression that the overall picture could have been shortened (I refer you again to Exhibit A – Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice).
Now this all sounds like a real killjoy of a picture, but it really isn’t. Marvel has remembered the most important ingredient of any superhero movie: fun. It was never going to be a comedy in the same vein as Guardians of the Galaxy, but watching Logan trying to cope with old age (remember that for most comic book fans, Wolverine has been the poster-child for invulnerability for forty years) and being a father figure to a child as feral as himself – well, it provided a few moments of much-needed comedy gold.
I think that the success of Deadpool has encouraged the movie makes to experiment with a new sub-genre: the adult-oriented superhero movie. Logan has a lot of depth and a lot of gore. If you have a strong stomach then see it; if you don’t, then see it with a friend – they can hold the bag for you. Whatever you do though, go see it.
Ten out of ten.