A last hurrah for a battered hero worthy of praise

Rating: 9/10 (2 March 2017)

This is the second R-rated comic book movie to come out in recent years, the first of which was Deadpool. As Deadpool said in that film "This guy's got the right idea. He wore the brown pants" right before killing him.
There are many faceless henchman who should have worn their brown pants in Logan.
Logan is the ninth time Hugh Jackman has appeared in the role of Logan/Wolverine, and it shows in his performance. The film is set in the late 2040s, mutant-kind is all but extinct, and Logan is not the hero he once was. He is shown to be a tired warrior whose spirit is wounded just as much as his weakening body. He tends to a fading Charles Xavier, who in his 90s is losing control of his powerful and dangerous mind.
Then along comes Laura, a young girl with familiar gifts, and Logan must saddle up for one last ride.
There was much buzz around this film as it was reportedly Hugh Jackman's final film as Wolverine. In interviews, Jackman has said he poured his heart into this performance, and it shows.
Boy, does he knock it out of the park.
The theme of Logan's character throughout the X-Men films has been that he is a man struggling with both his identity and his guilt. We got a taste of his road down the hole of depression and remorse in 2013's The Wolverine, but here we see Logan hit absolute rock bottom. Nearly everyone he ever cared about is gone, his last remaining friend is slipping away, and to top it all off, his own powers are fading. We can only imagine the feelings that the character would be feeling, but Jackman's performance brings us as close as we can come.
Aside from Jackman, the other absolutely stellar performance was Dafne Keen as Laura/X-23. Her character starts out fairly simple, but becomes the basis for a deep bond to form between her and Logan. Her performance gave the film some of its biggest laughs, its most intense action scenes, and one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the film.
What faults there are in this film are surprisingly small. The main villains of the film are very one-dimensional; at times, the film almost goes deep into their motivations, but abruptly interrupts itself in lieu of more awesome fight scenes. There are certain characters that the film wants you as the audience to care about, but in reality you just don't, and the film moves on to bigger and better things. All things being considered, these are things the audience can accept as they take in the film's many other positives.
Logan may well be Hugh Jackman's last time baring the claws, and if it were I would say that this film is a very fitting way for Wolverine to say good-bye.