A Riveting Character-Driven Drama With Moments of Action

Rating: 9/10 (26 March 2017)

Logan is the 10th movie in The X-Men saga, and Hugh Jackman's 8th film portraying the character of Wolverine (Logan). It's hard to not get invested in Hugh Jackman's portrayal of the character after 17 years of playing him. I recently rewatched the entire X-Men franchise, and seeing Logan age throughout the films, watching Jackman's portrayal of Wolverine become richer and more mature is unreal. With every movie he keeps building on the character, he makes it feel more and more real. Logan is a love letter to all fans of the X-Men series, watching a grown up version of the characters I've quite literally grown up with is an experience like no other. Logan is also the first movie featuring Jackman's Wolverine rated R, which only makes the movie better. The brutality of the action is outstanding; they really didn't hold anything back. Blood, gore and limbs are everywhere in this movie, which really benefit the intensity and tone of the movie, there is no possible way this movie could have worked if it had been rated PG-13. The plot of Logan is really simple, and we've all seen it a million times in all sorts of media, but that's not what makes this movie so special. What differentiates this movie are its characters. The humanization of Logan, Laura, and Charles Xavier in this movie is very clever, showing us the emotional journeys of both Wolverine and Professor X, both of which are now near the end of their lives, well past their peak, well past the point they were seen as invincible heroes. This movie does not feel like your standard superhero flick, and while the plot follows the same formulaic structure we've come to see with other films of the genre, Logan always feels overshadowed by Xavier, their acceptance of life's inevitable end and their struggle with oneself throughout the film; the drama and the action in this movie never feel particularly entertaining or exciting, at least not in the same way as other superhero films. The brutal action and intense drama are instead showing us the gruesome reality in which these characters have lived in, and not the same, un-realistic battles, toned down and censored like in the other X-Men films and most superhero movies for that matter; this is very clearly shown by how Logan describes the X-Men comics in the movie as being unrealistic and not invoking the real pain and the real suffering that actually happened during those stories. The characters are what make this movie so special, not the plot. Logan focuses on telling a tragic, gruesome and much more personal story. It is easier and more effective to relate to the struggle of two men as opposed to the "end of the world" scenarios that are usually present in most other superhero movies. And at the end of the day Logan makes the audience feel like they're not watching a superhero movie, but a heartfelt and character-driven drama.