emotionally it gets it so right that one can mostly look over story flaws

Rating: 8/10 (4 March 2017)

I have to wonder how people will react to Logan even a year from now, much less years from now, when some of the story flaws in this become more apparent. Some of the things in Logan may seem like nitpicking (how does one drive a bullet-ridden limo through Texas into Oklahoma, for example, without anyone noticing until the minute it's pulled up to the hotel to be uh parked), some things may be sort of griping about the logistics of things (i.e. the comic book of X-Men is a plot element in this movie, like the X-Men comics exist, which would be a clever meta moment if it wasn't in the midst of the one of the darkest comic book movies ever made), and there are other beats that just have to do with how quickly (or, really, not) the villains don't catch up with our trio of main characters, Logan, Xavier and Julia, even when they literally have the coordinates to get to them. Not to mention some things in the last third of the movie that make things while not necessarily less violent or intense, a little more standard as a comic book movie, certainly as it's the 10th film in 17 years with an X-Men character from Fox.
All of this noted... this movie is really good. The reason for that is James Mangold, the director, taking a second (ahem, sorry, I can't resist) stab at this character and as it's the end he takes almost a rough R-rated Clint Eastwood 70's Peckinpah spaghetti-ish western approach to it all. And this is an BIG R rating, so parents take note, if you don't care about your kids hearing "F" and "S" words (and there's a lot of them, it's not like this got the rating for going over the 1 or 2 time minimum of PG-13 movies), then you might care about the various dismemberments, beheadings, stabs through the head, repeated stabbings *from children* onto nameless bad guys. Or maybe that won't be an issue either; in that case this is a dark tragic western for the whole family about a mutant who is slowly dying from adamantium poisoning driving his 90 year old dementia-ish father figure with a little girl so they can find a possible Eden. If one feels a Children of Men vibe too I wouldn't say that was unintentional.
But alongside Mangold's commitment to going for something we haven't seen before, what matters most in these movies to me more than the plot or stories more-often - the interactions of the characters, the emotional weight, how characters do (or don't) grow since, you know, once an a-hole always an a-hole - that works spectacularly. This is maybe the most deeply felt of the X-Men films, or at least as close as Days of Future Past was, as far as showing us how these characters are in great pain and danger and grappling with things, but we also get to see more dimension than before. With Xavier, for example, a lot of time in past movies (certainly the first three) while played by an actor with gravitas like Stewart, he was an exposition machine. Here, Xavier gets to show anger, resentment, sadness, pain, misery, confusion (genuinely, remember he's 90 here), and even a moment where he gets to help a farmer coral his horses (it's a minor but important one). And damn if Stewart doesn't deliver the goods; I can praise Jackman high as he does deserve it, and the young newcomer playing the mutant Julia is incredible (mostly in how she listens and her subtle moments in silences), this is Oscar-worthy s*** from Stewart.
So I think if you have really enjoyed most over the years how the actors and characters have interacted the most, regardless (or regardful) of how it strays from the comics (a touch that gets commented on here, for better or worse), Logan gives that score with moving fashion. If you are interested in a coherent story, that's here too... up to a point. It's a good send off for these characters.