Very very good, but not Great

Rating: 7/10 (3 March 2017)

Before I go on, I review movies in the way they are supposed to be viewed. That means a rating of 9 for the Godfather and a 9 for Guardians of the Galaxy mean completely different things. Also, I feel that a 10 rating is reserved for "the best movie ever made" and a 9 is for the handful of "oh my god I love that movie". Most great movies therefore come in at an 8. So my review will pretty much always be lower than the average ratings
First off THANK YOU DEADPOOL CREATORS. Without your success, this awesome film would not happen. It's not even close to the same style, but you guys opened studio eyes that things don't have to be cookie cutter PG-13 good guy saves the day movies.
Now, on to Logan. I'll hit on a the good things first. The acting. My GOD it was fantastic. I'd put it in the world of Ledger's Joker in terms of "serious" acting. All 3 main characters really were done excellent and this was Hugh Jackman's best acting ever. His moments of turning into a raged animal made my eyes go wide and blood pressure go up. Stewart crushed his role in every facet. They pulled off excellent portrayals of what the writers came up with.
The character writing was equally superb. Having Xavier's health problems was such a good choice. They expertly bounced equally between angry old guy, to confused sick person, to the wise man he once was on multiple occasions. Having Logan clearly be "over it" in so many ways was an interesting take. Dude doesn't care anymore about himself or much in general. He is still angry though. Which is believable for one of the last mutants who saw all his friends pass. Extreme credit to the writing of Laura. Not because it was groundbreaking, but because they did it SMART. A young actor can ruin a movie. So, they gave this girl the Keanu treatment. Be silent, be dark, be angry, be a mystery. And it works flawlessly.
Settings were very good. They reflecting the character of Logan well by being so desolate.
The action. Best of any Superhero movie to date. Closest comp I can give is to V for Vendetta (different styles though). I have been saying for years to anyone involved in a superhero movie conversation with me "I want them to make a Gladiator style superhero movie. Give me gore, give me good choreography, give me brutal". And the action in this movie, NAILS THAT. Dafne Keen (Laura) put on a great show in her action shots as well and it really put the fight scenes over the edge.
Now onto the not great. The actual main arcing story was very meh. It was fine, but reluctant bodyguard isn't top notch. The bad guy was extremely replaceable in every sense. Did nothing for me.
To be honest, this movie, with a very few amount of tweaks, could be as good as Dark Night (which does honestly get a 9 in my rating system). No doubt in my mind. But the movie was long and FELT long. The ENTIRE sequence, which was a complete cliché as well, of the poor farmer family taking in the wayward travelers was pointless. Seriously, just cut the entire 20 minutes out please. There was 3 things they tried to do with this. First to show that innocent people die in any type of "war". Cool, but that could have been done along the way instead of stopping the story. Second, it was to introduce the Logan Clone. Which didn't NEED to happen. We didn't need the narrator overtones saying "we couldn't replicate the anger and pain in kids so we did this yada yada yada." They could have just opened the door in the fight scene in the woods and have the clone jump out and go. We would have all thought "Oh crap they cloned him exactly" without any narration. Lastly they killed Xavier here. Which could also have been done in another scene. In fact, I think it could have been even better writing to bring Xavier to ND, kids go on their way, fight breaks and Xavier is killed by the clone there. This prompts Logan to go full injection out of fury and proceeds to go into a blackout of rage on the murderer and everyone around on his side.
To put my 7 in prospective of superhero movies with some other movies:
9: Dark Night, Guardians, V for Vendetta 8: Deadpool, Batman Begins, IM1, Civil War, Winter Soldier 7: Logan, Avengers, Strange, Spider-man, Blade 6: Ant-Man, First Class/Days of future, Ultron 5: x-men 1/2, Wolverines, Apocalypse 4: Thor, IM2, X3,