Feminist-charged old man hero story

Rating: 4/10 (10 March 2017)

I will say - for starters - that you won't be able to watch another movie featuring Wolverine in it the same. There is simply so much carnage throughout (as well as f-bombs) that it just makes sense for who Wolverine is as a character. Unfortunately, he's dying of old age because of adamantium poisoning (this reminds me of the midi-chlorian revelation in Star Wars Episode I). Sadly - and worst of all - we only get to see Wolverine in his prime for about 5 minutes, and this is only because he takes something that makes him operate at peak level until it wears off. You won't even believe the ending.... ***SPOILER ALERT*** The ending is about as anti-climactic as you can get in this situation. I think it would've been more epic if he walked off into the sunset. He dies saving the girl from the previews (X-23) and some other children. But the way the main baddie is killed doesn't make sense with previous Wolverine movies (which this movie tries to tie together). ***SPOILER ALERT #DOS*** (The main baddie has his head blown off with an adamantium bullet shot from a snub-nosed pistol. I won't tell you why that doesn't make sense, but you'll figure it out.)
Having a movie featuring X-23 is not feminist (notice how I use the word "featuring"). The problem is that she's featured as basically half of the main story. This movie serves as an origin movie of sorts for her as well as an ending for Wolverine as we know him. I don't think X-23's story is completely distracting, but I do feel that it partially takes away from the going-away party for Logan. They turned her into some sort of savage beast with perfect fighting prowess. She gets hurt maybe once in the whole movie. When she's being shot at no one can hit her (professional mercenaries with robotic arms for even more accuracy), and the other times Logan is saving her. She's tearing into the main baddie at the end of the movie in a ridiculous fashion without a scratch on her (while Logan fights the same baddie and ends up completely mutilated). She's basically impervious to damage and is literally perfect at fighting (she can't be stopped -- even more-so than Wolverine ever was). It's funny how this movie attempts to be realistic with Wolverine and yet neuters itself in the way it treats X-23. They even go so far as to have a scene where Xavier explains that it's "obvious" she would have a claw in her foot because female lions do all the hunting and are the reason the pack survives and they use their back claws as well as their front claws and yada yada... It's all pretty strange and confusing. And of course Xavier says that she can learn to be better than Wolverine. FEMINIST MESSAGING blehhhh.
Logan's last purpose on earth is to save X-23 and help a diverse group of mutant kids cross the border into Canada (the only place they can find freedom is in Canada apparently -- they look for a place called "Eden," but we never know in the end whether or not it exists). Also, on that note, there's an odd scene where individuals are driving from Mexico into the US holding an American flag in a pickup truck shouting "USA!" to immigrants from Mexico -- like they're rubbing it in their faces (very odd to say the least). I wonder if Hollywood injected their view on immigration at all.... Also of note is that all the bad guys are white. I'm noticing this trend in Hollywood (this reminds me a lot of The Force Awakens) where all the bad guys are white males while the good guys are females and minorities -- no young, white males are featured as heroes. I find this trend disturbing because Hollywood makes white males appear to be the enemy while offering no white, male heroes. They also use stereotypically racist scene in this movie: White farmers gang up on a black farmer for no apparent reason.
Much of the plot is very ho-hum and boring. There is a cool twist in the middle of the film that I won't ruin because I think it's the only thing that makes this movie interesting. Other than that twist, this movie would be very boring. Basically all of Wolverine's redemption and last stand is him grudgingly going along with protecting X-23 and, eventually, her friends (and him dying in the process). He's buried with a strange speech by X-23 that's half about Logan and really more about her (it literally sounds like she's reading the script describing her character). She takes the cross out of the ground, turns the cross on its side to make an "X," and then walks away while sadly looking back at Logan's grave.
The idea of adamantium poisoning Logan could make sense -- but only in a separate reality from all other X-Men movies. His healing powers haven't withered -- he just suddenly can't fend off the poison from his own skeleton. He ages very rapidly from his physical prime to being near-death in about 16 years. It simply doesn't make sense. Showing Wolverine with all blood and gore turned "on" is awesome. X-23's amazing fighting ability doesn't make sense (even though it's cool at times). Her being trained as an assassin is never explained in the movie, and there's no way a child would be that good so quickly! This movie is really about X-23. It's a father-daughter movie. It all feels like a "been there, done that" type of a thing, and I think they ruined this movie with their messaging. The feminist nods, the racial nods, the immigration nods, and the fact that this movie is really about X-23 all distract from the story being about Logan and serving it's main purpose -- having an epic send-off for Wolverine.