Thank you, Hugh Jackman...

Rating: 10/10 (10 June 2017)

Logan is a well made and tearful swan song for Hugh Jackman as the title protagonist, and is quite possibly the best film adapted from a Marvel property since Spider-Man 2.
The film defies superhero conventions by being a gritty Western-like picture that delivers on the gory violence we expected from Wolverine while earning its R rating for reasons beyond the spectacle.
This time around, Hugh Jackman portrays Logan as an older man who is broken (physically and emotionally) by the loss of his teammates of the X-Men, and his special abilities slowly deteriorating and poisoning him to the point where he could die. Jackman goes out with a bang (or a huge claw slash, in this case) by delivering a strong performance that reminds us of why we became so attached to this character. As far as I'm aware, he IS Logan/Wolverine.
The rest of the cast is amazing too, including Patrick Stewart as a frail and unintentionally dangerous Charles Xavier, and newcomer Dafne Keen as Laura, a young runaway Mutant with some of the same DNA that Logan carries. The two especially share a huge on and off screen bond with Jackman to the point where you truly believe they are a family.
After two PG-13 attempts at a Wolverine movie and the success of Deadpool, 20th Century Fox gave into fans' expectations by going all out with the high R-rated gore levels and adult themes and language one would expect from a character as ferocious and ill-tempered as Wolverine. Though the film is light on action, the set pieces that are in the film are well executed, and gleefully brutal with a sense of grittiness and realism to them (for a comic book movie, that is).
As mentioned earlier, the film plays less like a superhero movie, and more like a Western in the same light as Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, which Jackman has admitted to being the main influence for this movie. The darker tone is perfectly consistent as it knows exactly what it is, and what it wants to be.
The plot moves along nicely, and is surprisingly thoughtful and metaphorical, coming from a comic book movie.
While it saddens me that this is Hugh Jackman's final performance as Wolverine, it's still a great movie that stands out as one of the best of the genre, and his legacy as the character will never die.