The Unleashed Wolverine I've Been Waiting For

Rating: 9/10 (3 March 2017)

This movie is great! Logan is an ultra-violent story about age, purpose and hope. This movie excels with it's ability to produce R level bloody, brutal violence. Seeing Wolverine unleash on Reavers is the Wolverine moment I've been waiting for my whole life. Many comparisons have been made to Nolan's The Dark Knight, which shouldn't because that movie is as close to a perfect movie as you can get, and this movie is not perfect. In terms of story, Logan centers on an aging Logan, who is a limo driver, and takes care of an exceptionally vulnerable Charles Xavier, and does so with the help of Caliban. Logan is approached by a woman and a girl, and the girl is being hunted by a group called the Reavers and their leader Pierce (Boyd Holbrook). The story is really a cat and mouse game as Logan is not longer the spry, destructive fighter he once was. However, that's where Laura (Dafne Keen) comes in. She is everything Wolverine is and more. The story lacks a little in substance as some filler scenes are blatantly obvious, but there is humor to lighten up the dark tone. Now we come to the acting. By far the best overall performance by Hugh Jackman. Sir Patrick Stewart delivers a side to Charles Xavier we've never seen. Holbrook is good, but his character is extremely uninteresting and underdeveloped which is my biggest complaint about the movie. I don't know whether to hate him, or just not care about him. Keen is a welcome addition to the cast, and exemplifies the show don't tell aspect of acting. She will probably be a star in the near future. Back to Jackman though. His final outing is his best as the story adds a layer of vulnerability and just overall fatigue to a character that has been through hell his whole life. In past movies, I've felt the character of Wolverine wasn't very complex, but that all changed with this movie. The acting saves the weak story. The action is the greatest I've ever seen in a superhero movie. This movie isn't about heroes in spandex fighting aliens or robots, but is a gritty realistic take, with very little CGI. It's about a person who wants to die, but suffers through life anyway and will protect those he cares about with everything he has. It's brutal and bloody, and intense and the duo of Wolverine and Laura is an unbeatable fighting pair. Overall, I had to wait a while to give this movie a rating because of my exceedingly high expectations going in. It lived up to most of them, but failed on a few others. Overall, I was very pleased and this movie is the best, however it is not comparable to the rest of the X-Men movies due to it's major differences. X-Men Days of Future Past is still the best of the series. 9/10