Farewell Huge Jackedman

Rating: 8/10 (29 March 2017)

Ever since his breakthrough role as Wolverine in Bryan Singer's X Men (2000), Hugh Jackman has played the claw brandishing mutant a whopping 9 times total. Now fed up of those egg white omelettes that have kept him in shape for the role, Jackman has decided to retire from his infamous role after 17 awesome years. Logan marks Hugh Jackman's last time round as Wolverine and is directed by James Mangold and also starring Dafne Keen, Stephen Merchant and Professor X himself, Patrick Stewart. Finally we get the Wolverine film we have been waiting for and fortunately Jackman goes out on a high.
As a whole, the acting was great. Dafne Keen was brilliant as the young mutant Laura, playing the role with such maturity often unheard of from child actors. I genuinely forgot I was watching a 12 year old girl. Patrick Stewart was also great in his seventh appearance as Professor Charles Xavier. Portraying a version of Charles plucked from our nightmares, a sick, weak and lonely man in need of care but who is still that hopeful, good willed professor at heart. It is with Charles' predicament that the emotional impact is most effective, he was a man who looked after many, but in his time of need only Logan is there for him. The X men series began with Charles and Logan, it's only fitting that it would end with them.
The film is of course called Logan, so the focus of the film is all on Wolverine himself. Hugh Jackman did very well in this film, bringing us a Wolverine that we haven't seen before. Now older and unable to heal, Logan is more human than ever and Jackman transitions from brutal murder machine, to a sensitive and dying man perfectly. But as Good as Jackman was, a lot of the credit is due to writer/director James Mangold, as well as screenwriters Scott Frank and Michael Green for bringing this version of Logan from the comics to the screen. It was very refreshing to see characters I grew up watching be humanised, showing a side to them not truly seen in 17 years. This was fantastic is upping the emotion of the film, and having grown up watching Charles and Logan's cinematic relationship, this film was rather hard to watch.
As well as brilliantly showing off Logan's soft side, James Mangold does an outstanding job with showing his barbaric side. Thanks in no small part to Deadpool and its success, proving that there is a market for R rated superhero movies, we finally get the Wolverine action scenes we have all been waiting for. When you have a hero whose superpowers include growing adamantium claws from your knuckles, you kind of want to see those claws in action. Finally we get to see Wolverine slice up people in full gory detail with no cutaways. I have long awaited this day and it did not disappoint. The opening fight sequence was satisfyingly brutal, giving closure as to what an adamantium claw can do to people and what the aftermath looks like.
The villains in this film were weak and the film in a way acknowledged this. The main villain shifts throughout the film from; Pierce, to Dr Rice, to Wolverine Mark 2. The film knows its villains are weak so opts to have Hugh Jackman be both hero and villain when they wheel out the X-24. But, at the end of the day it was more about the journey and character of Logan himself, so villains were always secondary.
Also as Wolverine gets weaker, there is a lot of him passing out, then becoming conscious, only to pass out again. Although I understand this reinforces the weakened state of our once self healing protagonist, but it made the latter parts of the film feel a little boring and repetitive.
Overall, Logan is a wonderfully acted, directed and written film that takes these mutants and humanises them perfectly, showing the sensitive and barbaric sides of Logan in a respectable final movie. The R rating was needed in order to fully respect the source material and finally deliver a Wolverine standalone movie that fans have been waiting to enjoy. The end of an era, so this is what it feels like.