Morbid

Rating: 5/10 (29 March 2020)

A definitive send off for Wolverine, and a well made piece of work, with good acting and a very heavy going quota of emotional baggage. Almost enough baggage to sink a ship that has a pretty slight and simple story, few important characters and a heavy handed approach to the characters emotional conditions.
Also the film has a decidedly underwhelming villain and a less than imposing goon plus a gimmicky mirror baddie Wolverine.
Direction and choreography are adequate for the task at hand and there is a well designed audio effects. The musical score follows the emotional morbidity of the films tone and never fails to reinforce the many opportunities for heart string plucking.
The main gain for 'Logan' is from it's actors who mainly give excellent performances, particularly Patrick Stewart and young Dafne Keen; Hugh Jackman meanwhile has no problem portraying his character in absolute any condition required.
'Logan's reverence for old westerns, and particular references to 'Shane' have the unfortunate effect of giving characters most of their most poignant and illuminated dialogues, which humanise them the most, as quotes from that other film. This degree of transference is a trying side effect of being so heavily indebted to another film whilst your own has issues of minimally written story, situations and characters.
I rate an even-stevens 5/10 for a strong valedictory send off for the Wolverine character and some very good acting performances. In the technical credits the film is sufficiently proficient to get through various fracas. An overloading of the films protagonists with grief and calamity beyond that which some actors have the time to humanise adequately with their portrayals and a sadly unsubstantial breed of villainy means that I can't rate higher.