Great drama and action all in one

Rating: 9/10 (20 March 2017)

Hugh Jackman's supposed last outing as Wolverine in Logan was quite the gamble for 20th Century Fox. Could they pull off another R rated superhero movie? Could they pull off a superhero movie with a low key story? I'm happy to say that Fox and director James Mangold pulled it off with flying colors. Logan is the perfect sendoff for Hugh Jackman, who has played Wolverine in nine movies over seventeen years, and it's hard to see how anyone can replace him (and you know they will eventually). Logan is a character driven drama that evokes classic Westerns like Shane and Unforgiven, while still being a superhero movie. With the market saturated with superhero movies, Fox has shown that you can still make superhero movies that feel fresh, and they should really make this kind of film their niche.
Logan takes place in 2029, and for reasons I won't go into here, mutants have not been born in years, and the X-Men have all been killed, except for Wolverine and Professor Xavier. Wolverine is at the end of his rope – his healing factor does not work as well as it used to and he is slowly dying. His most pervasive pain of all though is his mental pain – years of fighting have worn him down, and he wants all the pain to end. He just wants to make enough money to buy a large boat so he can just escape from the dangerous world with Professor X, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease and can no longer control his powers.
But one day a woman with a little girl only known as X-23 comes pleading for his help. X-23 is a mutant who was cloned from Logan's DNA and is now being pursued by the scientists who created her. Logan at first wants nothing to do with the girl, but when a gang of criminals called the Reavers comes to take her, Logan reluctantly helps the girl by taking her to a mutant refuge in Canada. But it becomes clear pretty quickly that X-23 might not really need much protection, as she has the same claws and amazing fighting ability as Logan.
Wolverine was my favorite childhood superhero, so my standards are a bit high, and I can say that I've never seen a better depiction of him on screen. Hugh Jackman gives one of his best performances that I sincerely hope earns him an Oscar nod. He expresses such pain and frustration and you really feel it. His chemistry with X-23 is great as they end up forming a dysfunctional family unit with Professor X. The family aspect was surprisingly moving. I legit cried a little bit at the end of this movie and I don't think any comic book movie has ever done that to me.
Patrick Stewart also gives a wonderful performance as an old Professor Xavier. He has his own guilt to deal with and the movie ends up being a great sendoff for him too, as this is reportedly his last X-Men movie.
Finally, the action is spectacularly brutal, as a real Wolverine movie should be. I think this is clearly the best action movie in the X-Men franchise.
With Logan, Fox has reminded us that superhero movies can actually be films, and not just set- ups for a sequel. I hope they make smaller, more focused superhero films their model going forward. They might not make as much money as Disney, but they can be made for a fraction of the cost. I hope they abandon any notion of creating a cinematic universe. In fact, I don't even want to see a sequel to X-Men Apocalypse. Given the way this movie ends, it would be hard to care about the Phoenix Saga, and Deadpool and Logan are just so much more interesting than anything they are likely to come up with in the McAvoy/Fassbender X-Men universe. Fox really raised the bar here, and I hope they continue to have artistic success in the future.