Hugh Jackman has been playing Wolverine for 17 years. And he's been doing a damn good job, But now, his role as the famous bad-tempered X-Man has come to a close in his latest film, Logan. Loosely on the comic Old Man Logan, the movie passes the torch of Wolverine to a new character, fan-favourite X-23. Not only that, but with the success of Deadpool last year, this is the first main-series X-Men movie to be rated R, allowing Wolverine to be as violent and brutal as he was in the comics. Let's take a look and see why Hugh Jackman really is the best at what he does.

Wolverine's new look.

Background and BTS:

Wolverine has been a character in Marvel comics since the 70's, eventually joining the X-Men superhero team. He has one of the darker pasts in the Marvel series (and that's saying something), being born in the 1800's and having his skeleton infused with adamantium metal. As he was and still is one of, if not the most famous X-Men character, it was a no brainer to put him in the X-Men movies. From the first trilogy, to his own spinoffs, and even to cameos in the First Class trilogy (except for Days of Future Past, where he was a main character), he's been in all of them except for Deadpool. In each of these films, he was portrayed by veteran Australian actor Hugh Jackman, famous for his many broadway roles, as well as playing Jean Valjean in the film adaptation of Les Miserables. But after these many films, Logan is officially Hugh Jackman's last role as Wolverine, as well as possibly the last main-series X-Men movie. Logan is a sendoff to the character, named after and loosley based on the Old Man Logan comic series. The comic depicts an old Logan and Hawkeye driving across a world ruled by supervillains. The comic ends with Logan battling the Hulk. Since two of these characters don't exist in the X-Men universe, the movie is only loosely based on the comic.

Logan and Laura (aka X-23) in a car. 

Plot Summary:

Before the movie starts, there's a teaser for Deadpool 2. There are actually different versions of this teaser, but they all follow the exact same plot. Deadpool sees an old man getting robbed, and rushes into a phone booth to change into his costume so he can help him. In one version, when Deadpool comes out of the booth, Stan Lee compliments his suit before Deadpool yells at him to zip it. Unfortunately, Deadpool spends a little too much time in the booth, and the old man gets shot. So Deadpool relaxes next to the corpse, questions why there's a phone booth in modern society, references Logan himself, and eats some ice cream. No real reason to talk about it, I just wanted to because it's hilarious.

In the year 2029, Logan (aka Wolverine) has given up being a superhero and has taken up a job driving a limo in order to get money so he and the now extremely senile Professor Xavier out of the country. He does this with the help of the albino mutant tracker Caliban (who also appeared in X-Men Apocalypse, with a different actor). A woman asks Logan for help, referring to him as Wolverine, but he refuses. Later, a man named Donald Pearce asks him for help finding the woman. Eventually, Logan decides to help the woman, who has a little girl named Laura with her. The woman offers Logan a bunch of money to take her and Laura across the border to a place called "Eden". Logan agrees, but when he comes back the next day, the woman is dead. Laura hides in the back of Logan's limo, and comes back with him to the warehouse he lives at with Caliban and Charles. Pearce and his gang, the Reavers, find them, beat the crap out of Logan, and one of them goes inside to get Laura. She comes outside holding his severed head. Turns out she's a mutant, one of the first born in years. She had claws similar to Logan, though she only has two in her hands, and one in each foot. She also shares his healing factor. Caliban gets captured by the Reavers, while Logan, Charles, and Laura escape. They watch a video on the woman's phone, revealing that Laura was part of the X-23 project, creating genetically perfect mutant soldiers. The children who were to become these soldiers were deemed failures, so they were to be terminated. The woman helped Laura and some of the other children escape before they could be killed, and planned on taking them to Eden. Charles also deduces that they used Logan's DNA to create Laura, making her his biological daughter. Logan, Charles, and Laura make it to Las Vegas, and Logan learns that in a weird bit of meta confusion, Laura is a fan of the X-Men comics, which were adaptations of the X-Men's real adventures. But eventually, the Reavers find them. Unfortunately, Charles has these seizures that cause his psychic powers to go all nuts. This allows Logan and Laura to incapacitate the Reavers and escape after injecting Charles with a sedative to calm him down. They leave the hotel, and eventually come across a family carrying a trailer full of horses. Their truck swerves, letting all the horses escape. Logan and Charles help them out, so they're invited to the family's house for the night. For once, everything seems fine. But then everything goes to sh*t.

X-24, a clone of Logan's DNA, breaks into the house, kills Charles and the family, and kidnaps Laura. Luckily, Caliban blows up the Reaver's truck, along with himself, and Logan temporarily incapacitates X-24. He takes Laura to bury Charles, but passes out. Turns out he's not doing so well. He isn't healing, he's aging, and he's falling asleep a lot. Laura takes him to a doctor, but he refuses treatment. Laura finally speaks (in Spanish), telling Logan to take her to Eden. Logan informs her that Eden was only something from the comic books, and isn't a real place. Laura is still persistent, so Logan takes her. It turns out that while Eden isn't real, there is a place where the subjects of the X-23 project hide out. They take Laura and Logan in, but Logan's still not doing too good. While he sleeps, the kids cut his beard into his classic sideburns for fun. Turns out all the kids are X-Men fans too (one of them even has a Wolverine action figure). Right as the kids are about to leave across the border, the Reavers show up. They attempt to chase down the kids, but Logan shows up after pumping himself full of a mutant enhancement drug and rips them all to shreds with Laura's help. Even though all the Reavers are dead, X-24 is still alive, and fights Wolverine. After impaling Logan on a tree stump, Laura shoots him with an adamantium bullet, which Logan had been keeping to possibly use on himself. Luckily, this kills X-24, but it's too late for Logan. The kids bury him with a cross made of sticks, but before they leave, Laura adjusts the cross to form an X.

Ouch. This movie earns its R rating. 

Characters:

As usual, Hugh Jackman is the perfect Wolverine. He plays the character exactly like he's been playing him for years, except now he's just older. The only problem I have with him is that he's a little too depressing in this movie. I get that it's kind of the point, but just like Spiderman Reign, it's weird to see one of our favourite superheroes as an old man. Still, he gives a great performance, and it's the perfect exit for the best X-Men character.

Patrick Stewart is a legendary human being, and he's great as Charles Xavier in all the X-Men movies. This one is no different. Even though I said before that it's weird to see superheroes as old men, Charles was already an old man, so it's not much different. He's definitely pretty senile, but he's still one of the smartest mutants in the universe, so his brain hasn't deteriorated too much. It's also insinuated that the disappearance of the X-Men was his fault, which adds a lot of guilt to an already pretty guilty character.

I've been waiting to see X-23 in a movie for a long time, and while I wasn't expecting this exact portrayal, when I saw a 12 year old girl in the trailers, I knew immediately it was gonna be X-23. This is the actress' first major film role, and she does a good job. She rides the perfect line between adorable and terrifying. She can be having an oddly cute moment with Logan one second, and then ripping people's throats out the next. While I'd prefer to see the adult version of Laura in future movies, this portrayal was awesome.

The rest of the characters were a bit forgettable. I'll always be a fan of Stephen Merchant, and he was great as Caliban. I'm not familiar with the comics version of Caliban, so I can't judge between this and the X-Men Apocalypse versions, but he was pretty great in Logan. The villains were pretty weak too, though I did like Pearce's robotic arm.

Laura being badass and terrifying. 

Good and Bad:

This is the second R rated X Men movie, and they took full advantage. Just like Deadpool, they hold nothing back with the brutality of Wolverine's character. The deaths in this movie are all heavy and impactful, and pretty darn gross, to be honest. They don't just show a bullet wound, they show the blood and skin and guts inside the bullet wound. Besides that, the story was good, though it did deviate quite a bit from the original Old Man Logan comic. That's understandable, though, since all the other characters from that comic belong to Disney now. This is one of the more realistic superhero movies, despite the existence of Mutants. The X-Men movies have always tried to explain Mutants in a more realistic sense, which I think it really cool.  My favourite part of the movie was near the beginning when Logan actually physically pulls one of his claws out. This movie punches you in the gut with it's brutal representation of Wolverine's character, and I love it.

If I had to complain about anything in the movie, it would be that I wished Laura talked a bit more. She doesn't speak until half-way through the movie, and it's never explained why. Also, I wish we got to see more of the Mutant kids at the end. There was also no post-credits scene, which I guess isn't really important. I don't really have a least favourite scene in the movie. The fact that I really have to reach to say anything bad about this movie should show just how good it really is.

The original comic the movie was loosley based on. 

Final Verdict:

Logan is one of the best superhero movies ever. It's up there with the Dark Knight and The Avengers. While I appreciate Fox gave enough control to the director to give the film an R rating, it is a little disappointing that kids won't be able to see a film in a franchise most kids can enjoy. Though I guess that's the same with Deadpool, and even then a lot of kids saw it anyway. Either way, I highly recommend seeing Logan, especially now that the movie's being re-released in black and white. It's not just a great superhero movie, it's a great movie that happens to have superhero themes.

Final Grade: A+

"Aw man! Now we'll never get a crossover. Oh well. Guess I'll just kidnap Hugh Jackman."