Logan: Damaged Man, Great Movie

The latest installation of the X-Men franchise and Wolverine saga takes place in the year 2099. The mutants are no longer safe in the US, and all talk of them has long since died out with the X-Men becoming nothing but legend. It’s a sobering start for X-Men fans.

Logan shows the journey of Wolverine as he attempts to carry a young mutant girl safely across the Canadian border, where she will be safe from the evil practices now taking place upon mutants. The title character of Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is now an angry, aging man. He and a mutant named Caliban (Stephen Merchant) care for old friend and X-Men mentor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who in his very old age, has a degenerative brain disease. Logan’s plan is to work as a limo driver to pay for the medicine that stops Charles’ seizures and basically wait for Charles to die in hiding.

However, their whole situation changes when they learn that a mutant girl named Laura (Dafne Keen) needs to escape a team of cyborg government operatives looking to capture her. With much reluctance, Logan attempts to help Laura after the cybernetic men attack their home.

The plot could be criticizeed for following a basic “cat & mouse” situation, but I did not notice the plot’s simplicity because the film moves at brisk pace. A plentiful amount of heart-pounding action and suspenseful scenes kept my attention glued to the screen as they unravel the mystery of Laura’s origin.

In addition, Logan does an amazing job of conveying Wolverine’s violent, wrenching, 200-year-old hatred and sadnes to the audience so they can emphasize with his frustrations and regrets throughout the film.

Logan is also supposedly last film in which Hugh Jackman will play the character of Wolverine. As such, Marvel appears to have decided to go out with a bang on this film–and it works. I enjoyed empathizing with Logan and getting into the action. Another factor that held my attention was the stellar acting displayed by all of the actors in the film, especially Jackman, who has closed out the Jackman era of the Wolverine character perfectly.

However, if you have a particularly weak tolerance for violence and gore, or if you’re considering watching the movie with someone under 13, you might want to skip Logan. The many fight scenes go far beyond just punching or shooting people, and the profanity is abundant.

On the flipside, if your definition of a “feel-good movie” is one packed with adrenaline and people being brutally sliced up, then this movie is just your speed. I give Logan a 9.4 out of 10.