Final Wolverine Film Shows Austere Side of X-Men Series

After 17 years of playing one of X-Men’s most beloved characters, Hugh Jackman finishes his (supposed) final Wolverine movie with a thrilling, emotion-filled performance in Logan.

Directed by James Mangold, Logan follows the commercial success of Deadpool’s R rating making it the second movie of its kind in 20th Century Fox’s X-Men series. Opening weekend, Logan was a box office hit earning an estimated $85 million. The success of Logan is largely due to the outstanding performances and amazing visuals that help make it a fantastic film.

Logan picks up after X-Men: Days of Future Past. With barely any mutants left, a huge gap in time is left to be unraveled. From all the X-Men introduced in the previous films, only Wolverine and Professor X (Patrick Stewart) are left.

But, this isn’t the Wolverine the audience is used to seeing. From the film’s first scene, something is clearly wrong with him. He is old and is not healing as well as he used to. Additionally, he is trying to leave his old life of being an X-Men and now goes mainly by his middle name, Logan. Charles (Professor X) is also much older and looks as if he’s on the brink of death. Both of these surviving mutants are trying to keep to themselves, but they are forced into new conflict when they are introduced to a new mutant, Laura (Dafne Keen).

Although Logan is loosely based off writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven’s comic book, Old Man Logan, the story makes sure to define itself as its own. From beginning to end, the narrative keeps you engaged with great dialogue and humanized character interactions. Stewart and Jackman’s chemistry carries over from their previous films together and gives us the best performance we have seen out of these two.

Much of the beauty of the film comes from its R rating allowing the film to further express itself verbally and visually. In the previous films, the pain Logan felt and inflicted onto others was shown, but not to the extent of Logan. In every depiction of Logan, whether on TV, in comic books or in movies, Logan suffers greatly and is ruthless. The detail that goes into the damage that Logan takes and deals is brutal, bloody and amazing. At times, the cursing seems forced, but as a whole it enhances the emotion and personality of the dialogue.

This film feels like the end of an era, a very bittersweet feeling. It’s sad to think that we may never see Hugh Jackman on-screen with his claws again. But, it is also amazing to see the legacy that he has left with this character. Logan makes sure to show just how human mutants really are. It’s an apt wrap-up to a very deserving character.