Film Review: Logan

*SPOILER ALERT* 

Logan is the latest instalment by Fox and looks to be the final farewell to the adamantium-clawed face of the X-Men series: Wolverine.

Overcoming personal demons, discovering startling revelations and an inevitable demise are just the tips of the metaphorical iceberg seen in this poignant yet charmingly profane picture.

Set more than 80 years after the previous Wolverine film, Logan, based lightly on the Old Man Logan storyline apparent in the comics, is neither post-apocalyptic nor present day. Though, if the director proclaimed the story takes place in April of 2017 – it would not be impossible to conceive.

During this time, no new mutants have been born for 25 years and the race is on the brink of extinction. Logan spends his days as a part-time chauffeur and full-time carer for Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who is suffering from a neurodegenerative disease.

If this film teaches us one thing, it’s what a mental condition does to the world’s most dangerous brain: his telepathic abilities are amplified to extraordinarily destructive levels, showing his capability of incapacitating humans and mutants alike without intention which sparks intriguing theories as to why there a very few mutated-individuals around.

Logan (Hugh Jackman) is approached by a Latina nurse, Gabriella and 11-year-old Laura (or for the ardent fans: X-23) who beg him for aid as they attempt to escape to North Dakota and apprehension from totalitarian, Donald Pierce (I presume that forename is a mere coincidence?).

The protagonist initially refuses to assist but following the death of Gabriella, is left with an internal moral fracas; ultimately surrendering due to his callings as the superhero character and gives the little girl a helping hand – or claw.

With this unconventionally apposite duo comes a journey that is treacherous yet a learning curve for both: Laura – to adapt to her new terrain surpassing the four walls of a dystopian laboratory; Logan – to discover that while he has lost many friends as of late, he may have gained a family member. It comes to light that the little adamantium-wielded girl was a result of an experiment; an amalgamation of a young, unwilling surrogate and (spoiler alert) Wolverine’s DNA.

However fragile and perturbingly powerless Logan seemed, his last ounce of heroism is exhausted as he manages to reunite X-23 with her fellow test-tube mutants and pave way for the new generation as they succeed in reaching North Dakota.

Many may have anticipated James Mangold’s latest vision to be the follow-on from the previous two movies that centred around James Howlett (aka Logan or Wolverine – whichever sounds cooler in your head) – X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and The Wolverine (2013) – but this seems to be further from the truth than Logan was from winning his final showdown.

In fact, fans are now accommodating the idea that those preceding, polarizing-reviewed instalments were merely just films and LOGAN is the real deal – in all its intensely gory and compellingly realistic glory.

The character that has long been the undefeatable, never wearisome leading man of Marvel Comic’s ever-popular X-Men eventually sees his powers waning and becoming more human throughout every minute of this western noir.

Intensified by the evocative styling of Johnny Cash’s Hurt, such lyrics encompass the melancholic riff from the start of the musical score with a crescendo right to its final bar. 

Logan is now finally relatable.

Rating: 4/5