Review of 'Logan' (Spoilers)

Today I sat down with my parents to watch Logan. I’m going to tell you here what I thought about it. They were both surprised by the amount of swearing and violence. This is not your typical superhero movie, that’s for sure. My father was unhappy to see this darker interpretation of Wolverine. Personally, I loved it. I thought that this was exactly the film that needed to happen. I’ve heard that Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart aren’t going to be doing any more X-Men films after this one, which I’m happy to hear because this is a perfect send-off. The film ends with Wolverine dying and it is one of the most emotional death scenes ever.

Wolverine’s death scene manages to fulfil the prophecy told in The Wolverine about him dying with his heart in his hand. It doesn’t literally happen like that, instead, he is holding the hand of his daughter, Laura. Comic book fans will know her better as X-23, the clone first introduced in the X-Men: Evolution animated series who made her way into the comics. After his funeral, she turns the crucifix over his grave into an “X”, a great way to bookend his character.

Earlier in the film, we see lots of great action and some excellent character moments. The beginning of the film manages to establish most of what we need to know by showing us rather than telling us. I feel like this is the first comic book film which can be considered “art”. The extremely graphic violence shows us how dark Wolverine’s world is and makes the whole thing feel more relatable. I am very happy that the film managed to give us gore without making it distract from the film like it does in Quentin Tarantino movies. The action scenes are very well done. There is a scene where the main characters are being chased by the bad guys in cars and it’s truly exciting. The same goes for a scene later in the film where Logan is fighting X-24, another clone of himself which is much younger and has been programmed to have more rage. The younger clone is relentless and almost unstoppable. That is not to say that this is just a dumb action movie, there is a lot more going on than that.

There is also lots of great character work. Charles and Logan help a family whose horses had escaped onto the road, and in return, they are allowed to stay with them. There is a dinner scene containing absolutely perfect dialogue with the two of them. What happens to Charles Xavier in this film is absolutely tragic, his brain is deteriorating and now considered a weapon of mass destruction by the United States government due to its power. Wolverine is forcing him to take pills so that he doesn’t have seizures which paralyse everybody in the nearby area. Charles swears a lot and considers Wolverine “a failure”. I felt very sad when I heard him say that. He is the first person to get killed by X-24, which is made more tragic by the fact that he may have thought that it was Wolverine who stabbed him. There is a bit of ambiguity as he says earlier that he doesn’t always recognise Wolverine as his older self. The real Logan does try to save him and tells him that it wasn't him, but Charles could have easily thought that this was some stranger trying to save him.

We get to see Wolverine reading X-Men comics, and according to him they took the truth and turned it into lies. The acting in this film is great with good performances from Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and Dafne Keen (Laura), which is good considering that she is only a child acting against two of the best. I hope that we can see more superhero films of this style.

I think that this is an absolutely brilliant film and would recommend anybody to go and see it. Although you shouldn’t really be reading this review if you haven’t seen it yet as I’ve spoiled all of the best moments for you now. I would apologise but the title does say spoilers, so you’ve only got yourself to blame. If you have seen it, I would actually recommend that you go and see it again because it’s worth watching many, many times. I’m going to give this film a 9/10.