Review: ‘Logan’ Bids Farewell to Hugh Jackman as Wolverine

Hugh Jackman’s run as Wolverine comes to an end as Marvel’s latest, Logan, sends the titular character off with a bang. Finally, a film that fans of X-Men and action movies alike can embrace. After the worldwide success of Deadpool last year, Fox finally decided to drop the sappy PG-13 rating that has plagued the X-Men franchise since the beginning – and went with a hard R. The choice to abandon a wider audience in exchange for grittier content was a wise decision.

The film opens in 2029, as Logan (Jackman) is a drunk limousine driver, caring for an aging Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). Mutants have been mostly eliminated from the planet – the cause of which is never revealed. Being asked to accept this with no explanation was a minor issue I had with the film, given that I’m not as familiar with the source material as some.

Logan is trying to save up enough money to buy a yacht for him and Charles to disappear on, but plans change when a young girl named Laura comes into their lives. It turns out that Laura was kidnapped by a nurse named Gabriela (Elizabeth Rodriguez) who was working for a Dr. Zander Rice (Richard E. Grant). She escapes something called the Transigen Project, but I won’t give anything else away.

Later in the movie where we meet Zander’s creation X-24, where things become a bit like Terminator Genysis. And this is when the film veers off into the un-explainable.

Another issue with the film is that we are led to believe Laura is a mute for the first hour of the film. We later find out she speaks fluent Spanish, as well as some English. Being a comic book film, where characters have metal claws coming out of their hands, I simply decided to roll with it.

Some might say Jackman, who first starred as Wolverine in 2000, means as much to the X-Men series as Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man means to The Avengers series – and perhaps more. Because of this, and the fact that the now 48-year-old actor has been about the only consistently good thing in the franchise over the past 17 years, a more emotional ending seemed necessary.

Of the 2 hour and 15 minute run-time, the first 90-minutes of Logan is better than any film in the X-Men series. Yet it ultimately falls short of becoming a perfect film. The movie fails to give Jackman the send-off that he and fans of the series deserve. Although it didn’t fully live up to its potential, it’s still one hell of an effort. The extreme violence, excessive blood and cursing makes this the Wolverine movie that die-hards have been clamoring for. Ultimately there are just too many unexplained occurrences, and not enough emotional attachment, to catapult Logan to greatness.

Logan gets a B.