Logan stars the Wolverine as he makes his way to a place in North Dakota that he knows nothing about while protecting a little girl he knows nothing about. More is revealed throughout his travels, including a few major plot twists that involve the 11-year-old girl he is protecting from evil forces named Laura. This travel turns the film into an all out wild west adventure filled with plenty of action and adventure. The combination of great writing, directing and acting makes Logan a truly great movie and possibly the greatest superhero movie of all time.

Logan is mainly character driven, but the setting allows the movie to focus mainly on the characters and their feelings. The setting changes a lot from the desert land in Mexico to the forested land of North Dakota, allowing less focus on the land and more on the characters. Both are marvelously done and complement each other very well. Transitions and the development of the characters are great,like how Wolverine’s attitude changes a lot through the movie; at first he has no compassion for anyone else, except Professor X, and simply just tortures himself for the mistakes he has made in the past. He’s a mess, but then he learns to have empathy for other characters that eventually play a part in his life.

However there are a few issues with the movie. One slight problem with the movie is that it does not give the viewer a whole lot of background to what happened from the previous movie to get to this moment in the Wolverine’s life. Another issue with Logan is that in the last battle between the mutants and the evil mutant hunter army is a big mush of confusion. There are little mutant kids running, Wolverine taking some green berser medicine and Wolverine fighting another clone of Wolverine. Despite these minor flaws, the movie holds very few issues and is nearly perfect.

With 15 years of experience as the Wolverine, Hugh Jackman plays his superhero counterpart with absolute perfection. Jackman truly is able to make his character rough and almost heartless while showing the audience that he has some humanity in him. This is shown throughout the movie when he cares for the sick Professor X and eventually Laura. He still is able to maintain his harsh personality when he is reluctant to protect and care for Laura. Jackman’s understanding of Wolverine and a director who also has experience with his difficult character were able to combine to make a wonderful movie.

The director, James Mangold, truly created his masterpiece in this movie. The familiarity with the Wolverine plotline and characters could have been because he directed the previous Wolverine based movie, The Wolverine. Both movies took a darker turn than Marvel movies are used to. The blood and gore cause some disturbing images for viewers, but shows how more grown up the movie series has become. The violence and the action is very brutal with Wolverine and Laura stabbing, beheading and cutting off people’s limbs. Mangold and the writers made other tough decisions, like to make Wolverine older, clumsier, lazier and more vulnerable. This gives the movie a grittier feel and Jackman plays the role to perfection. In addition to the Wolverine change, they decided to add a whole new main cast of characters.

While having a familiar characters repeating their roles in Logan, like Wolverine and Professor X, there are some new characters like Laura and the main villain, Donald Pierce. Donald Pierce is played by Boyd Holbrook, who stars in the popular Netflix Show Narcos. Holbrook plays a very convincing villain by the way he displays his character’s cunning and confident attitude. The writing gives him assistance, but also hinders him. Pierce almost seems helpless in his inability to catch Wolverine and Laura, even with the countless and almost endless resources and tech to do so. The writing favors Laura and makes her almost invincible.

Dafne Keen plays the new hero Laura, making her first appearance in the Marvel Universe. Laura changes a lot throughout Logan, which adds to her mysterious backstory. She starts off the movie as a clueless little girl who refuses to speak and happens to be a killing machine, then turns into a clever and talking girl that is able to save the Wolverine more than once. The writers did an amazing job at getting her to resonate and be likeable among the fans. After her first movie with Marvel, she now seems like the up and coming star of the Wolverine and the X-Men franchises.

Sadly, Hugh Jackman has announced that this will be his last role as Wolverine. He ended on a high note in the best Wolverine film yet. Fans anticipate to see what Marvel will do with the Wolverine franchise.

My Score: 4.7 out of 5

Rated: R