Logan (James Mangold, 2h 21m)

 Superhero films are well known for their origin stories, their tales of how, for example, The Avengers became a team, how Spiderman went from nerdy misfit of saviour of Manhattan. What the genre is less adept at is ending; even in comic book format, Batman, Superman, the X Men, the Avengers, and so on have been offed and returned from the dead more times than Sean Bean has. Whilst Batman V Superman did give us an older, more weary Batman, it's one of the few things the film did well; one cannot imagine Synder et al even considering tackling the themes of Alan Moore's momumental Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? or Neil Gaiman's metaphysical Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?
Logan, however, is different, bringing the story of Wolverine, and indeed seemingly the X-Men franchise as a whole through a sombre and often downbeat, but satisfyingly brutal action to a perfect, if bitter-sweet ending, not only proving a perfect send-off for the character, but for Hugh Jackman's portrayal of him. Set some 12 years into the future in 2029, mutants are a dying breed, among them the ailing Wolverine, whose metal coated skeleton is beginning to poison him, whilst his healing powefer begin to fail, whilst Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart's final outing as the character) is frail and increasingly prone to losing control of his powers. Logan, as a film, focuses on two major themes, and age and mortality is the first of these.

Throughout the film, we get scenes of a scarred and wounded Wolverine, claws leaving bloody injuries that don't heal on his knuckles, whilst early in the film, we watch as bullets lodged in him worm their way back to the surface of his skin and drop into a dirty washbasin bowl-it's these failing powers, and his increasing pain that turn him to self-medicating with alcohol, and for most of the film, Jackman looks ragged, unwell and, frankly, a mess, hands shaking and needing glasses to read. Xavier, meanwhile, is a rambling, almost Lear-esque figure, ranting nonsensically at points, and increasingly medicated by Logan and Caliban, another mutant, a fragile and increasingly unkempt figure, confined to a fallen storage tower-both are clearly ill, at each other's throats in foul mouthed yelling matches, and both increasingly, painfully aware that they may well be some of the last of a dying breed. 

Perhaps the most poignant usage of this, of the sense of a dying breed and dying hero is the quote and indeed scene from the 1953 film Shane, wherein both the protagonist and his adversary are, like Logan, a dying breed, gunfighters at a point when the Old West was drawing to a close, and like the protagonist of Shane, Logan slowly begins to realise that, whether he was a good or bad person, his violence and killing leave blood on his hands, and like Shane, Logan is the last of a dying breed, in a world that increasingly does not need him.
Yet, against this, Logan also has a great sense of youth, with X-23, a young female clone of Logan, making up the third major character of the film against her aged fellow mutants-and here the film gains much of its pathos-whilst we have seen Logan act as surrogate parent before, in X-Men, here things seem almost personal, with Wolverine's child, Laura forming part of what for Logan seems to be his last chance at family; multiple scenes of the two interacting, even if it's monosylabic or indeed entirely silent from Laura throughout much of the film. There is one scene in particular, around a dinnertable, where, for a few moments of peace, Logan, Xavier and Laura seem like a (albeit dysfuctiinal) family-though violent, she seems to represent youth in a film otherwise focusing on death and mortality.

The other key theme of the film is violence, and to be honest, I haven't seen a film that did violence  as well, and as viscerally in a superhero film since, ironically, Deadpool-both films have a suitably grounded view of violence-Wolverine's claws, and Laura's later in the film are suitably visceral and the blood and gore, bullets hit with a heavyweight momentum, and the fights move between full-on brutal and oddly balletic-Wolverine's final fight in particular is a violent slug-fest, full of crunching action, bloodshed and yet keeps itself grounded and realistic, whilst the opening sequence where Wolverine fights people trying to steal his car is almost shocking violent as a weary and ill Logan dispatches multiple enemies. The number of limb-removals, decapitation and just the level of violence, however separates it from Deadpool; this is not violence for the sense of humour, but a gritty and somewhat downbeat bloody slog.

And it's this violence, and indeed the more mature tone, with an almost Scorsese-level of language that truly separates this from not only the other Wolverine films, but indeed the X-Men films in general-never have we seen Logan this bloody, never have we seen him this violent, or down on his luck. Yet neither have we seen him this human before, forced, for the first time to think about others, forced to fight for a family once again. It's this that makes his final outing that more satisfying-at last, at long last, Wolverine has a film worthy of his name-and if this is truly Jackman's last outing as the character, he goes out on a high, finally encapsulating the character's complexity, dark sense of humour and most of all, his style. So long, bub. 

Rating: Highly Recommended.