Here is another offshoot of the X-Men movies, again with the Wolverine character, but this one is the best of the bunch. It's dark, serious, brutal, ultra violent (Really, this has tons of gore!!) and even somewhat depressing. For better or worse, there is a weight to it that you don't often see in comic book movies.
It's the near future and mutants are nearly extinct, thanks to mankind. Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is an aging, shell of a man. He's an alcoholic without a cause, drives a limo to pad out his existence, and has no qualms about unleashing his metal claws to murder lowlifes attempting to steal his ride. The one responsibility he does follow through with is getting medicine for the ailing Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), the former X-Men mentor. Xavier's brain is deteriorating, causing his powers of telepathy and mind control to be unpredictable and dangerous. Logan finds a cause when he is reluctantly put in charge of little girl mutant Laura (Dafne Keen), who is being pursued by villainous agents, led by the psychotic Pierce (a joyfully nasty Boyd Holbrook) and the mad Dr. Rice (Richard E. Grant).
As I stated above, the movie is incredibly violent, but the violence works on two different levels. When Logan is decapitating bad guys, it is gleefully fun, but when characters on the side of good die graphically, it is effectively shocking. The key here is that the writers (director James Mangold, Scott Frank and Michael Green) develop characters we care about.
Speaking of characters, while Jackman has always been good as Wolverine in all the previous X-Men films, his rendition here is the best. He perfectly and emotionally captures something we don't normally see in comic book movies – an old, broken down superhero who seems to have worn out his usefulness. And Keen is pretty bad-ass as little Laura
Logan isn't a perfect movie – the script is maybe a little too downbeat, and the seemingly mute Laura decides to talk only because the screenplay decided it needed her to at a certain point – but it has a raw emotional power. It also has some exciting, down and dirty action scenes.
Trivia: Much of Logan was filmed here in Louisiana and attentive viewers may notice Charity Hospital, Gennaro's Bar and Harrah's New Orleans Casino to name a few of the film's locations.
