Logan: One Last Time for Wolverine

Laura (Dafne Keen), Charles (Patrick Stewart) and Logan (Hugh Jackman) in LOGAN. Photo Credit: Ben Rothstein.

It’s one last time for Hugh Jackman as Logan’s story comes to an end in Logan, the newest installment of the X-Men franchise.

Inspired by Old Man Logan, this film is very grounded and it’s not the typical superhero action film. It’s a powerful film and one really doesn’t need to see the prior films going into it as it’s a standalone pic in which one really doesn’t need to have seen the previous X-Men films.

James Mangold continues his role as director. The screenplay was written by Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green with Mangold writing the story. Jackman leads a cast that includes Patrick Stewart, Stephen Merchant, Richard E. Grant and Dafne Keen.

Logan is an action-adventure road trip. It’s 2029 and there have not been any mutants born in the last 20 years. Logan (Jackman) lives with Caliban (Merchant), a mutant most recently seen in X-Men: Apocalypse (pure coincidence) and looks after Professor X (Stewart), whose mind is worsening as a result of damaging seizures.

Logan, now resorting by his given birth name, is a limo driver near the Mexican border. He has turned to alcohol as a way of dealing with the adamantium poisoning his body. If he doesn’t have to take out his claws, he won’t. His rehealing isn’t quite the same as it was back in the day.

As Logan tries hiding away, a nurse reaches out to him with a request that he take Laura (Keen) to Eden, near the Canadian border. For Logan, this serves as a final mission, no matter how reluctant he is to do so at first.

“We wanted something that would feel very different, very fresh and ultimately something very human,” Jackman says of Logan, “because it seems to me that the strength of X-Men and the strength of Wolverine is more his humanity than his superpower. In exploring this character for the last time, I wanted to get to the heart of who that human was, more than what his claws can do.”

Just as Logan serves as the end of an era for Jackman, the case can also be said for Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier. Barring an appearance in Deadpool or Legion, Stewart’s days as the professor appear to have ended with Logan.

Distributed by 20th Century Fox, Logan opened on March 3, 2017.

Danielle Solzman

Danielle Solzman is native of Louisville, KY, and holds a BA in Public Relations from Northern Kentucky University and a MA in Media Communications from Webster University. She roots for her beloved Kentucky Wildcats, St. Louis Cardinals, Indianapolis Colts, and Boston Celtics. Living less than a mile away from Wrigley Field in Chicago, she is an active reader (sports/entertainment/history/biographies/select fiction) and involved with the Chicago improv scene. She also sees many movies and reviews them. She has previously written for Redbird Rants, Wildcat Blue Nation, and Hidden Remote/Flicksided. From April 2016 through May 2017, her film reviews can be found on Creators.

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