Movie Review -- Logan

Today we have the final film in Marvel's Wolverine trilogy. It is Logan. How does it stack up against its predecessors? Let's find out.

The story takes place in 2029 America. It has been years since a Mutant was born, and they've pretty much died out. Poor Logan (Hugh Jackman) is eking out a living as a limo driver (when he's not busy trying to drink himself to death) while struggling to obtain medication for an Alzheimer's-riddled Charles Xavier (an especially vulgar Patrick Stewart). See, Professor X has...err, episodes, for lack of a better term, in which he psychically assaults everyone around him and he needs special pills to keep that from happening.

Anyway, one day Logan is approached by a Mexican woman who asks him to escort a pre-pubescent girl named Laura (Dafne Keen) who has serious anger issues. But there are bad men from Essex Corporation after Laura, and when they attack the place where Logan is keeping Xavier to get her, everyone finds out just how dangerous she is courtesy of her Adamantium claws. She ****s them up! Turns out she's a clone of Logan, and she didn't exactly turn out how her creators wanted (what with the tendency to go on killing sprees), so they decided to do away with her and their other test subjects. And they've created a new test subject...who also goes on a killing spree.

Logan feels bad for her, but not quite bad enough to help her out. It takes a little prodding from a pudding-brained Xavier to get him to do the right thing. So they set out to find the fabled rendezvous point for the other test subjects, but getting there won't be easy; Essex basically has an army and enhanced soldiers to do their bidding, and Logan's body is falling apart on him. Can our heroes survive long enough to ensure a fresh start for Mutantkind? And will Logan ever stop breaking the fourth wall by reading X-Men comics within the movie?

As I said before, this is the third movie in this series, not counting the many X-Men films. X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a joke and The Wolverine was lackluster. Thankfully, Logan emerges to be the first good movie to star Marvel's Canadian Mutant. The switch to an R-rating was a gamble that pays off. With the heaps of gore and swearing, you can tell this film wants to be taken seriously by comic book and action fans. It doesn't insult us with weak depictions of violence like a lot of PG-13 movies. Every time Logan stabbed someone in the previous films, you knew in the back of your mind this is what was happening. We just never saw it until now.

I also want to commend newcomer Dafne Keen on a job well done. She really nails her performance of a broken child raised by psychopaths in Mexico, something that's obviously not so easy to pull off.

And finally, I want to mention the powerful story. It hits all the right notes as we witness the loss of characters who have been with us for years. Think you know who will live and die? Think again.

Bottom line: This is the Wolverine movie we've been waiting for.