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By Jack Wright
Logan is the latest installment by Fox and, judging by all its publicity, looks to be the final farewell to the adamantium-clawed face of the X-Men series: Wolverine. Overcoming personal demons and discovering startling revelations are just the tips of the metaphorical iceberg seen in this poignant yet charmingly profane picture.
Set more than 80 years after the previous Wolverine film, Logan, based lightly on the Old Man Logan storyline in the comics, is neither post-apocalyptic nor present day. That being said, if the director claimed the story takes place in contemporary America, it would not be impossible to conceive.
During this time, no new mutants have been born for 25 years and the race is on the brink of extinction. Logan, played for the final time by Hugh Jackman, spends his days as a part-time chauffeur and full-time carer for Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who is suffering from a neurodegenerative disease. If this film teaches us one thing, it’s what a mental condition does to the world’s most dangerous brain.
Logan is approached by Gabriella and 11-year-old Laura (or for the ardent fans: X-23) who beg him for aid as they attempt to escape to North Dakota from totalitarian Donald Pierce (I presume that forename is a mere coincidence?). After initially refusing to assist, our protagonist is left with an internal moral conflict; ultimately surrender to his callings as a superhero and give the little girl a helping hand – or claw?
With this unconventionally apposite duo comes a journey that is treacherous yet a learning curve for both. Laura manages to adapt to her new terrain surpassing the four walls of a dystopian laboratory whilst Logan discovers that while he has lost many friends as of late, he may have gained something else.
Many may have anticipated James Mangold’s latest vision to be the follow-on from the previous two movies that centred around James Howlett (aka Logan or Wolverine – whichever sounds cooler in your head) – X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and The Wolverine (2013) – but this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, fans are now entertaining the idea that those preceding, polarizing-reviewed instalments were merely just films and Logan is the real deal – in all its intensely gory and compellingly realistic glory. The character that has long been the undefeatable, never wearisome leading man of Marvel’s ever-popular X-Men eventually sees his powers waning and becomes more human throughout every minute of this western noir.
Logan is finally relatable.
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