Logan

Trail blazing reviews for #Logan pic.twitter.com/tFttRT5qwO

— Richard E. Grant (@RichardEGrant) March 2, 2017

This week's movie rental was Logan ...

a 2017 American superhero film featuring the Marvel Comics character Wolverine .... It is the tenth installment in the X-Men film series, as well as the third Wolverine solo film following X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and The Wolverine (2013) .... The film takes inspiration from "Old Man Logan" by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, which follows an aged Wolverine undertaking a final adventure in a dystopian future .... Hugh Jackman stars as Logan in his final portrayal of the character after having played the role for 17 years, with Patrick Stewart co-starring as Charles Xavier.

Basic plot: The year is 2029 and in this dystopian future, mutants are almost extinct. Logan/Wplverine has mostly lost his regenerative powers and is slowly being poisoned by his Adamantium-enhanced skeleton. He is working as a driver in Texas to save money so that he and Professor Charles Xavier, his friend and mentor, can escape to some safer place. Charles, the strongest telepath on the planet, is suffering from some brain trauma which affects his memory and which causes seizures that harm all those near him. Meanwhile, a sociopathic scientist has been using mutant DNA to create and raise new mutants to be used as weapons. A young female mutant created with Logan's genetic material escapes the lab and finds Logan and Charles, asking them to take her to a sanctuary in Canada. Charles talks Logan into this, but it puts them in terrible danger, as the girl is being hunted by the scientist's relentless henchmen.

I've been looking forward to seeing this film for some time. I've been a Marvel and X-Men fan since I was a comic-reading kid and I like the movies even better. I also like Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart and wanted to see them in this, their last appearance in the X-Men series ... the first movie was released in 2000, so they have been inhabiting their characters for 17 years.

The film is darker than many of the others in the series, and is rated R for violence and language, but though it has been touted by some as an unrestricted gore-fest, I think that it's the portrayal of the present state of the relationship built over the years between Charles and Logan that makes the movie as good as it is. So let's take a look back ...

It's hard to say when Logan and Charles first met. Was it when Logan was rescued from Magneto's bad mutants and brought unconscious to the school run by Charles (X-Men)? ....



Or was it when the young Charles and the young Eric (Magneto) were gathering together mutants to start teaching them at Charles' school to become the X-Men, and they approached Logan in a bar? ;) (X-Men: First Class) ....



Or was it when Logan time-traveled back into the past, to when Charles was a young man who had lost his way, in order to change a timeline that had become disastrous in the present (X-Men: Days of Future Past)? ...



At any rate, it was both touching and grim that n this future where Logan and Charles are among the last of their kind, the two of them are still together as their lives become ever more fragile ...



Once their dangerous road trip begins, it's not long before Charles is killed. Logan finds as nice a place as he can along their route to Canada in which to bury his friend ...



The movie got very good reviews. Here's a bit of the one from the Wall Street Journal ...

‘Logan’ Review: Violence and Drama That Cut Deep

The slashing starts early in “Logan”—no surprise, since it’s an R-rated action thriller about Wolverine, also known as Logan, the X-Men character with the tortured psyche and retractable claws. (He is played brilliantly by Hugh Jackman, who first played him 17 years ago.) The great surprise, which reveals itself gradually, lies in the depth and resonance of the drama. Yes, there is violence in abundance, sequences of spectacular mayhem that will thrill hardcore fans and scare off others. Yet this comic book epic, directed in masterly fashion by James Mangold, achieves a narrative grandeur ....

More reviews: Wired: Logan Review: This Is How Wolverine Was Supposed to End ... The Verge: Logan review: not just the bloodiest X-Men movie, but also the saddest ... Forbes: Review: 'Logan' Could Be First Superhero Movie To Get Best Picture Nomination

And here's the trailer ...