Logan is the Best Comic Book Movie Ever

Bro, I’m not gonna lie: I did this whole X-Men marathon just so I could talk about this movie.

It is genuinely unfair how good Logan is. Literally every other X-Men movie pales in comparison. Every other comic book movie pales by comparison! I can’t even call it a superhero movie, it’s a straight-up western that just so happens to feature X-Men and superpowers!

And it also murdered one of my childhood heroes. Literally.

With the X-Men long gone and Mutants fading from the world, an old and sick Logan struggles to make ends meat taking care of himself and Charles. But their meager life together is about to be turned upside down when Laura, Logan’s clone/daughter, is brought to his doorstep. Now the Wolverine must go on one last ride to save the new generation of Mutants. But with age finally catching up with him, and his Adamantium skeleton at long last reaping the costs, he’s got his work cut out for him.

Going from the utter clusterfuck of X-Men: Apocalypse to this is like giving yourself whiplash. We went from a shlocky, mindless action fest to a grounded and gruesome character drama in the span of two movies! Not to mention the change in rating; seriously, hearing Logan and Charles tell each other to fuck off is equal parts jarring and hilarious!

Unfortunately, that’s just about where the comic relief ends.

This is not a happy movie. This is a movie where all my favorite childhood heroes get brutally murdered and no one gets a happy ending. Again: it’s a western. And not the kind where the hero heroically rides off into the sunset.

Logan’s characterization in this movie is by far the best he’s ever been. The grizzled old warrior who has lost everything, finding the redemption he’s searched centuries for at the end of his long, long life. Hugh Jackman puts on his greatest performance yet, giving us a performance that’s truly gut-wrenching from start to end.

Watching Wolverine die at the end of this movie genuinely broke me when I first saw it. This came out the same year that I graduated high school. Seeing the hero I grew up watching, grew up loving, get brutally killed wasn’t just an ending to a movie to me. It was the ending of my childhood. Very few movies have ever made me sob as hard as this one did.

Much to the chagrin of my poor mother, who came along to see it with me simply because she had a crush on Hugh Jackman.

Every other character is spot-on as well. Laura is genuinely amazing; Dafne Keen brought X-23 to life magnificently, and she stands as one of the greatest child actor performances I’ve ever seen. Patrick Stewart also brought his A-game for his final (kinda) appearance as Charles Xavier; seeing an old, sick Charles trying to do one last act of good and impart some last bit of wisdom before his gut-wrenching ending genuinely left me in tears.

If I have one complaint about the story here, it’s the villains. Robot-arm guy is pretty forgettable. X-24 is super intimidating, and he works perfectly on a thematic level. But as an actual character? Dude has no dialogue whatsoever. Bit of a letdown.

Visually speaking, this movie is… kind of a mixed bag. In terms of direction, editing, and cinematography, it’s the best X-Men movie by a country mile! It’s so good that they released a black-and-white cut, and it looks really good!

But then there’s the CGI. Some of those special effects look rough, even by the standards of the time. All the practical effects look spectacular, but when the film demands CGI for its action scenes, it can look downright cartoony. Which is kind of a problem when you’re gunning for a mature western story.

Luckily, this movie isn’t dedicated to action. It’s dedicated to characters. Seeing Wolverine and X-23 duke it out with a younger, stronger Logan clone isn’t the highlight. The highlight is seeing Logan, tired and sick and near the end of his life, sticking up for a farmer for no reason beyond it being the right thing to do. It’s seeing him bury the closest thing he’s ever had to a father figure and finally break down crying for the first time in centuries. The stand-out moments are all grounded in character, not mindless fighting and gratuitous superpowers!

Although some of the action is pretty sick. The hotel scene? God DAMN!!

Please, if you haven’t already, please watch Logan. This is not a comic book movie. It’s a genuinely incredible western that just so happens to feature superpowers. It’s a legitimately good movie that deserved far more praise and attention than it got. This is a masterpiece, through and through!

Unfortunately, time has gone a long way in souring its impact. Patrick Stewart came back as Charles for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and now Hugh Jackman is coming back as Wolverine for Deadpool 3. Seeing Stewart again was fun, and I can’t wait to finally get a good movie with Wade and Logan. But seeing them again after this movie was supposed to be their swan song kinda diminishes its impact.

You should still watch it, though. Hell, even if you haven’t seen a single X-Men movie, you should watch it. Even if Disney brought guns back into the valley.

And now we’re out of good X-Men movies to talk about. It’s all downhill from here.