If you are a fan of the Wolverine as played by Hugh Jackman over the last 17 years, then Logan, which is the given name of this X-Men superhero, is not your film. Grim, sometimes beautiful, but mostly just painful, this last installment is the story of the demise of a great hero, and it is heartbreaking.
Based on a graphic novel called Old Man Logan by Mike Millar and Steve McNiven, the film is adapted and directed by James Mangold, who clearly felt an affinity for a story about an ageing, dying Wolverine. Unfortunately, as with most films that are this apocalyptic, the nature of it is deeply self-indulgent, overly gloomy and with none of the biting humour and almost hidden tenderness that Hugh Jackman nuanced his character with, making the prickly, quick to pounce Wolverine so beloved.
Set in 2029, the film tells the story of a world without mutants, where an evil corporation called, cleverly or not so cleverly I still can’t decide, Transigen has created a virus released into the drinking water, wiping out the mutant gene. Not so originally, Transigen is also now creating made to order mutant soldiers with special powers, resulting in their experimentation on human embryos, a horrifying transgression that causes them to incarcerate their growing subjects: little children who have been experimented on with an end to making them killing machines. Patrick Stewart reprises his role from earlier X-Men films as Charles Xavier, but, here too, the man is so altered as to barely represent the wheelchair bound free-thinker who warmed the heart of previous films.