Last year, Fox's gamble with an R-rated, full-throttle Deadpool paid off handsomely - now it was Wolverine's turn, hoping to give Hugh Jackman a truly worthy send-off in his last outing as the classic X-Men hero.

With reports that Jackman took a pay-cut to ensure the studio wouldn't push for a PG-13 rating, it's clear Logan has taken great pains to differentiate itself from the rest of the X-men universe, and critics are lapping it up.

Already being hailed as the best Wolverine film yet - and even the best X-Men film by some - Logan is also notably being described as a superhero film in name only, having much more stylistically in common the western, even namechecking the 1953 classic Shane.

Here's what the critics are saying:

Audiences looking for wham bang action may find Logan a little downbeat but there’s more heart here than you’ll find in almost any other superhero movie.

How much fans of the series will take to all this isn’t immediately obvious: Logan is a film for people, like me, who thought the only good bit of X-Men: Apocalypse was Michael Fassbender crying in the woods, and left the cinema wishing that had been the whole thing. It’s something no-one could have expected: a creatively risky superhero movie. And it deserves to pay off.

Smartly U-turning from the X-films' latter tendency to ramp up the world-threat via increasingly incomprehensible CGI, Mangold keeps things grounded and intimate. For the first time, the tension between Logan's animalistic killer instinct and his struggle to just be a good, decent human being is explored in depth and at length.

Logan - trailer

With filmmakers cramming more characters, CGI, and noise into their superhero films, it’s refreshing just to spend time with Logan, Laura, and Charles. James Mangold and co-writers Scott Frank and Michael Green have created a unique and intimate entry in the world of superheroes. Though it would be unfair to call Logan a “superhero film.” It’s a western, a noir film, a road movie.

It is more like a survivalist thriller than a superhero film, and signals its wintry quality with the title itself. It’s like seeing a film entitled Banner or Parker or Kent. With the approach of death, maybe super identity is cast off. Superpowers start to fade along with ordinary powers.

Logan is easily better than either of the other standalone Wolverine movies, and far more meaningful and grown up than any of the First Class generation films – but not exactly fun. Impressive and bold, it's a superhero movie that feels nothing like one, though whether that's a good thing or not is debatable. Either way, we're glad it exists.

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It’s also packed with death and destruction, though time has been taken to ensure the murders don’t all happen for the sake of empty visual kicks. There’s gore, but it’s not a leery, screwball brand of violence. There are no sick laughs. The violence is swift and brutal. And the film is noticeably bereft of cool kiss-off lines or metatexual quips.

As its title suggests, Logan strips away the superhero bells and whistles, cast-of-thousands spectacle and labyrinthine twists of the X-Men franchise to focus on its most tormented mutant, aka Wolverine. Seamlessly melding Marvel mythology with Western mythology, James Mangold has crafted an affectingly stripped-down stand-alone feature, one that draws its strength from Hugh Jackman’s nuanced turn as a reluctant, all but dissipated hero.