Logan’s darkness is not simply an aesthetic filter as was the case in Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; it emanates from within the character. It's ironic that the title shares some DNA with the famously campy 1970s sci-fi film, Logan’s Run, in which people are considered obsolete at 30 and murdered. In its way, Logan is just as much about the pitilessness of the aging process, and Jackman's battle-scarred, stiffening body is as expressive in this regard as his perma-scowl of a face. It's taking him longer to heal, his eyes are never clear and one of his claws won't fully extend. This makes him less Logan's Run, more Logan's Limp. He's as battered a superhero as we've ever seen, and for the first time his body bears exterior witness to the inner torture that has always defined him. His body is the story.

There are flaws, of course. At 135 minutes the film is unnecessarily long, especially when one lengthy digression in the middle feels so inorganic. And considering the relentless dourness, and the serially downbeat turns the story takes, it does pose the questions: How bleak is too bleak? How many head stabbings are too many head stabbings? How standalone can a film be, and still relate to the continuity of a wider cinematic universe? How much doom-laden mortality can a film portray and still be a superhero movie?

In an era of cinematic product homogenisation there’s no doubt that Logan is a risky proposition. But this is reportedly Jackman’s last time donning those claws and chewing on that cigar. Considering it was his Wolverine, as the centrepiece of Bryan Singer’s X-Men (2000), who launched the currently omnipresent superhero phenomenon in the first place, maybe the most appropriate thing would be that, with the brutal, melancholic elegy that is Logan, Wolverine remakes the superhero movie again, this time as a farewell.

★★★★☆

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