Logan (2017)

By 2017, the superhero film was, to put it mildly, a crowded marketplace. Marvel Studios had been churning out interconnected blockbusters at a relentless pace, and the X-Men franchise, now in its seventeenth year, had given audiences everything from continent-scale catastrophe to time-bending ensemble spectacles. Against that backdrop, Logan arrived as something genuinely different: a superhero film with a 15 certificate in the UK, a deliberately confined setting, and almost no interest in setting up a sequel or teasing a cinematic universe. It was produced by Hutch Parker Entertainment, The Donners' Company, and Genre Films, and it draws loose inspiration from the "Old Man Logan" comic storyline by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, though the film charts its own course. The premise places an ageing, deteriorating Logan somewhere on the Texas-Mexico border in the year 2029, caring for an equally diminished Professor X, until the arrival of a young girl forces him back into a world he has been trying to leave behind. The R-rating (or 15 in the UK) was a hard-won creative choice, and the film makes no apologies for it.

For director James Mangold, Logan represents the third time he has worked with Hugh Jackman on the character, following The Wolverine, and it shows a filmmaker who has clearly thought long and hard about what the character deserves. Mangold had already demonstrated a versatility worth noting across his career, from the intimate, gritty drama of Cop Land through to the biographical warmth of Walk the Line, and that range is visible here in the way Logan balances bursts of visceral action against quieter, more personal passages. The screenplay, which Mangold co-wrote with Scott Frank and Michael Green, is structured more like a road movie or a Western than a conventional comic-book picture, and the film even makes its own debt to that tradition explicit at one point.

The cast is small by franchise standards, and all the better for it. Hugh Jackman had been playing Logan since 2000, and across that long run in the X-Men series, the character had rarely been given this much weight or stillness to work with. Patrick Stewart, similarly, had decades of Professor X behind him, and the film uses that accumulated familiarity with real intelligence. As the antagonist, Boyd Holbrook brings a cool, unhurried menace, while Elizabeth Rodriguez provides one of the film's more underplayed and convincing supporting performances. Perhaps the most talked-about piece of casting, though, is Dafne Keen as Laura, then a relatively unknown young actress, who carries an enormous amount of the film's emotional and physical workload without a great deal of dialogue to lean on. At 137 minutes, Logan is not a short film, and it earns that runtime through character rather than spectacle.

Logan (2017) is a superhero film that doesn’t just break the mold, it smashes it to pieces and builds something raw, human, and unforgettable. Set in a near-future wasteland where mutants are nearly extinct, it follows an aging, broken Logan as he’s pulled into one final mission: protecting a young girl who may be the key to a new beginning. Hugh Jackman gives the performance of his career (exhausted, angry, grieving) and Patrick Stewart delivers one of his most powerful turns as a fragile, ailing Professor X. Dafne Keen, as Laura, is phenomenal, bringing fierce silence and emotional depth that speaks louder than words. The action is brutal, personal, and gorgeously shot, no CGI armies or city-leveling explosions, just claws, blood, and consequence. The R-rated gore isn’t gratuitous; it’s earned, making every fight feel dangerous and real. And the story of a quiet, road-trip tragedy wrapped in a superhero skin, one about legacy, fatherhood, and what it means to finally rest. It’s touching, devastating, and deeply moving. That said, the pacing does sag a little in the middle. The fact that Logan no longer heals adds weight, but also slows momentum, his pain becomes repetitive, and some stretches feel like they’re treading water. Still, when it hits, it hits hard. Easily one of the greatest superhero films ever made. Not because of powers, but because of heart. For me, it stands above almost all the Marvel films. A masterpiece of character, violence, and soul. Wolverine’s swan song (until Deadpool came along) and what a way to go.

I find myself coming back to Logan every so often, and it never quite loses its grip. There is something almost relieving about a superhero film that trusts its audience enough to sit in discomfort, to let its hero fail and hurt and doubt without a rousing third-act fix-all. The Western influences Mangold brings to the piece give it a gravity that most action films, however polished, simply do not bother reaching for. If you want city-levelling set pieces and post-credits teases, there are plenty of those elsewhere. What Logan offers instead is something rarer: a genre film that actually feels like it has something at stake. A proper farewell, told on a human scale.

Rating: ★★★★  | Year: 2017  | Watched: 2025-11-02

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Logan (2017) on YouTube

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus · HBO Max Amazon Channel
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from James Mangold: Ford v Ferrari (2019) · Cop Land (1997) · The Wolverine (2013) · Walk the Line (2005)
More with Hugh Jackman: Van Helsing (2004) · X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) · X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) · The Wolverine (2013)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)