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Logan Parent Guide

This first movie to get an r-rating in the x-men franchise is supposed to show wolverine's softer side..

Release date March 3, 2017

Hugh Jackman returns as Wolverine, in this film that adds more details to the story of the mutant whose hands can turn into blades of steel.

Run Time: 137 minutes

Official Movie Site

Logan Rating & Content Info

Why is Logan rated R? Logan is rated R by the MPAA for strong brutal violence and language throughout, and for brief nudity.

Violence: - Non-graphic violence. - Frequent explicit violence. - Pervasive portrayals of hand-to-hand, weapons, and gun violence, with blood, physical assault, injury and wound detail. - Explicit depictions of weapons use and decapitation. - Violent acts shown in realistic detail with blood and tissue damage. - Frequent gory and grotesque images. - Disturbing scenes.

Sexual Content: - Scene of nudity, depicting breasts, in a non-sexual context. - Mild sexual references.

Profanity: Approximately 80 instances of coarse and/or sexual language, including: - Frequent use of the sexual expletive and variations in a non-sexual context. - Frequent use of scatological slang. - Infrequent use of cursing , profanity, and vulgar expressions. - Limited use of slurs.

Alcohol / Drug Use: - Tobacco use. - Alcohol use.

Page last updated July 17, 2017

News About "Logan"

Logan was perviously titled Wolverine Sequel 2017 .

Cast and Crew

Logan is directed by James Mangold and stars Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Boyd Holbrook .

The most recent home video release of Logan movie is May 23, 2017. Here are some details…

Logan releases to home video (Blu-ray/DVD/Digital HD) on May 23, 2017. Bonus features include: - Logan Noir: a black-and-white version of the film - Audio commentary by director James Mangold - Deleted scenes with optional audio commentary by Mangold - Making Logan — behind-the-scenes documentary

Related home video titles:

This mutant is a character from the X-Men franchise. He has been featured in his own movies: X-Men Origins-Wolverine and The Wolverine .

Related news about Logan

2018: 90th Academy Award Nominations

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• Parents say (108)
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Based on 108 parent reviews

This title has:

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Love it is v. violent.

• Educational value
• Great role models
• Too much violence
• Too much swearing

Strong brutal violence and language throughout and Logan Noir is the black and white version

Great marvel movie but rated r for a reason.

• Too much drinking/drugs/smoking

Brilliant finale movie with more bloody violence and strong language

• Too much sex

"Redemptive, but Brutal, Fable"

What You Need To Know:

Other Content: Some alcohol use and brief drunkenness; no smoking or illegal drugs, but an elderly character has to take some kind of prescription pills and regular injections to dampen deadly seizures comping from his powerful mutated brain; and, revenge murder and other heavy brutality.

More Detail:

LOGAN is a redemptive, but brutal, science fiction thriller set in a dark America in 2029, where Logan, aka Wolverine, and a dying Professor Xavier try to save a young mutant girl chased by an army of villains genetically engineering mutant children to turn them into vicious soldiers. The movie’s redemptive, relentless storyline is seriously undercut by lots of brutal, extreme violence, much obscene and profane language, and heaps of despair and disillusionment.

Based on a new story that changes the history developed in the X-Men comic books, the movie opens with a drunken Logan, who’s become a limo driver, awakened by some gang thugs trying to steal his fancy limo’s tires. Logan, who’s pulled off to the side of the road to sleep, asks them to leave, but when they viciously attack him, he becomes enraged and kills them all.

It turns out Logan has hidden Professor Charles Xavier, the leader of the X-Men, in an abandoned oil complex in Mexico because Charles suffers from terrible seizures that can kill anyone around him if they go on too long. Logan, who’s aging and becoming sicker by the day, helped by a surviving albino mutant named Caliban, take care of Charles, feeding him prescription pills and sometimes injections to dampen his powerful mental abilities. However, Charles is in mental contact with a young mutant girl, Laura, who’s in some kind of terrible trouble. Apparently, the rest of the X-Men and many other mutants are dead.

Eventually, Logan and Charles meet up with Laura, who’s being tracked by an army of thugs sent by the large company that found ways to kill any mutant who refused to join them. The army is led by the company’s mad scientist leader who’s been genetically engineering mutant children like Laura, plying them with dangerous drugs and training them to develop an army of ruthless mutant soldiers. Laura and several other children escaped, but Laura got separated from the other children. Now, Laura needs Logan’s help to get to Canada, which has become an asylum for mutants like her.

As this plot develops, several questions arise. What’s wrong with Professor Xavier? Why does Logan appear finally to be aging and is himself becoming sicker and sicker? And, what happened to the X-Men?

LOGAN features a relentless, action packed story with multiple Christian references. For example, when Logan, Charles and Laura help a horse farmer and his family, they have dinner at the family’s house, and the father leads them all in the Lord’s Prayer. In addition, the movie is ultimately about Logan’s redemption from a lonely life filled with rage and violence. Logan’s redemption involves much sacrifice on his part to protect Laura.

Sadly, however, LOGAN, the movie, is set in a very dark world filled with brutal violence. It turns out that the mad scientist genetically created Laura from Logan’s DNA and experimented on her, so she has sharp steel claws hidden in her hands like Logan does and can regenerate herself quickly like the younger Logan used to do. Throughout the movie, Logan and Laura must fight and kill many of the soldiers that the mad scientist sends to kill Logan and capture Laura. Much of the killing involves Logan and Laura stabbing and slicing the soldiers to death with their claws.

The movie also contains constant foul language, including abundant “f” words. Also, Logan swears several times using Christ’s name and many times in front of the young girl. In addition, during a montage of Logan chauffeuring people in his limo, one girl riding with a bunch of other girls wearing prom dresses briefly exposes her breasts to Logan as a lewd prank.

All in all, LOGAN is an ultraviolent movie filled with excessive, gratuitous foul language.

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Watching Logan in a theater packed full with children

Why kids may be safer from the film than adults

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My oldest son is 15. He’s very anxious to see Logan , the R-rated send-off to Hugh Jackman’s take on Wolverine.

There were many children, some much younger than my son, in the theater where I saw it for myself last night. It was hard to enjoy the movie at times, wondering what those kids thought about what was going on in front of them. My first thought was that this was no movie for children. My second thought, near the film’s end, was whether they had any idea why the movie felt like one long punch in the gut for the adults in the audience.

A history of violence

The gore is only one reason Logan is such an intense film — and we’ll be getting into spoiler territory here — and it’s not even close to being the most concerning.

Every X-Men movie had Wolverine killing a whole bunch of people, and we all knew emotionally what was going on in those scenes even if clever editing or lack of blood avoided a heavier MPAA rating. Nor is the language that concerning; your kids have likely heard worse, and very possibly in your own home.

It’s the film’s tone and themes that made me feel so beaten up as a parent. Logan deals with all sorts of parental issues, whether it’s disappointing your own father figure as an adult or not knowing whether you’re inflicting yourself on your children by even being there. “What a disappointment you turned out to be,” Professor Xavier hisses at Wolverine at one point, and of course Logan agrees.

But Xavier’s approval is still important to the aging “hero,” even as the older man is dying from the wounds inflicted by what appears to be a clone of Wolverine. “It wasn’t me,” Wolverine whispers as he carries Xavier to what he hopes is safety. It’s important that Xavier knows that before he dies.

Everyone is dying slowly in Logan , and the movie doesn’t do much to hide it. The world itself seems to have cancer, and it’s this dire and cataclysmic tone that feels so emotionally draining.

The mutants are gone because the government is manipulating our genes through soda and food, while keeping the “hope” of the X-Men alive by breeding children to become weapons. At a time when the United States government is publicizing its plans to break up families as an inhuman way to deter illegal border crossings, a film about helping refugee children escape our own government feels way too close to reality.

But the film also deals with the struggle to keep some kind of hope alive in your heart, despite a lifetime of being hurt and hurting others. Wolverine finds something close to a kindred spirit in a young girl named Laura who was created using his DNA; a child who has been raised to kill others and is trying to escape her destiny of becoming nothing more than a weapon.

Just like many fathers who grew up disconnected from any of their own parents or grew up in an environment of abuse, Logan the character thinks the best thing he can do is leave the parenting to someone, anyone, else.

Logan and Laura are mirror images of each other — hissing and clawing their way through life — and they talk as though they are trying to reach each other through the lifetime that separates them. Laura has nightmares about being hurt. Logan has nightmares about hurting others. He tells her what it’s like to have to live with killing other people, and his explanation of his own illness comes with an implicit threat: The adamantium that’s a part of both of their bones will one day kill her as well.

Logan carries an adamantium bullet with him, in fact, as a sick kind of hope. If it gets too bad it’s one of the few ways he knows he can kill himself. It’s a way out.

Neither character was ever taught how to feel anything except for rage and hate. Logan finds himself at a loss for words after burying Xavier, and takes the anger out on his car with a shovel. Laura has no idea what to say when she is later tasked with burying Logan, so she repeats a speech from Shane , the only movie she has ever seen.

There is one happy, functional family in the film. They are killed because they show kindness to others. The movie cuts to credits before we learn much about where the rest of the surviving children are going, much less if they get there.

We have no idea if the cycle continues — if Laura only grows up to know hatred and killing — the same way Wolverine suffered from a lifetime of hurting others and letting down the only parental figure he ever knew.

If Manchester by the Sea has nothing interesting to say about toxic masculinity , Logan the film is openly hostile to the idea that closing yourself down from human love and connection is any kind of coping mechanism. Laura and Logan are both portrayed as victims of abuse, and their pain radiates outward in direct and indirect ways. It’s over two hours of watching hurt people hurting people.

But I wonder if any of that came through to the children in the audience, or if the film is actually more emotionally fraught for adults who have known what it’s like to both be hurt and hurt other people. It’s possible the kids watching the movie saw only the whiz-bang action scenes and thrilled at the copious use of forbidden words.

I’m not sure how I feel about my son seeing the movie, my gut says to give it a few years, but it’s very possible that Logan is much more emotionally fraught for the adults in the audience.

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In a future where mutants are nearly extinct, an elderly and weary Logan leads a quiet life. But when Laura, a mutant child pursued by scientists, comes to him for help, he must get her to s... Read all In a future where mutants are nearly extinct, an elderly and weary Logan leads a quiet life. But when Laura, a mutant child pursued by scientists, comes to him for help, he must get her to safety. In a future where mutants are nearly extinct, an elderly and weary Logan leads a quiet life. But when Laura, a mutant child pursued by scientists, comes to him for help, he must get her to safety.

• James Mangold
• Scott Frank
• Michael Green
• Hugh Jackman
• Patrick Stewart
• 1.7K User reviews
• 650 Critic reviews
• 77 Metascore
• 28 wins & 82 nominations total

• Will Munson

• Kathryn Munson

• Nate Munson

• Federale Commander

• Federale Lieutenant

• (as Rey Gallegos)

• Bone Breaker

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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia Hugh Jackman said this was the hardest Wolverine movie for which he had ever trained.
• Goofs (at around 1h 1 min) During Xavier's seizure in the hotel, everyone is frozen in place by the assault. As Logan passes by the slot machines, one lady is looking around unaffected by the paralysis.

Laura : You are dying. You want to die.

Logan : How do you know?

Laura : Charles told me.

Logan : What else did he tell you?

Laura : To not let you.

• Crazy credits In the closing credits, the words "Alpha Flight" appears under Camera Units. Alpha Flight is the name of a Canadian superhero group that Wolverine was originally a member of in the comics.
• Alternate versions Some Blu-ray releases include "Logan Noir," a black and white version of the film.
• Connections Edited into The New Mutants (2020)
• Soundtracks Las Mil y Una Noches Written by Cesar Alberto Gamboa Arbiza, Santiago Pablo Mostaffa Frau, Marcelo Gamboa Arbiza, Guerino Bartolome Pigliapoco Eleuterio, Leonard Mattioli Valverde and Eduardo D Yaguno Vanzella Performed by Santi Mostaffa Courtesy of Regalia Records By arrangement with Sugaroo!

User reviews 1.7K

• artgutierrez
• Dec 4, 2020
• What is Logan about?
• Is "Logan" based on a book?
• Is this going to be Patrick Stewart's last portrayal of Charles Xavier?
• March 3, 2017 (United States)
• United States
• Marvel (United States)
• Official Disney+ Hotstar
• Wolverine 3
• Just outside Northern Meadows community, Rio Rancho, New Mexico, USA
• Twentieth Century Fox
• Marvel Entertainment
• TSG Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $97,000,000 (estimated)
• $226,277,068
• $88,411,916
• Mar 5, 2017
• $619,180,476

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 17 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Surround 7.1

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Hugh Jackman makes the most of his final outing as Wolverine with a gritty, nuanced performance in a violent but surprisingly thoughtful superhero action film that defies genre conventions.

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Is “Logan” more powerful because of what the superhero genre has delivered over the last decade? Does it seem both groundbreaking and classic because it doesn’t feel like a modern superhero movie, especially those with the Marvel brand? Don’t worry. I’m not going to dissect the flaws of the Marvel and DC brands, but it’s undeniable that the modern superhero movie has relied on CGI, particularly in final acts comprised almost entirely of apocalyptic explosions. And so many of them have served as bridges between franchise entries that one feels like they’re constantly watching previews for the next movie instead of experiencing the one they’re watching. “Logan” has stakes that feel real, and fight choreography that’s fluid and gorgeous instead of just computer-generated effects. Most importantly, “Logan” has characters with which you identify and about whom you care. It's not just "great for a superhero movie," it's a great movie for any genre.

“Logan” calls back directly to “ Shane ,” including a scene in which the characters watch the film, but it has more echoes of late-career films for icons such as “ The Shootist ” and “ Unforgiven ” in the way it deconstructs the line between hero and legend. Logan ( Hugh Jackman ) is a Western archetype, the gunslinger forced to put away his six-shooters and try to live out his days as routinely as possible. In the world of “Logan,” The Uncanny X-Men comics exist, meaning that Logan/Wolverine is like a retired sports hero or celebrity, someone who’s recognized but no longer really essential. It is 2029 and mutants have been removed from the human bloodline, meaning that the creaky Logan and the nonagenarian Professor X ( Patrick Stewart ) are the end of an era. Or are they?

When the film opens, Logan is laying low, working as a driver. He’s introduced sleeping in his car, as a group of tough guys try to steal his tires. When he attempts to stop them, he gets shot, but we all know bullets don’t do much to Wolverine, and it’s minutes before his Adamantium claws are slicing through skull and bone in ways we’ve never seen on film before. Not only is “Logan” the first R-rated iteration of this classic character but Mangold’s approach to action is unique for the Marvel film brand. Gone is any sense of hyperactive editing or wide overhead shots to disguise the stunt and CGI work. We’re close to the action in this film, often shot from low to the ground, more like a “Bourne” film than a superhero movie, and the focus is more on fight choreography than editing. Jackman’s work in the fight scenes is smooth but also character-driven in that Wolverine’s style reflects the no-nonsense approach of the character. “Logan” also works in a few fantastic chase scenes later in the film, and again it doesn’t feel like the film stops and takes a break for set pieces as so many superhero movies do—the action is organic to the story and the characters, much like “ Mad Max: Fury Road ” in that regard.

“Logan” shares more than just an action style with George Miller ’s film for it too becomes a road movie when Logan, Professor X, and a mysterious girl ( Dafne Keen ) head out to try and find 'Eden,' a place where escaped mutants are going to start over, which may or may not even exist. Reticently, Logan realizes he has one more heroic journey in him, and that he has to protect this girl from the team of mercenaries chasing them (an iteration of the Reavers from the comic books) led by one particularly nasty SOB named Donald Pierce ( Boyd Holbrook ).

Holbrook is good here and Richard E. Grant chews some scenery well in later scenes, but the real villain of “Logan” is time. Professor X has gotten to a point late in his life where he has seizures, and if you’ve ever wondered what happens when a telepath so powerful that his brain has been classified as a weapon of mass destruction has seizures, wonder no more. He needs a sedative shot to stop a seizure and pills to keep them from coming on in the first place. He knows he doesn’t have much time left on this planet. And neither does Logan, who Jackman plays as a man more than a superhero in one of the best performances of his career. Jackman interprets Logan as a man who has lost most of his friends and most of his purpose, hesitant to fight again. Again, it's like the late-career roles of Wayne or Eastwood in that sense, an icon forced into action for a final time, but Jackman wisely plays the humanity of his iconic character instead of the mutant abilities. It's a fantastic performance.

One can look back on “Logan” and pull apart the themes and philosophies of the film, but it’s important to note that it’s a viscerally exciting film to experience. The comparisons to “ Children of Men ” and classic Westerns may lead one to believe that this is overwritten and overly intellectual. Nothing is further from the truth. This is a great action movie, first and foremost. The action scenes have purpose and connect so much more powerfully than most superhero films, in which they are often just ways to show off the budget. When “Logan” breaks out into action, it feels organic to the plot, moving the themes and characters forward, much like in James Cameron ’s “ Terminator 2: Judgment Day ,” another film which this one reflects in its road structure and that of a protector for the next generation (and in another way that I won’t spoil).

“Logan” is the rare blockbuster that could be a game-changer. It will certainly change the way we look at other superhero movies and how history judges the entire MCU and DC Universe of films. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good popcorn superhero movie as much as the next guy (maybe even more than most critics), but “Logan” shows how deep one can go in the genre if they just approach it in a different way. In that sense, "Logan" deconstructs the modern superhero movie. It will be hard to put it back together again.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

Logan (2017)

Rated R for strong brutal violence and language throughout, and for brief nudity.

137 minutes

Hugh Jackman as Logan / Wolverine

Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier / Professor X

Dafne Keen as Laura Kinney / X-23

Boyd Holbrook as Donald Pierce

Stephen Merchant as Caliban

Richard E. Grant as Dr. Zander Rice

• James Mangold

Writer (story by)

• Scott Frank
• Michael Green

Cinematographer

• John Mathieson
• Michael McCusker
• Dirk Westervelt
• Marco Beltrami

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• DVD & Streaming
• Action/Adventure , Drama , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• March 3, 2017
• Hugh Jackman as Logan (Wolverine); Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier; Dafne Keen as Laura; Boyd Holbrook as Donald Pierce; Stephen Merchant as Caliban; Elizabeth Rodriguez as Gabriela; Richard Grant as Dr. Zander Rice

Home Release Date

• May 23, 2017
• James Mangold

Distributor

• 20th Century Fox

Movie Review

Logan, the X-Men’s famed Wolverine, bested the world’s worst hombres in his day. He tangled with Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants, fought the Silver Samurai and battled his very own brother.

But not even Wolverine can win the war against time.

It’s 2029, and the world has changed. Mutantkind has all but disappeared. The few who remain aren’t all that interested in donning tights and saving the world.

Logan’s no superhero now but a limo driver, chauffeuring grieving widows or drunken revelers through the streets of El Paso, Texas. He lives in an otherwise-abandoned compound just south of the border, doing his best to stave off a hidden, ticking time bomb.

That bomb is Charles Xavier.

The mind-reading former leader of the X-Men has some form of dementia now—a degenerative brain disease eating away at the world’s greatest brain. He babbles incoherently or rages at shadows. He’ll suffer seizures that, because of his psychokinetic abilities, can hurt or even kill those close by. And even when Charles seems to be in his right mind, he insists that he “talks” with a little mutant girl. Laura. But Laura’s just another delusion, Logan knows. It’s been decades since the last mutant was born.

Logan keeps Charles’ seizures in check and his mind manageable through some ill-gotten meds, but they’re losing their power. Charles is getting worse. So Logan’s squirreling away money to buy a boat—something they can take into open waters, where Charles’ increasing dementia won’t hurt or kill anyone. Well, anyone but Logan.

But Charles isn’t the only mutant on the clock. Logan limps now. He coughs. He bleeds. His wounds don’t miraculously knit themselves together like they used to. No, Wolverine’s legendary powers of regeneration are failing him. He’s dying.

But dying or no, Logan’s still a legend. And one day, a woman comes to him for help. She needs to get to North Dakota, she says. She’ll pay well if he’ll take her and a small, important bit of cargo: a little girl with a penchant for horses and pink sunglasses, a little girl being pursued by some very bad people.

She seems normal in most ways.

Except for the way she looks at people. The way she never speaks. And the way claws come out of her knuckles when she’s mad.

Positive Elements

Logan has no inclination to take little girls to South Dakota. He can barely stand his own company, much less that of others. The former superhero is still strong in body (at least compared to the rest of us), but broken in soul. Charles tells Logan how disappointed he is in him, what a pitiful excuse for a hero he turned out to be.

But in this strange, last mission, Charles sees one last opportunity to teach Logan something about life, hope and love. And when the two are forced to take the girl with them on one of film history’s strangest road trips, he drops a little life lesson on Logan at every stop for gas.

When the two come across a farmer and his son, trying desperately to shoo their wayward horses off the highway, Logan’s inclined to want to keep driving. “Someone’ll come along,” he says. “Someone has come along,” Charles points out. The two wind up having dinner with the family, one filled with smiles and laughter.

“This is what life looks like,” Charles tells Logan. “People love each other. You should take a moment …”

Logan doesn’t. Not then. But as the road trip progresses and he grows ever fonder of this little girl (Laura), he begins to see what Charles was talking about. And he discovers—perhaps to his own surprise—that he’ll do anything and everything to protect her.

Spiritual Elements

The family that Logan, Charles and Laura eats dinner with is Christian. They pray before dinner. And when the father gripes about their rural trials, the mother tells him gently, “The Lord will provide.” “I’m still waiting for the Lord to provide a new thresher,” the father quips.

Charles also expresses a certain level of faith. “We were all part of God’s plan,” he tells Logan, speaking of he and his fellow mutants. “Maybe we were God’s mistake,” Logan counters. There are other references to mutants being like gods themselves. We also see a funeral scene from an old Western ( Shane ) that includes the Lord’s Prayer. Laura’s mesmerized by the scene.

[ Spoiler Warning ] Laura is revealed to be Logan’s own daughter—created and raised in a lab, but nevertheless crafted from Wolverine’s seed. The lab was trying to create an army of superhuman killers. (“Don’t think of them as children,” a scientist cautions a nurse caring for them. “Think of them as things.”) What they didn’t account for, however, was the presence of these children’s “souls.” Thus they decide to scrap the test-tube-baby program in favor of straight-up cloning—a process that creates soulless killing machines.

Sexual Content

There’s a brief topless scene when a woman pulls down her dress. Some of Logan’s limo customers wear cleavage-baring evening wear.

Violent Content

When Logan discovers that Laura’s mysterious female guardian has a bevy of old X-Men comics in her possession, the former X-Man is dismissive of those tales. “In the real world, people die!” he tells Laura.

In this movie, people die, too. Lots of people, and often in intensely grotesque and gratuitous ways. Frankly, there’s so much liquid, meaty mayhem here that I don’t think we can catalog it all.

Logan’s (and Laura’s) claws rip through reams of flesh. Logan skewers bad guys up through their jaws and into their skulls. Laura, off camera, apparently slices off someone’s head. (She comes out of a warehouse and rolls the noggin to the bad guy’s boss.) Limbs are hacked off. Throats are gashed. It’s doubtful you’d see so much sliced meat in a beef packing plant.

But Laura and (especially) Logan suffer their share of injuries, too. Both have an ability to heal the severest of wounds, of course, even though Logan’s abilities are fading. Laura’s own battle injuries are more suggested by the sheer magnitude of bullets and violence hurtled her way. (We do see dried blood on her knuckles where her blades come out, though.) Logan doesn’t get off so cleanly. He’s shot (with a shotgun no less), stabbed and shish kabobed plenty, up to the point where you’re a little surprised you don’t see organs hanging out of the guy. In one scene, he squeezes bullets out of freshly made bullet holes.

We also see some horrific moments of violence done by other means, as well. Someone has half their head blown off. Someone else gets skewered on a farm implement, the blades sticking out of the guy’s torso while he continues to squirm. In a truly horrific scene, people are slaughtered, leaving a home covered in blood. Others have their arms and heads frozen, then knocked off in sprays of blood. Vehicles fall on people. One man seems to be sucked into the very ground, wrapped in killer strands of grass.

In addition, Charles’ destructive mental fits have massive repercussions to those around him. While mutants seem most susceptible to his brain waves, Charles’ powers can impact normal folks, too. Most patrons of what appears to be a Reno casino are paralyzed and collapse unconscious when he suffers a breakdown there. (Charles apologizes to everyone, some just beginning to revive, as Logan hurriedly wheels him out.) We also hear rumblings of another terrible happening that took place several years ago because of Charles’ faltering brain—one that left several people dead.

In an old video a boy jumps off the side of a building, apparently choosing suicide as opposed to serving an immoral cause. Someone else blows himself up for much the same reasons. A man carries around a special bullet, planning on using it on himself when he feels the time is right. Another mutant (Caliban), who’s sensitive to the sun, is exposed to its harmful rays by bad guys who are “encouraging” him to join their cause. It burns him terribly.

Crude or Profane Language

About 45 f-words and nearly 25 s-words. We also hear “a–,” “d–n” and “h—,” along with three abuses of Jesus’ name and two parings of God’s name with “d–n.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Logan is very sick, and he self-medicates throughout the movie with whiskey, flasks full of booze and whatever liquor is available. He also uses a vial of medication that speeds up his unique healing processes at the expense of some of his rational mind. (It seems to wear off quite quickly, however.) Logan buys Charles’ drugs, apparently illegally, from a hospital worker. People drink heavily in the back of Logan’s limo.

Other Negative Elements

Some of Logan’s limo passengers seem to taunt Latinos with chants of “U.S.A.!” insinuating that they don’t belong there. Someone tries to steal the hubcaps off Logan’s limosuine—much to their eventual agony.

Wondering if Logan’s R-rating is a light one? Forget about it. When the moviemakers decided to go for a full-blown scarlet R, they didn’t skimp on the scarlet. They went full-bore bloody.

I don’t envy the parents of teenage X-Fans trying to navigate the conversations they’ll need to have about this often gratuitously gory movie. Put the foot down, and there may be Wolverine-style howls of protest. Give permission … well, the aftermath may be, in its own way, as scarring as anything Wolverine typically suffers.

It’s doubly unfortunate because, for all its blood, for all its f-words, Logan delivers some powerful messages.

Logan acknowledges the cost of shedding that blood. Clips of the film Shane —about an old gunfighter trying to clear a valley of guns—emphasizes this again and again. “There’s no living with a killing,” Shane says. “There’s no going back.” In his own gruff way, Logan tells Laura the same thing. Even though Laura does her share of killing, there’s a sense of innocence about her. Logan wants to preserve that innocence as much as he can. “Don’t be what they made you,” he tells her. Don’t be a killer , he’s saying: Be a little girl. Be better than me.

We’re given something else here, too: a family. Charles, the wise, aging and sometimes infantile grandfather; Logan, the angry, imperfect father; Laura, the daughter desperately needing a guiding hand. We watch as the traditional roles reverse: Logan gently carrying Charles up a flight of stairs to bed. Laura caring for an unconscious, sick Logan, finally managing to take him to the hospital. It’s strangely touching, especially in the confines of a superhero flick.

And then there’s this: Implicitly, Logan’ s story is one of redemption—one, perhaps, of salvation. Our protagonist is, after all, a wreck of a man when we first meet him, a beaten-down superhero with nothing left to save and no will to save it. Against his better judgment, against his own will, he discovers he does care. He finds someone to love, to save. And in the process, perhaps he saves himself.

Logan is, in short, frustrating. It’s painfully bloody and oddly beautiful, insanely profane and strangely spiritual. And there’s that brief instance of nudity, too. Because of those issues, Logan ‘s a movie I can’t recommend to anyone. But in some ways, I wish I could.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Logan is the best X-Men movie since 2003

Hugh Jackman’s final outing as Wolverine is a lonely, pre-apocalyptic Western. It’s great.

by Emily St. James

At one point in the first half of Logan , the new Wolverine movie starring Hugh Jackman (who has sworn this will be his last time playing the character), the film’s central players pause just long enough to watch the classic 1953 Western Shane on a hotel room TV.

They’re on the run from people who are attempting to round up mutant children who were created in a lab. One of those children — dubbed Laura by the nurses at the lab — is technically Logan's daughter, though he’s only just realized she exists. (He’s ditched the Wolverine moniker, hence the film's title, which is the character’s given name.) Taking a couple of hours to rest up in a hotel and watch a classic Western is a huge risk.

Shane , in case you’re unfamiliar, ruminates onthe incompatibility of open violence with civilization. It’s about a gunslinger who saves a little farm, then has to leave, while the child who’s come to love him shouts his name endlessly after his retreating form. Filmed out in the great wide open of the Rocky Mountains, it’s a classic of elemental Western storytelling.

So when I saw that film — and its most earnest, schmaltziest portions — quoted in an X-Men movie, as big and cynical a corporate machine as you could ever imagine, I rolled my eyes. “Jesus,” I thought. “What are they even doing here?”

It turns out the filmmakers are calling their shot. By the end of Logan , I was deeply, genuinely moved. It’s not as great a film as Shane , but it’s not embarrassed by the comparison, at least. Here are five reasons Logan is the best X-Men movie since 2003’s X2 .

1) Logan places an emphasis on character drama instead of action

If there’s an obvious complaint to be made about Logan , it’s that at 136 minutes, it’s probably a little long. But since the extra scenes all seem to build up the story and develop the characters, rather than ladle on action-packed spectacle (as in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse ), I’m inclined to forgive them.

At heart, Logan is a father-daughter story, or a story of parent-child reconciliation, or just a story about learning to forgive others and yourself for transgressions. It’s about trying to outrun your demons, first on a figurative and then on a very literal level.

• How the X-Men changed my life

The movie spends most of its time on the road with Logan (who’s working as an El Paso limo driver in the film’s near-future, pre-apocalyptic setting, where mutants are mostly extinct), Laura (terrific newcomer Dafne Keen ), and Professor Charles Xavier ( Patrick Stewart ) himself. Logan needs to get Laura from El Paso to North Dakota, where she can slip across the border to Canada and avoid mutant-hunting squads.

Logan’s self-healing body is running out of steam, Laura doesn’t understand how to fit into human society, and Professor X is in his 90s and suffering from an undisclosed mental ailment. This setup provides the fodder for either a serious melodrama or a kind of goofy road trip movie. That Logan manages to split the difference between the two is truly impressive.

And it’s all thanks to the three actors, who spend a lot of time just bonding in a car. Where director James Mangold (and his co-screenwriters Scott Frank and Michael Green ) could insert big action beats, they mostly eschew them in favor of people just talking to each other. That’s something superhero movies increasingly lack, and it’s more than welcome here.

2) The movie knows we know how superhero movies work

One of the best things about Logan is that it strips away most of the over-explanatory bullshit that bogs down too many modern superhero films. Gone are the scenes where somebody explains another person’s powers in detail. Mangold trusts his filmmaking — or our now voluminous knowledge of the X-Men universe, learned from the many other films set within it — to get the point across.

In one scene, a character simply suggests that a degenerative brain disease could be a big problem in a brain as powerful as Professor X’s, and that’s all we need to know to understand why certain things happen throughout the film. Incidents in the past are referred to but never entirely spelled out, instead becoming part of the tapestry of Logan’s generalized guilt. And Laura’s struggle to reconcile her humanity with her powers is illustrated without dialogue. “You know this story,” Mangold seems to be saying. “You don’t need more exposition.”

In many ways, Logan reminds me of Westerns made in the ’50s and ’60s, when audiences were so familiar with the rules of the genre that they welcomed more iconoclastic takes on these stories. I don’t think Logan has broken free entirely from its comic book trappings — it’s still a little too enamored of secret plots by corporations and/or the government — but it feels like a huge step in the right direction.

3) The movie is bloody and violent, but with a purpose

Logan is R-rated, which means its fights are darker and bloodier than in typical PG-13-rated superhero flicks. Gore flies through the air, and both Logan and Laura (who has sets of retractable claws in her hands and feet) spend a fair amount of time stabbing people in the head.

But around the movie’s midpoint — when the central trio stops to rest on a little farm with a friendly family headed up by actors Eriq La Salle and Elise Neal — all of that violence starts to gain a terrible weight.

People die in Logan , yes, but there’s a focus on the moments of their deaths, on their struggles to maintain honor in the face of doom. And the film’s focus also falls on those who kill them, and on how it feels to commit murder, even with a righteous cause.

Unlike many superhero movies, this is a film where the deaths of random individuals, including villains, have meaning. As the bodies start to pile up, and as Logan is responsible formore and more of those deaths, the film genuinely digs into the moral exhaustion inherent in being a killing machine, as well as a father’s hope that his daughter might not follow in his footsteps, even though she’s perfectly equipped to do so.

Like the Westerns it emulates, Logan at least tries to address what it means to be a hero, rather than assuming something is good because its main character does it.

4) Mangold has settled into the Wolverine world with aplomb

I quite liked 2013’s The Wolverine — Jackman and Mangold’s previous collaboration — but its action sequences were a little lacking. Its climax was especially muddled, and kept a solid film from becoming the very good one it occasionally flirted with being.

In Logan , Mangold seems as if he’s better equipped to complete the task at hand. The director has always been good at character interplay and at orchestrating stripped-down scenes that economically reveal who the people in his movies are. (Notably, he had great success with the 2007 Western 3:10 to Yuma , which feels like a dry run for this film.)

What’s changed here is that his action sequences are, for the most part, inventively filmed and smartly choreographed.

In one, late in the film, he announces Logan’s arrival in the vicinity of the action simply with the sound of Jackman bellowing in the woods somewhere offscreen, then pauses to prolong the tension of when he might finally join the fray. When he does — for, again, what might be his final fight as the character — it feels suitably epic.

But Mangold and his co-writers have also created a nicely structured story , where problems pile up on each other, complications ensue, and Chekhov’s adamantium bullet will inevitably be fired. I was particularly enamored of their choice to have Laura know her father’s exploits mainly from X-Men comic books — a neatly underplayed bit of meta-commentary on how threadbare some superhero tropes have become.

5) The performances are, top to bottom, terrific

Mangold’s skill at directing actors in all sorts of films didn’t always shine through in The Wolverine , but Logan is another story. Yes, the central trio is great. But every role in the film boasts a talented actor who brings something to the story.

Elizabeth Rodriguez pops up briefly as the nurse caring for Laura, while Stephen Merchant takes the role of mutant Caliban, now working as Professor X’s caretaker. The bad guys include such malevolent presences as Richard E. Grant and Boyd Holbrook , the latter of whom turns out to be much better at playing a villain than he is a cop on Narcos . Even the film's little side trips into other characters’ stories — as with that stop on the farm with La Salle and Neal — boast great acting.

Too many superhero films turn the characters who aren’t superheroes into props or love interests. They’re often used as props to serve the story, and rarely have their own lives independent of the main characters.

What sets Logan apart and makes it so impressively moving in the end is the way it suggests that everyone — from its hero down to characters with only a handful of lines — is fumbling through existence like the rest of us. The ultimate goal by film’s end isn’t to beat the bad guys or even to connect with a long-lost child; it’s to find ultimate meaning in life, to figure out how to define oneself as both a person and a good person. It’s, unexpectedly, resonant, bittersweet, and maybe even profound.

Logan opens in theaters Friday, March 3.

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Logan review: not just the bloodiest X-Men movie, but also the saddest

The first r-rated wolverine movie is bleak, uncompromising, and completely mesmerizing.

By Tasha Robinson

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MPAA ratings have always been Wolverine’s arch-enemy. The character, played by Hugh Jackman over the course of 17 years and eight previous movies in Marvel Comics’ X-Men universe, is a mutant berserker whose most prominent weapons are razor-sharp metal claws, plus the feral drive necessary to use them. But the PG-13 ratings on the X-Men franchise installments have limited what directors were willing to show onscreen. Slashing weapons do horrible damage to human bodies, but the movies have always been coy about positioning the doomed mooks Wolverine takes out, concealing the wounds and dropping the bodies offscreen.

That ends with Logan , the first R-rated Wolverine feature, and the first to openly, even lovingly focus on the character bisecting heads and punching through skulls. Inspired by Deadpool ’s immense financial success, Fox authorized director James Mangold (who also helmed 2013’s The Wolverine ) and his crew to go hard-R on Logan , reportedly the last film to feature Jackman in the Wolverine role. In terms of graphic violence, profanity, and even a few stray seconds of female toplessness, they embrace the rating fully. It’s an intense, brutal film, full of sudden waves of bloody mayhem. But the real brutality isn’t in the severed limbs and heads, it’s in the film’s overwhelmingly dark emotional content. This is by far the grimmest the X-Men series has ever been. There’s no cute Stan Lee cameo, no Deadpool banter or “You’re a dick” jokes. Just exhaustion, resignation, and a steady march toward the end of this particular branch of the X-storyline.

But Mangold and his co-writers ( The Wolverine and Minority Report screenwriter Scott Frank and American Gods writer/showrunner Michael Green) have managed something that’s been frustratingly rare over the past decade-plus of grim-n-gritty superhero takes: they earn the tone by developing a rich, even nuanced emotional landscape around their characters. And they show a rare commitment to the theme by taking their story to an uncompromising, even horrifying finale. Plenty of recent superhero films dabble in grimness seemingly out of a feeling that it makes wish-fulfillment hero-fantasy more serious and adult. Logan tells an actual adult story about despair, decay, and death.

The characters are worn and weary from trauma

The film is set in 2029, at a point where the X-Men appear to be gone, and no new mutants have been born in 25 years. (The film never explains the first point, though there are some subtle, discomfiting clues that have nothing to do with Sentinels or supervillains.) Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine, is working as a limo driver under his original name, James Howlett. He’s aging badly: his unbreakable adamantium skeleton is slowly poisoning him and his mutant healing abilities are failing, leaving him heavily scarred and in chronic pain that he medicates with alcohol and anger. He mostly spends his time scrambling for money to support his old teacher, Charles “Professor X” Xavier (Patrick Stewart, returning to the role he’s played on and off since 2000), now a feeble, declining man in his 90s, unable to fully control his body or his powers. Also playing house with them: Caliban (longtime Ricky Gervais partner Stephen Merchant), a pale, sun-sensitive mutant with an extraordinary ability to scent and track other mutants. Like Logan and Charles Xavier, he’s worn and weary from traumas both clear in his situation, and unspecified in his past.

Caliban makes it clear that their life of hiding in an abandoned, isolated refinery can’t last: Charles Xavier’s health is declining, and he’s dependent on illegally acquired medication to hold back violent seizures that cause his powers to run amuck. Then Logan is drawn into a conflict between an organization called Transigen and its experimental subject X-23, also known as Laura (Dafne Keen), who has a great deal in common with Logan. Soon the characters are on the run together with Transigen’s cyborg security honcho Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) in pursuit, backed by Zander Rice (Richard Grant), the son of the man in charge of the original Wolverine project.

Star Wars fans may see Logan as the Force Awakens of the X-Men franchise

Logan was loosely inspired by the Mark Millar comics series Old Man Logan , though Mangold’s team takes virtually nothing from Millar’s storyline except the idea of a grizzled old version of Logan navigating an ugly post-X-Men future. Other cinematic touchstones are much more apparent. Mangold uses clips and quotes to draw a pointed comparison between Logan and the protagonist of Shane , the 1953 Alan Ladd Western about an aging gunfighter whose attempts to settle down with a family lead to tragedy. The “tired man travels cross-country with an endangered child” plot mimics both Children Of Men (with all the despair, though without the bravura no-cut combats) and Midnight Special (with all the spooky-kid action, though without the Spielbergian wonder). A deeply creepy moment with Laura’s classmates closely recalls the 1960 horror classic Children Of The Damned . And Mangold has said in interviews that another touchstone was Darren Aronofsky and Robert Siegel’s 2008 drama The Wrestler , starring Mickey Rourke as an aging bear of a man trying to come to terms with his past as his broken-down body betrays him.

But for Star Wars fans, another close parallel may come to mind. Logan is the Force Awakens of the X-Men franchise, a conscious play on audience nostalgia that passes the franchise torch to a younger generation while respecting and admiring the older one. Laura and her contemporaries pass around X-Men comics as if they were holy writ, and they regard Wolverine as a legend — not necessarily one too revered to tease, but certainly a figure of fascination and fear. Late in the film, one kid stares at Logan while clutching a Wolverine action figure, dressed in the bright yellow Spandex suit the films have always mocked and dismissed. These kids are like Rey meeting Han Solo for the first time in The Force Awakens , and finding out that their legends are real — and that they’re sadly fallible, fragile, and human. Like that film, Logan embraces all the emotions a generation of filmgoers may have about Wolverine and the X-Men, but it also pointedly moves them offscreen, in favor of a new crop of potential heroes. (A Logan sequel hasn’t been green-lit yet, but Mangold has already said he’s interested in pursuing the story as a franchise .)

That tender humanity gives Logan much more power than the bloody mayhem of the fight sequences. The heart of the film is the tortured relationship between Logan and Charles Xavier, who resent and need each other in equal measure. Their relationship is marked by profanity and insults, and by Logan’s roughness and resentment. But Jackman brings across a deep, sullen affection for the old man that undercuts all Logan’s gruff fury and refusal to play hero. Stewart, for his part, turns Professor X into a heartbreaking figure, on the verge of disintegration from age and trauma, and prone to sentimental obsession over Laura. He’s midway between a doddering grandfather and the leader he used to be, and Mangold and his co-writers eke every bit of epic tragedy out of how far he’s fallen, from a world-shaking telepath to a querulous old man who has to be bodily hauled into a toilet stall, protesting all the way. He and Logan both hate their weakness and their reliance on each other, but they’re clearly family at this point, with all the mutual dependence and complicated history that entails.

And then Laura joins the family, and her relationship with both men is just as key to the movie. Keen plays Laura as wordlessly feral, a raging echo of Logan in his younger days. Her resentment and resistance to this miserable new world are a match for his, but her indomitability and ferocious energy go a long way toward keeping the film from wallowing in its own misery.

There’s a tremendous amount of pain onscreen at all times

There’s a tremendous amount of pain onscreen at all times, and only some of it is deliberately inflicted by characters attacking each other. Most of it is in Laura’s well-justified fury about her past, Logan’s watery-eyed daily physical agony, Caliban’s stress and misery over an untenable situation, and Charles Xavier’s exhaustion and guilt. No one in this film wants to be where they are, and only Laura sees a clear path to a better future for herself — one that Logan thinks is a cheap fantasy. But her endearing link to Charles and her close parallels to Logan are a winning complication that shape the familiar backdrop of a reluctant-hero story. “I know you are still good inside… you want to help us,” one character tells Logan early on. It’s a cheesy, familiar trope, drawn out into a painful and visceral story.

While Deadpool ’s success made Logan possible, the two movies take radically different tones with the same basic ideas about how family makes tragedy survivable. Deadpool finds cynical, bitter, and playful humor even in the most miserable situations. Logan , on the other hand, embraces its misery, positing a world where heroism and even kindness are always brutally punished, and yet personal connection is the only meaningful resource left to its characters. Of all the X-Men movies to date, it’s the saddest and most serious, and the one that most challenges the familiar ideas of superhero narratives. But its uniqueness and its complete devotion to tragedy makes it feel like the most adult story this film series has ever told. The weight of graphic, grotesque violence hangs over the entire movie. But the daring emotional violence lingers longer, well after the lights go down on the final shot.

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Movie Reviews

'logan' is the best at what it does — and what it does is gritty.

Chris Klimek

Even adamantium rusts: Hugh Jackman stars in Logan . Ben Rothstein/20th Century Fox hide caption

Even adamantium rusts: Hugh Jackman stars in Logan .

Long live Logan, James Mangold's sad, stirring requiem for the X-Men franchise's most beloved character. The only problem with calling it the boldest and most affecting superhero flick in many years is that it's barely a superhero movie at all.

It doesn't talk like a superhero: too many F-bombs, including its very first word. And it doesn't walk like a superhero: No computer-generated cities are razed in its finale, no unseen thousands sacrificed. Though with its gnarly R-rated medley of stabbings, slicings, skewerings, and impalings in what has been, Deadpool excepted, a PG-13 franchise, Logan sure feels bloodier than most of its ilk. And feels is the right verb: The deaths have weight. For once. To misquote the 40-year-old tagline of the very first big-budget comic book movie, you will believe a man can cry ...

... at a movie about a 200-year-old rage monster with a silly haircut and retractable knives implanted in his knuckles.

Because Logan is unlike any capes-and-tights movie we've seen. It does for the creaky X series what Creed did for the Rocky cycle, restoring the integrity and emotion of the earliest installments while introducing talented new blood. (As with Creed, you need only skeletal familiarity with the prior chapters to get gut-punched by this one . )

Most significantly, it's Hugh Jackman's swan song to the part that'll be cited in the first graf of his obituary, one he's played for 17 years — longer than any superhero has ever remained on duty, by a lot. He's played Logan more times than Sly played Rocky. More times than Connery or Moore played 007. More times than Shatner played Kirk — in movies, anyway. (And all sans hairpiece, despite the precariousness of his rapid-healing mutant coif!)

Unlike almost every other star who ever got famous in a heavily-merchandised role, Jackman never whined about his golden-goose gig. He was a musical theater guy, used to working hard, and he knew he'd lucked into an opportunity most actors would stab you through the heart with adamantium claws for. (In fact, he was a last-minute replacement Wolverine, after Scotsman Dougray Scott had to drop out of 2000's X-Men .) Jackman always seemed humble and happy.

Which is ironic, because the character has historically been defined by his temper. But it's rage of the largely impotent sort in Logan, which plays like the King Lear of the X-saga. Director Mangold gave us not only 2013's not-bad The Wolverine, but also Walk the Line, and 3:10 to Yuma. You can pick up echoes of all those movies here, and of Unforgiven, samurai pictures, the Coen Brothers, Children of Men, even Samuel Beckett. The scenes between Jackman and Patrick Stewart, who's been in these movies as long as he has, have an intimacy rarely found in films with nine-digit budgets.

One influence that's muted: the 40-odd years of Marvel comics in which the character has appeared. Even though, in a confident grace note, the movie actually lets Jackman leaf through old X-Men issues, dismissing them as "ice cream for bed wetters!" because that's not how it all went down. Feel free to infer a diss of any X-movies that didn't deserve him. There have been a few .

But at last we have a Wolverine movie as committed as Jackman is, and the grinning Australian wrings every drop of pathos he can from it. He's tremendous. Logan finds the short-tempered, steel-skulled, bicentennial beast-man finally feeling his age. It's an effort for his body to expel bullets now. He's hacking up blood like a courtesan in an opera. In one sure sign that the instant "healing factor" that once made him unkillable is flagging, he can even get drunk — and he does his damnedest to stay that way.

You need only scope out its sun-bleached El Paso-to-Oklahoma City-to-North Dakota trail to see that Logan belongs to a genre even older and more tradition-bound than superheroes: In every way that matters, it's a Western. Mangold leans into that association, hard, by having its three principal characters take a breather from the action in Act Two to watch the George Stevens classic Shane . If you know that movie, you'll get a pretty good clue about where this one is going.

Subtle? No. Powerful? Just you wait, Bub.

Set in 2029 (where The Terminator began, back when 2029 was a long way off), Logan exists in a twilight world where the X-Men are a spent and dissipated force. No new mutants have appeared in a generation. Charles Xavier, who founded the team some 70 years earlier, is in his nineties and suffering from dementia. Mangold (who wrote the script with Scott Frank and Michael Green, drawing inspiration from two 21st century comics stories by Mark Millar and Kyle Craig) vividly imagines what this scenario might look like if the patient were the world's most powerful psychic. Basically, a Professor X not in control of his faculties is a loose nuke. Logan and Caliban (the comedian Stephen Merchant, playing a bad-mutant-turned-good) keep the prof sedated and isolated in a compound south of the border, hoping he won't take us all with him when he finally goes.

Logan, scraping together a living as a limo driver, reluctantly accepts a dying woman's request to escort a mysterious little girl (the astonishing Dafne Keen) from Mexico, up through the spine of the United States, to Canada. The Federales and a bunch of extras from The Road Warrior show up at his door (along with Boyd Holbrook from Narcos and Richard E. Grant from the immortal Hudson Hawk ) and the movie becomes, like The Empire Strikes Back, one long, desperate chase — and with just as many surprises.

Though it runs 45 minutes longer than Bryan Singer's franchise-launching X-Men, it shares with that film a refreshing modesty of scale. X-Men was built largely on Jackman's protective relationship with Anna Paquin, as Logan trades on his burgeoning rapport with Keen. The world isn't threatened — just a handful of characters about whom we've come to care deeply.

Marvel's "mutants," separate from their other superpowered beings, have always been analogs for persecuted peoples; in this movie, they're immigrants. This gives Logan the kind of topical frisson and intensity that The Dark Knight had nine years ago, and no superhero movie has enjoyed since. Inevitably, there will be those who cry that we don't need dour, violent R-rated comic book adaptations; that crowd can take comfort in the certainty that the bright, quippy Marvel Studios films aren't going out of print until the human race does.

Logan is something else, a stripped-down, one-mic, late-period Johnny Cash-style supermovie. And it's a Marvel.

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Parental Guidance

Don't be fooled - logan isn't for kids.

Kids who may be familiar with the mostly innocuous X-Men movies up to this point may tug on your sleeve to take them to see  Logan . Unfortunately for them, it might just be more than they can handle. Read on for details on Hugh Jackman’s last outing as Wolverine, as well as a YA novel adaptation and a faith-based weepie.

NOW IN THEATERS

Logan (2017) 93%

Rating: R, for strong brutal violence and language throughout, and for brief nudity.

Before I Fall (2017) 64%

Rating: PG-13, for mature thematic content involving drinking, sexuality, bullying, some violent images, and language — all involving teens.

The Shack (2017) 21%

Rating: PG-13, for thematic material including some violence.

Doctor Strange (2016) 89%

Rating: PG-13, for sci-fi violence and action throughout, and an intense crash sequence.

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Logan is a Stirring - but Bloody - Finale

• Debbie Holloway Contributing Writer
• Updated May 24, 2017

Hugh Jackman 's self-admitted final foray into the character of Wolverine strikes a different note entirely from earlier installments in the X-Men franchise . Gritty, profane, and bloody, it’s meant only for mature viewers - but both casual and dedicated fans will be moved by its Western-esque themes of family and faith . 4 out of 5.  

The modern X-Men film franchise began in 2000, and has since been complicated by time travel, dozens of characters, and plenty of high-crisis world saving. But Logan , set in a bleak year 2029, is stripped down, almost a Western. Nearly all mutants have died out, and no more mutant children are being born. Logan (Jackman) has aged more and is angrier than we've ever seen him; he and fellow mutant Caliban ( Stephen Merchant ) care for the sick and elderly Charles Xavier ( Patrick Stewart ), whose seizures threaten chaos due to his massive mental powers. Logan's sights are set on taking Charles and escaping their bitter hideaway, but his plans are waylaid when a young girl crosses their path - the first mutant anyone has seen in 25 years. As a sinister plot unfolds, Logan must decide whether to help Laura (newcomer Dafne Keen ), and where to place his hope.  

What Works?

It almost goes without saying that the leading roles are portrayed superbly by Jackman and Stewart. Stewart's face and voice give so much life to the hopeful Professor X we know and love, and Jackman's excellent characterization is strikingly accented by his physical scars, wounds, and huge frame - constant reminders of his tragic story. Dafne Keen as Laura is also strong leading lady, though it's difficult to watch such a young child in such a violent saga.  

What Doesn't?

Christian worldview elements / spiritual themes.

Those familiar with the X-Men franchise know that these movies are never afraid of a good worldview discussion, and Logan is no exception. The idea of humanity is questioned and discussed: what things are inborn, and what can be taught? What makes a life worth living? (Logan carries around a suicide bullet with him, and muses, "We always thought [mutants] were part of God's plan. Maybe we were God's mistake.") The theme of family, and familial responsibility, is important throughout the film. Sometimes, the world leaves us alone. But Professor X reminds us that we can still create our own communities and safe havens - our own families - if we choose to. If we truly want it.

CAUTIONS (may contain spoilers)

• MPAA Rating:  R for strong brutal violence and language throughout, and for brief nudity
• Language/Profanity : Language throughout, including many instances of the F-word, but nowhere near the level of Deadpool , last year's R-rated superhero movie.
• Sexuality/Nudity : A (likely intoxicated) teen girl flashes her breasts to another character briefly.
• Violence/Frightening/Intense : Intense, bloody, and occasionally gory violence throughout. Several characters with steel claws are shown slashing, puncturing, impaling, stabbing and even decapitating enemies during battles. Lots of death, and the kind that looks painful. A man is shown with painful wounds, and coughing up blood. A man sets off a grenade in his own cage in order to hurt or kill captors within range. A man destroys a car with a shovel. Characters shoot others and are shot at. Much of this violence is enacted upon, or by, a young child.
• Drugs/Alcohol : A man is shown drinking throughout from various flasks and bottles to deal with his depression. A man is briefly seen in a bar. Mysterious drugs are used and seen that enhance mutant powers. A man appears to obtain prescription drugs in an illegal way to give to an elderly patient. An elderly man must take pills and be administered syringes every few hours to treat his seizures.  

The Bottom Line

RECOMMENDED FOR:  Mature viewers who like a gritty action flick paired with thoughtful themes. Fans of Hugh Jackman and/or his Wolverine films.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR:  Children, those who are squeamish or sensitive to violence and blood, those who prefer light-hearted and family friendly comic book/superhero films.

Logan,  directed by James Mangold, opened in theaters March 3, 2017; available for home viewing May 23, 2017. It runs 137 minutes and stars Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant and Elizabeth Rodriguez. Watch the trailer for Logan here .  

Debbie Holloway is a storyteller, creator, critic and advocate having adventures in Brooklyn, New York.

Publication date : March 3, 2017

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The Dark, Dystopian Logan Is Epic in Its Brutality

My reaction while watching the new Fox superhero movie Logan was a series of variations on the word “fuck,” as in, “Holy fuck!” “Fuck me !” and “Fuuuuuuuuck!!!” uttered at regular intervals, not in anger but astonishment. The film is stunningly bleak and staggeringly violent. Major characters go down in showers of blood and gore. I’ve seen worse and so, probably, have you, but never from such an essentially wholesome corporate enterprise with a target audience so young and hopeful. (Onscreen product placements include Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.) Logan is rated R, but tell me that 10-year-olds won’t find ways to see it before the weekend is out. Child therapists are going to have a banner March.

I’m not complaining, exactly. It would be hypocritical to tut-tut over the carnage in print when at various junctures I screamed my approval as Hugh Jackman’s Logan — a.k.a. the Wolverine — shredded the gullets of sundry assassins with his adamantium talons. But it’s hard to reconcile the movie’s scorched-earth nihilism with its X-Men and Wolverine predecessors. Those giddy tales of so-called mutants coming to terms with their metamorphosing bodies and fragile place in the social ecosystem seem so far away now, like bedtime fairy tales. I picture Christopher Nolan saying of Logan , “Um, it’s kind of dark, isn’t it?”

The movie opens in darkness. Logan is passed out in the limo he drives by day, drunk and apathetic to anything but earning money to buy a boat and sail away with Patrick Stewart’s X-Men headmaster Charles Xavier, who seems to be melting down in his old age into a psychic lethal weapon. Logan is ill, too, poisoned by adamantium, the super-metal that allows him to decapitate and disembowel anyone who tries to take him out. Logan, Charles, and their X-Men brethren are like fallen rock stars, victims of having flown too high for too long. In that opening scene, some thugs are trying to steal the wheels off Logan’s limo and he barely has the energy to dismember them.

On the basis of Logan , I’d guess that the director James Mangold ( The Wolverine , 3:10 to Yuma ) and his co-screenwriters, Scott Frank and Michael Green, aren’t too happy about the direction in which the U.S. is going. (And Trump wasn’t even president when they wrote it!) In dribs and drabs they fill in parts of the picture, but not everything.

It seems — please skip this paragraph if you’d rather not be oriented — something bad happened to other X-Men characters. Mutant-kind has all but vanished. The military has joined forces with Big Pharma to do hideous experiments on Mexican women, while kids who escape the Nazi-like labs have to flee to sanctuary in — wait for it — Canada . Your tired, your poor, your huddled masses can only breathe free in the land of moose. Two people, meanwhile, are dogging Logan: A Mexican woman pleading for help for a mysterious, mute little girl named Laura (Dafne Keen); and a semi-mutant — I don’t know exactly what he is — called Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), who’s hunting Laura and anyone trying to protect her. Pierce has what seems like hundreds of brawny men at his command, plus a superhuman surprise or two.

Logan is basically a long (nearly two and a half hours) and furious chase movie, like Terminator 2 with a dollop of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome — the one where the allegedly hard-hearted Max ends up leading a bunch of wild children to safety. There are also direct invocations of the classic cornball Western Shane , which little Laura watches on TV while she, Logan, and Charles spend the night with a black family whose farm is being threatened by a colossal, corn-syrup-producing agribusiness. Logan, of course, gets his own rousing Shane showdown: He accompanies the farmer, Munson (Eriq La Salle), to the neighboring property, where menacing corporate henchmen regularly shut off the water pump to his house and land. It’s the only scene that delivers a traditionally upbeat Western kick, but it’s largely there to lull you into a false sense of security. Honestly, folks, no matter how many murderous thugs get turned into hamburger, there’s no balm in Gilead — or Logan .

Hard to believe it has been 17 years since the first X-Men movie with Jackman as Logan, and in middle age he’s still muscled-up and ropy — maybe even ropier, given how alarmingly the veins stand out in his arms and chest. You can believe there’s something corrosive in those veins, like battery acid. He’s being eaten alive before your eyes, and in what could be Logan’s last stand, Jackman brings everything he has, from animal rage to mute despair. He gazes on Stewart’s rasping, declaiming, and howling Charles Xavier like Kent in King Lear , which made me think that this is Stewart’s dry run for his inevitable go-round with the shattered monarch. (I’ve seen, like, ten Lears in the last decade, but I’m all in for P-Stew’s.) The showstopping performance, though, is by Stephen Merchant. He plays a sun-averse albino mutant called Caliban, but despite the Shakespearean name, he’s like a tottering little scold out of Beckett’s Endgame . That’s fitting, since this is the X-Men endgame. That’s not to say there won’t be prequels, “reboots,” and many parallel-time scenarios. There just won’t necessarily be these particular mortals in the roles they created.

On its own terms, Logan is a crackerjack piece of work: The dialogue is crisp, the staging snappy, and the action scenes really pop. One of those scenes is screamingly perverse — a bit in which Logan turns a Las Vegas suite into a charnel house when a group of killers is frozen in place by the apocalyptic emanations from Charles Xavier’s synapses. But when my 14-year-old daughter — who I won’t let see the movie right now — said, “But Dad, did you like it?” I couldn’t give her a simple yes or no. I can’t remember the last time a blockbuster has left me so ravaged — and I’m including Rogue One , which at least ended with the word, “Hope.” My freak-out isn’t just about what happens to the characters. It’s the country in which they live and die that ushers in the nightmares. If this is the superhero movie that most accurately evokes how we live now , we’re in even more trouble than I thought.

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Logan Review: Brutal And Affecting, Logan Is The Best X-Men Film To Date

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The best at what he does

By Randolph Ramsay on February 18, 2017 at 4:33AM PST

Logan is a welcome rarity in the ever increasing pantheon of superhero movies; it's one that has emotional weight. This third Wolverine solo outing and 10th X-Men film overall is atypical of both the genre and it's own franchise, and it's one that longtime fans of the character will love thanks to how closely it hews to the most iconic, brutal imagining of its title character. But even for those who have never been fans of the X-Men films, Logan is still an eminently worthwhile movie, skipping as it does the fantastical trappings of its peers to instead present a grim, violent, emotional, and altogether worthwhile experience.

Logan makes its intentions to buck superhero conventions clear from its opening scene. When we first see Logan (also known as Wolverine, or James Howlett, or Hugh Jackman in real life), he's asleep in a car, but is soon woken by a gang trying to steal the tires from his ride. The ensuing fight is neither pretty or flashy; Logan is slow, groggy, and limping, and when he finally does rouse the strength to dispense of his foes, it's brutal, bloody, and hard to watch. Afterwards, he stumbles to a roadside gas station bathroom to clean himself, and we see his scars, his wounds, his aging frame. This is not the ripped, impossibly quick to heal Wolverine of old. This is a broken man.

The world set up in previous X-Men movies is broken, too. Set in 2029, Logan's world is one where mutants are all but extinct, where Charles Xavier's school is no more, and one where both he and Logan are eking out a meager existence along the US border near Mexico. Logan drives a limousine for a living, while Xavier's deteriorating mental condition forces him to be under sedation for long periods of time, lest his immense psychic powers go beyond the control of his now feeble mind. This is far from the glory days of the X-Men.

Into this mix a new element is introduced: a young girl with abilities and claws similar to Logan's, and one who's being pursued by a mercenary group led by Donald Pierce (played with a laconic Southern menace by Boyd Holbrook). Logan reluctantly agrees to help the girl (named Laura, better known as X-23 in the comics, and played by Dafne Keen), which pulls both he and Xavier back into a world of violence they had been trying to escape from. People don't really change, Pierce says at one point in the film, and it seems that despite Logan's best efforts, the Wolverine hasn't changed at all.

What is different, though, is Logan's approach to the superhero genre. This is a serious, grim world, both in its tone and its approach to on-screen violence. Wolverine's claws have never been so sharp and deadly as they are here, with his adamantium appendages severing limbs, impaling skulls, and perforating rib cages with bloody abandon. The film's R-rating is well-deserved, with the graphic nature of the battles in Logan often wince-inducing. And while the action in the movie stays relatively grounded, each of the fights are staged excitingly, with each of Logan's and X-23's stabs and slashes feeling impactful. There's even an outstanding action scene with Xavier, a stunning reminder of how dangerous the world's most powerful mind can be when it goes off the rails.

But over and above its brutality, Logan excels because of its commitment to its characters, and the wonderful, resonant arcs they go through in this painful yet affecting story. The full weight of the previous nine films of the franchise makes seeing two beloved characters like Professor X and Wolverine at their lowest even more affecting. Xavier (played wonderfully by Patrick Stewart)--no longer the calm, caring father figure--is barely coherent, swears like a sailor, and calls Logan a disappointment. Logan (in another outstanding turn by Jackman), for his part, just wants to escape, whether that's through the money he's trying to scrounge up to buy a boat, or through the adamantium bullet he carries with him everywhere. X-23 is on the verge of being irrevocably damaged in the same way Logan is. These three characters, in their relationships and in the way they become a family, forms the emotional core of the film, and their rough journey is one filled with surprising emotional depth.

Logan continually subverts your expectations, but in its impactful ending, it still somehow feels like the only way the movie--and Wolverine's long journey--could end. This is a film that elevates its genre, succeeding precisely because it's different, and because it strives to be the Wolverine movie fans have always wanted to see. Logan is a must-watch, and is not only a wonderful superhero movie, but a wonderful movie in its own right.

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Logan (2017) Movie Ending Explained: Did Logan Save Laura and the Other Mutant Kids?

Logan (2017) Plot & Ending Explained: James Mangold’s “Logan” (2017) set a benchmark for superhero films, which is something we look back on in awe, considering the mind-numbingly dull outputs we receive nowadays. While the R-rated superhero flick isn’t a novelty anymore, “Logan” (2017) had an emotional depth, moral ambiguity, and unforeseeable narrative beats that are rare in a sub-genre that time and again tries to reinstate the all-powerful hero’s supremacy. The revered mutant superheroes had never looked this vulnerable – physically and emotionally – onscreen; or in other words, they were never this human-like, haunted by the past and burdened by guilt and regrets. Therefore, it’s no surprise that “Logan” received a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination – the first for a live-action superhero film. 

Logan’s  grim and fatalistic outlook is closer to the Western and Film Noir genre than the self-assuredness of the superhero genre. And Mangold’s revisionist take on superhero movies finds its perfection in Wolverine – a flawed good guy with certain traits of an anti-hero. What if the extraordinary strengths of a superhuman have their limitations? What if this hero goes on a nomadic quest through a decaying near-futuristic world? By posing the intriguing ‘what ifs’  “Logan” (2017) diverges from the superhero narrative by making it more character-driven and less spectacle-driven. It does have extravagant action sequences, but there are no chest-thumping victories here. Because, as in life, things are achieved in the film after significant loss and sacrifice.

Now, let’s take a detailed look at the plot and ending of this finest offering from the superhero genre. Spoilers Ahead. 

Logan (2017) Plot Explained:

Why are there only a few mutants in ‘logan’.

“Logan” opens in 2029 in El Paso, Texas. It’s been twenty-five years since mutants have been born. The reason is the big bad corporation Alkali-Transigen. Transigen has isolated the gene mutation that created the mutants. Once the scientists figured out how to prevent the gene mutation from manifesting, Transigen and other companies were involved in producing genetically modified crops, wiping out the mutant genes, and the birth of natural-born mutants. With every food and beverage intake (replete with genetically modified corn syrup), at least in America, Transigen has gradually put an end to the mutant race. 

But this is not the only evil being committed by Transigen, which the narrative reveals a little later. Logan, who goes by his birth name, James Howlett, works as a limousine driver in El Paso. His healing ability is deteriorating, and he is also aging. Perhaps the food product he is consuming is wreaking damage to his mutant gene. Yet he can still kick ass and brutally devour the bad guys, as we see in the opening gruesome fight with a Latino gang, who try to steal the limo’s tires. Later, he drives across the border to Mexico to an abandoned smelting plant. 

What has happened to Charles Xavier?

Logan lives there with Caliban (Stephen Merchant), an albino mutant tracker. They care for nonagenarian Charles Xavier, aka Professor X (Patrick Stewart). The all-powerful telepath suffers from a form of dementia, which causes deadly seizures that can paralyze and kill people in the immediate vicinity. Xavier’s degenerative brain disease is the reason why there are no other familiar adult mutants. In a less expository manner, it is later revealed that one of Xavier’s seizures, a year ago, killed most of the X-Men and injured 600 people. It is called “The Westchester Incident.” To quell the seizures, Logan often obtains medication. In fact, due to the destructive nature of Xavier’s seizures, the government has classified his brain as a ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction.’ Hence, it’s clear that the three surviving mutants are also fugitives. 

At a cemetery, while waiting to drive back the funeral-goers, Logan is approached by a woman named Gabriela Lopez (Elizabeth Rodriguez). It looks like she knows his true identity and asks for his help. But Logan asks her to stay away. Subsequently, after illegally procuring the medication for Xavier, Logan comes across Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook). Pierce is a cybernetically-enhanced head of security at Transigen. He leads a force of mercenaries known as the ‘Reavers.’ Pierce asks Logan about Gabriela and says the Mexican woman has something that belongs to Transigen. Pierce also seems to know about Logan’s hideout. The laconic Logan denies any knowledge of Gabriela. 

What does Gabriela Want from Logan?

After getting to the hideout, Logan tries to give the medication to the weary Xavier. But a seizure paralyzes and destabilizes Logan and Caliban. Only Logan can manage to somewhat move during the seizures and inject Xavier to stop the possible catastrophe. Logan needs more money for their eventual escape plan. He plans to buy the ‘Sunseeker,’ a boat in which he and Xavier can escape to the ocean, where the seizures wouldn’t affect people.  

Later at night, Logan goes to pick up passengers at a motel. It happens to be Gabriela, who has a girl with her. She asks him to take them safely to North Dakota, near the Canadian border, particularly to a set of ordinates. Gabriela gives him $20,000 and promises to provide him with $30,000 after finishing the job. Gabriela says her boyfriend and his men are after her and her daughter. Logan reluctantly agrees to the job. But the following day, when he visits the motel, Logan finds Gabriela murdered in her room, and the girl is missing. After taking Gabriela’s phone, Logan drives back to his place, and Caliban finds a backpack and a ball in the limo’s truck. 

Who Is Laura? 

Soon, they encounter Pierce, who asks Logan to give him the girl. While Logan looks confused, Pierce is struck hard by a metal object and falls unconscious. The girl, Laura (Dafne Keen), has stowed away in Logan’s limo. Xavier welcomes the girl, whom he seems to have known from his telepathic abilities. She doesn’t speak and is believed to be mute. The Professor says the girl is a mutant and needs their help. Shortly, Pierce and his Reavers arrive at the place, looking for the girl. In the ensuing bloody fight, it is revealed that Laura has the same abilities as Logan, including regeneration and retractable adamantium claws. 

While Logan, Laura, and Xavier escape in the limo, Pierce captures Caliban. He tortures the mutant and orders him to track his fellow mutants. In the limo, Logan and Xavier look at a video clip where Gabriela has documented what has happened at the Transigen Research facility in Mexico City. On the one hand, Transigen has isolated and eliminated the mutant gene to prevent the birth of mutants. On the other hand, in the name of research, Transigen has been creating and experimenting on mutant kids. The children have been harvested out of Mexican women and injected with DNA collected from the mutants. 

Is ‘Eden’ a Real Place? 

The company aims to create remorseless killing machines under the command of scientist Dr. Zander Rice (Richard E. Grant). However, it has been hard to control the children, who have lived their entire lives in a cage. Laura has Logan’s abilities because she is created from his DNA, and so, in a way, she is his biological daughter. The clip also mentions Transigen working on something new – something more efficient and ruthless than mutant kids. Eventually, the research program was shut down, and most of the children were ‘put to sleep.’ Yet, thanks to Gabriela, a few children, including Laura, escaped the Transigen facility. While Gabriela and Laura were separated from other surviving mutant kids, in the video clip, she speaks of a place called ‘Eden.’  

At the end of the clip, Gabriela implores Logan to take his daughter to Eden in North Dakota, situated precisely at the set of coordinates she provided Logan. Xavier, Logan, and Laura arrive at Oklahoma City and stay at a hotel. Subsequently, Logan ditches the limo and buys a car. Sitting at a bar, he goes through the X-Men comic book he found in Laura’s backpack. At the end of the comic strip, Eden is depicted as the safe haven for the persecuted mutants. To his shock, Logan finds that the coordinates of Eden mentioned by Gabriela are the same as the ones in the comic book. 

Xavier Saves the Horses

When Logan returns to the hotel, he sees the Reavers swarm the place. Immediately, everyone close to the hotel is paralyzed, a sign of Xavier’s seizure. Only Logan slowly moves past the civilians and the armed Reavers to the hotel room. The armed men are already inside the room. A panicked Xavier has caused the seizure to protect Laura. Logan kills all the Reavers inside the room, who are frozen in their place. Then, Logan injects Xavier to stop the seizure. They escape from the hotel as Xavier feels remorseful for causing pain to many people. Dr. Zander Rice arrives to help Pierce with the mission. 

While traveling on the highway, the news on the radio speaks about 400 people who had temporary paralysis at a hotel. The news report finds parallels to the ‘Westchester Incident.’ In the truck, Logan tells Xavier that the nurse, Gabriela, cooked up the story about Eden. Soon, after a traffic accident, a farmer’s horses escape from their pickup’s trailer. Xavier uses his skills to calm down the horses, preventing them from getting hit. Logan helps the farmer Will Munson (Eriq La Salle) and his family – wife Kathryn and teenage son Nate. 

What happens to the Munsons?

The Munsons invite the Howletts – the old father, middle-aged son, and his daughter – for dinner. Xavier accepts it. After dinner, Munsons asks them to stay the night. Munsons are the only independent farming family as the lands surrounding them belong to the corporates, which grow corn on a massive scale. The corporate enforcers intimidate the Munsons in various ways to make them sell their farm. Will Munson says even the traffic accident isn’t a random occurrence. When Will learns that the water supply to his farm is tampered with, he and Logan investigate it. The enforcers arrive there to threaten the duo. But Logan aggressively drives them off. 

Back at the Munson home, Xavier sees the silhouetted figure of Logan and says this was the ‘perfect night’ he had in a very long time. Xavier also breaks down as he remembers what happened in Westchester. But the figure is slowly revealed to be a ruthless clone of young Logan, aka X-24. He coldbloodedly kills Xavier, Kathryn, and Nate Munson and captures Laura. Dr. Rice, Pierce, and Caliban observe everything from the surveillance van parked near the Munsons’ house. Just as X-24 leaves the house with Laura, the corporate farm’s enforcers arrive in full force. Mistaking the clone for Logan, they fight and get brutally hacked into pieces. 

Laura and Logan Reach Eden

Logan takes the grievously injured Xavier to the truck, where he dies. An enraged Logan tries to fight X-24. But he is clearly not a match for the clone. When Dr. Rice and Pierce are distracted by the mayhem, Caliban picks up grenades. While the two antagonists escape their deaths, Caliban kills himself rather than endure the torture. X-24 is temporarily impaired by Will Munson, who also perishes soon after. Logan and Laura drive away from the farm. After burying Xavier, Logan passes out due to the injuries. He wakes up in a clinic. The doctor is sympathetic despite knowing Logan is a mutant. But Logan rejects his help and leaves the place with Laura. 

Laura not only knows how to drive, but she can also talk. When Logan tries to tell Laura that Eden is not real, she lashes at him and asks him to take her to her friends. Among the things Transigen people collected from the Munson farm, Pierce finds a photograph Laura had. It’s a photograph of the children at the Transigen. Eden’s coordinates and North Dakota are mentioned at the back of the photo. Meanwhile, Logan embarks on the two-day drive to North Dakota. He looks more sick and nearly incapable of driving. After a while, he passes out. Laura drives the truck. Logan wakes up the following day and sees they have arrived at Eden, a cabin at the top of a cliff. 

Logan (2017) Movie Ending Explained: 

Can logan save the mutant children.

The Transigen children help Logan recuperate as they prepare for the trek across the border. Logan rejects the mutant kids’ offer to accompany them. Laura feels disheartened, and she also finds the adamantium bullet Logan has kept to kill himself. Logan says it’s better for him not to be with Laura since bad things happen to people he cares about. The kids leave at dawn, leaving Logan. When Logan wakes up in the cabin, he sees drones flying towards the border, followed by a group of military vehicles. 

Logan injects the green serum left by the children, which can temporarily enhance his powers. He runs into the woods to help the mutant kids. But the Reavers are already chasing after the mutant kids and capture a few. Laura and Logan kill most of the Reavers. Soon, Dr. Rice arrives at the scene, and Pierce threatens one of the captured kids at gunpoint. Logan encounters Dr. Rice for the first time, whose father, Dale, is one of the co-founders of Essex Corp. Dale was one of the men in charge of the Weapon X program that infused adamantium into Logan’s skeleton. Logan killed Dale while fleeing from the facility. 

The Invincible Hero’s Final Sacrifice

X-24 is, in some way, Dr. Rice’s attempt to get his revenge on Logan for his father’s death. Dr. Rice gives his evil scientist speech about gene therapy and controlling mutants for the betterment of human society. In the middle of his speech, Logan simply shoots Rice in the throat. But Pierce unleashes X-24 upon Logan. While Laura kills the rest of the Reavers, X-24 brutally attacks Logan. Meanwhile, the mutant children come together and give Pierce the sendoff he rightfully deserves. Eventually, X-24 drags Logan after stabbing with the adamantium claws and impales him on a large tree branch. However, Laura finds the adamantium bullet, puts it in the revolver, and shoots X-24 in the head. 

Due to Logan’s deteriorated healing abilities, it seems he won’t be able to survive this. He asks Laura to take her friends and run away. His dying words to Laura are: “Don’t be what they made you.” The man, believed to be immortal due to his potent healing abilities, finally embraces death. Death feels like a liberation for the world-weary Logan, burdened by many regrets and guilt. And he finds his salvation by saving his daughter, Laura, and the other mutant children. The children bury Logan and depart to find a haven across the border. Before leaving, Laura tilts the cross on Logan’s grave to make it an X – a fitting sendoff to the last of the X-men in this narrative.

Does ‘Logan’ Fit in the X-Men Universe Timeline? 

Prior to Logan’s release, director James Mangold mentioned that the film takes place six years after the happy ending of Days of Future Past (2014), which takes place in two time periods: 1973 and a dystopian 2023. In the critically panned post-credits scene of X-Men: Apocalypse , Essex Corps takes Logan’s DNA from the Weapon X facility. But “Logan” (2017) may entirely occur in its own timeline since a natural-born mutant wasn’t born for twenty-five years in this film’s universe. Although there are specific hints to the previous X-Men films, “Logan” isn’t very strict about continuity.

In fact, there’s also a reference to the early X-Men trilogy timeline, as Charles Xavier mentions about Gabriela and Laura waiting for him at the Statue of Liberty. To which Logan says, “Statue of Liberty was a long time ago,” referring to the fight in the first X-Men movie. Actually, Xavier was partially right since Laura and her nurse, Gabriela, were staying at Liberty Motel. There’s also a reference to X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) with the adamantium bullet and Weapon X Project. While Logan has kept the backstories of the beloved mutants the same, it has taken creative liberties with the continuity to offer a raw, gritty, yet heartfelt portrayal of Logan’s swansong. It also explains why Logan, aka Wolverine’s inclusion in MCU with Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), doesn’t have to be confused with Logan’s ending. 

What Is the Western Classic Repeatedly Referred to in the Film? 

At the hotel room in Oklahoma City, Xavier watches a Western film on the TV. The Professor says he watched it when he was Laura’s age. The movie Mangold pays homage to is George Stevens’ masterpiece Shane (1953). While Logan’s plotline shares something with films like Paper Moon (1973) and Children of Men (2006), many parallels can be found between “Logan” and “Shane.” George Stevens’ classic is an elegantly shot Western drama about the titular mysterious drifter (played by Alan Ladd), who passes through Wyoming and befriends a farming family of three. Shane is idolized by the family’s little boy, Joey. In fact, it is Joey’s perspective that gives the film its mythical outlook. When a wealthy man and his goons harass the family, Shane rises up to do the right thing. 

At the end of Shane , the protagonist gives a speech to little Joey, where he says, “There’s no living with a killing.” The echoes of “Shane” could be found on many occasions in “ Logan” (2017) , particularly when the Western Classic’s main storyline is mimicked as Logan and his makeshift family meet the Munson family. However, the violence doesn’t follow any of the conventions of the old Western as the whole Munson family perishes in X-24’s onslaught. At the same time, Logan himself is reflected as a Shane-like figure who is haunted by a lifetime of killing. 

Read More: 35 Best Comic Book Movies of All-Time

Moreover, Shane’s speech to Joey finds its counterpart in Logan as our dying mutant tells his daughter, Laura, “Don’t be what they made you.” Eventually, it was kind of an overkill when Laura reads a eulogy for her deceased father, which is from the aforementioned speech of Shane. But on the whole, both the protagonists of Logan and Shane make it clear that a life of violence only leads to agony (though their violent acts are somewhat lionized). 

Watch Logan (2017) Trailer:

Logan (2017) Movie External Links: IMDb , Rotten Tomatoes , Letterboxd

The cast of logan (2017) movie: hugh jackman, dafne keen, patrick stewart, boyd holbrook, stephen merchant, richard e. grant, elizabeth rodriguez, and eriq la salle, logan (2017) movie runtime: 2h 17m, trending right now.

Arun Kumar is an ardent cinebuff, who likes to analyze movie to its minute detail. He believes in the transformative power and shared-dream experience of cinema.

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‘Fancy Dance’ review: Lily Gladstone delivers quietly remarkable performance

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Lily Gladstone doesn’t have to speak to convey strength; we’ve seen her do remarkable things with quiet, in “ Killers of the Flower Moon ” and the Hulu series “ Under the Bridge .” Appropriately, her character Jax in Erica Tremblay’s soulful drama “Fancy Dance” is a woman of few words; she’s a tough drifter who’s not above a little drug-dealing or petty theft (becoming less petty as the film goes on). But Jax is also a tower of strength, which Gladstone conveys through a carefully set jaw, a slightly heavy walk, a certainty to her dusk-toned voice. This woman is taking care of her 13-year-old niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson); searching tirelessly for her sister Tawi (Roki’s mother), who’s gone missing on their Cherokee Nation reservation; and trying her best to keep her extended family connected. You sense that no one ever thanks Jax, and also that it probably doesn’t matter; she’d do it all anyway.

“Fancy Dance” immerses us quickly in its characters’ lives, with Roki excitedly planning to dance at the upcoming powwow with her mother and Jax revealing a sweet connection with a performer at the strip club where Tawi once worked. (“I give you this money,” Jax tells her after a private dance, “because I respect you.”) The outside world, however, just as quickly invades: Jax, with her criminal record, is deemed by Child Protective Services to not be an adequate guardian for Roki, who’s taken away to live with Jax’s white father (Shea Whigham) and his wife (Audrey Wasilewski). Jax, however, is not the sort to take no for an answer, and off she and Roki go, on a road trip in search of Tawi, the powwow and maybe some answers.

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Whether they find any of these I won’t reveal (though there is a dance, and it’s glorious, two people disappearing into joy); what they do find is a remarkable connection: an aunt and niece providing strength for each other, propping each other up, lighting each other’s way. And Tremblay, for whom a goal of the film was to bring attention to the plight of missing Indigenous women , lets us see the character who isn’t there, and the empty space Tawi’s absence leaves. Throughout the film, Jax and Roki often speak to each other in Cayuga; it’s a Native language that’s nearly extinct, but in this world it lives again, accentuating the pair’s bond. In a movie that reminds us that parenting comes in many forms, it’s touching to learn that the Cayuga word for “aunt” is “small mother.” We almost didn’t need the definition; it’s visible, in Gladstone and Delroy-Olson’s eyes.

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A family affair director reveals the movie's shocking connection to danny devito.

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A Family Affair Age Gap Explained: How Much Older Nicole Kidman Is Than Zac Efron

Dark matter ending: alternate jason theories, amanda's fate & season 2 potential addressed by author blake crouch, daddio interview: dakota johnson talks rearview mirrors & honesty in the movies.

• A Family Affair stars Joey King as an assistant in Hollywood whose worlds collide when she discovers a secret romance between her mom and boss.
• The chemistry between Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman adds depth to the relationships, creating a perfect storm of romance and comedy.
• Director Richard Lagravenese brings a fresh, screwball comedy vibe to the film, showcasing the cast's talent while navigating love and loyalty.

In A Family Affair , Zara (Joey King) is the young assistant of Hollywood star Chris Cole (Zac Efron), whose professional and personal worlds collide when she learns of a secret romance between Chris and her mother. Zara is horrified due to all the dirty secrets she knows that Chris has, and she's determined to keep her mother from being hurt by the notorious player. Soon, however, she will come to discover that there might be a deeper connection between them than she could have imagined.

Joey King is best known for The Kissing Booth movies , and A Family Affair leans heavily into her comedic strengths as an actor, while still highlighting how she balances her own feelings about her mother and nightmare boss with the secret being kept from her. The chemistry between Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman is palpable, and their dynamic with King adds layers of depth to all three relationships. A Family Affair is directed by Richard Lagravenese and based on a screenplay written by Carrie Solomon.

Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron play love interests in the 2024 Netflix romantic comedy A Family Affair – how old are the two stars in real life?

Screen Rant interviewed A Family Affair director Richard Lagravenese about his new Netflix romantic comedy. He shared the surprising inspiration for the story, with ties to Danny DeVito , and explained why Solomon's script excited him. Lagravenese also praised the cast, crediting the success of the movie to Efron's ability to find sincerity and humor in his character, King's ability to tap into so many emotions, and Kidman's relaxed grace in her role.

Zac Efron "Knew Instinctually How To Make The Character Funny" In A Family Affair

A Family Affair balances both romance and comedy, creating a perfect storm with the blossoming relationship between Efron and Kidman's characters. Lagravenese explained that he had to find the right tone in order to make the conflict that arises with King's character because of the mother-daughter and boss-assistant dynamics feel organic.

Richard Lagravenese: It was a very organic feeling, always going to, Well, what's the truth of it? Where is it funny? Where is it romantic? And where does it have to get genuine without it getting sentimental? So you sort of feel your way through it.

Joey is fantastic as Zara. We really see her full comedy chops on display from timing to her physical comedy performance in this as well as her emotional range in this film. What impressed you the most about working with her as a performer?

Richard Lagravenese: Her facility, her ability to access whatever she needed in the moment. She's a great actress, and remember she's been acting for 20 years, so she's a real pro. What she has ahead of her. I just cannot wait to see all that she does.

I think Zac can do it all, from comedies to dramas. There are echoes of his real life in the character of Chris. What did Zac bring to the role that wasn't on the page?

Richard Lagravenese: The tone, the expression of it. He knew instinctually how to make the character funny by making him sincere in everything he believes in everything he's saying. He never winked at the audience. He never commented on the character. He was genuine and vulnerable and an a--hole at the same time. He just was perfect combination.

Zara's Story In A Family Affair Is "About Finding Her Place In The World"

Lagravenese revealed that the dynamic between Efron and King was inspired by "the screwball comedies of the thirties and forties" , which lent itself to improvisation from the actors. He shared a couple of examples of scenes that lent themselves especially well to improvisation between the two, praising their ability to "riff off the script."

Richard Lagravenese: Well, my favorite films are the old, the screwball comedies of the thirties and forties, and a lot of them were improved. Leo McCarey and Howard Hawks, and I wanted to bring that vibe to it. Joey and Zach understood it immediately. So in the car there are improvs in that where Zach is riffing off of the things he's left at his girlfriend's house and also off of the Cher song. The two of them had a really great time in their scenes where they just riff off of the script and they were just really, really smart at it.

Carrie Solomon wrote this film when she was 24, the same age as Zara. Can you talk about what resonated with you when reading her screenplay?

Richard Lagravenese: Her intelligence and her humor and this sort of fresh voice. I'm clearly not a millennial, and she understood and showed me something I didn't understand about the point of view of the character. She was really adamant about the character not having any romantic or boyfriend or male idea. It was important that the character was about finding her place in the world and that was her main thing, and I love that.

The Chemistry Between Zac Efron & Nicole Kidman "Was Apparent From The Very Beginning"

Lagravenese discussed the chemistry between Kidman and Efron, revealing that, "Their chemistry was right there from the start." He also explained why he loved working with Kidman and how this role feels different from many of her others. Kidman infused herself into the character, making her performance feel more relaxed.

Richard Lagravenese: Well, the chemistry between the two of them was apparent from the very beginning. The first day that they got together on the set was in the living room set, and we rehearsed the couch scene and they just threw their arms around each other and talked about old times. Their chemistry was right there from the start. Nicole, what I love about, well, first of all, she's one of the great actresses of our time, and also she has that star quality, that old Hollywood movie star quality. I loved in this movie that there was this sort of relaxed grace about her performance. Using her own voice and her own rhythms and her own sense of humor and her own emotional life. To me, I've never really seen her in this kind of relaxed ease of performance.

I love the character of Zara because I was also a PA, so I feel like that's a love letter to anybody who's had that job. Tell us a little bit about the character Zara and her relationship with her mother Brooke in this film.

Richard Lagravenese: Zara was inspired by a friend of mine, Pam Abdi, who now runs Warner Brothers. When I first met Pam, she was Danny DeVito's assistant. She's from Jersey, and Danny's from Jersey. Watching the two of them was hilarious because Pam wouldn't let him get away with anything. They were like family, and they still are. So, that dynamic of being an assistant but being in his face, not letting him get away with stuff, which is why he loves her and why he needs her, that idea is really what inspired Zara. And the mother-daughter thing, I think, is based on all of us who are parents as well. When a kid is trying to find their place in the world and they come into the kitchen and they say, "What do I do with my life?" And as a parent, you're going, "How do I answer that? How do I do that?" I thought they really captured this wonderful love, but also the different generations and the different communication and how much a parent can help and how much a parent can't help.

About A Family Affair

An unexpected romance triggers comic consequences for a young woman, her mother, and her boss, grappling with the complications of love, sex, and identity.

Check out our other interview with A Family Affair stars Zac Efron and Joey King .

A Family Affair will premiere on Netflix on June 28.

Source: Screen Rant Plus

A Family Affair (2024)

A young woman discovers her mother is having an affair with her boss, complicating her professional and personal life. As she navigates the emotional fallout, unexpected relationships and family secrets come to light. The film delves into the complexities of love, loyalty, and the ties that bind, offering a blend of drama and comedy as the characters confront their intertwined fates.

What You Need To Know About Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron's Unlikely Romance in 'A Family Affair'

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Does 'a family affair' have a release date, is there a trailer for 'a family affair', who stars in 'a family affair', what is 'a family affair' about, who is making 'a family affair'.

Netflix has officially mastered the romantic comedy. While the streaming giant first served a delicious slate of holiday rom-coms like the A Christmas Prince films, it has since expanded its original feel-good content with hits like To All the Boys I've Loved Before , and most recently Mother of the Bride , starring Miranda Cosgrove and Brooke Shields . These additions have made the platform a go-to for the genre, with countless movie sites ranking what viewers believe are the must-see meet-cutes in the catalog.

Continuing to fuel Netflix's romantic comedy renaissance is their upcoming release A Family Affair , which explores themes of complicated dating dynamics, family conflicts, and what it means to allow the people you love most in the world to live the life they desire. The film's release date is finally drawing near, and its hilarious premise, combined with its all-star cast, is sure to make the flick another success for the streaming service. For all the information we know about A Family Affair , including plot points, casting, and the creative team behind the camera, check out the answers to the big questions below.

A Family Affair (2024)

When an elderly matriarch summons her extended family for a grand reunion, the gathering unearths unresolved conflicts and buried secrets among the clan. As relatives from various generations clash and reconcile, the family navigates through emotional discoveries and the power of familial ties.

A Family Affair premieres June 28, 2024 . The movie will be released exclusively on Netflix. The romantic comedy was previously scheduled to release on Netflix on November 17, 2023, but was ultimately pushed back due to the dual WGA and SAG strikes last summer. Subscriptions for Netflix start at $6.99 a month and go up to $22.99 a month, depending on your plan. A Family Affair joins an exciting summer movie lineup for the streaming service, including Hit Man starring Glen Powell , Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F with Eddie Murphy , and the Jennifer Lopez -led sci-fi action flick Atlas .

The trailer for A Family Affair premiered on May 29. The preview introduces us to Zara as she makes the startling discovery that her mother, Brooke, is sleeping with her boss, Chris. Chaos and hilarity ensue.

A Family Affair has an incredible cast, including three Academy Award-winning actresses. Taking on the leads of the film are Nicole Kidman and Joey King , who play mother and daughter, respectively. King is best known for playing Gypsy Rose Blanchard opposite Patricia Arquette in the Hulu true-crime series The Act , for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. This isn't King's first time starring in a Netflix film, as she has been the leading lady in the streamer's three Kissing Booth films. Most recently, King starred as Halina Kurc in the Hulu miniseries We Were the Lucky Ones opposite Logan Lerman.

In addition to winning an Academy Award for her role in the 2003 drama The Hours , Nicole Kidman has won six Golden Globe Awards for projects like The Others , Moulin Rouge! , and Big Little Lies . A 2024 recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Kidman's roles include Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos , Atlanna in the Aquaman movies, Suzanna Stone in To Die For , and Queen Gudrún in The Northman .

Co-starring with King and Kidman is Zac Efron, who shot to fame after starring in the Disney Channel movie High School Musical . Efron is another recent recipient of a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, and his most recent film, The Iron Claw , gathered terrific reviews from critics . Efron's other credits include Ricky Stanicky , the Neighbors movies, and The Greatest Showman .

Kathy Bates plays Brooke's mother A Family Affair , making her the second Academy Award winner in the cast. Bates won her Oscar for her role in Misery , where she played crazed superfan Annie Wilkes in the 1990 adaptation of Stephen King 's novel of the same name. Bates's other projects include Titanic , On the Basis of Sex , Midnight in Paris , and Dragonfly .

Rounding out the main cast of A Family Affair is Liza Koshy . A successful content creator, Koshy's YouTube videos have gathered around three billion views, with over twenty-five million subscribers to her name. After her online presence took off, Koshy added acting to her resume, with her previous credits including Transformers: Rise of the Beasts , Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken , Good Burger 2 , and Players .

Additional actors credited in the film are Academy Award winner Shirley MacLaine ( Terms of Endearment ), Sherry Cola ( Joy Ride ), Gissette Valentin ( Will Trent ), and Olivia Macklin ( The Young Pope ).

A Family Affair tells the story of a young woman named Zara who has spent the last two years working as a personal assistant to the self-obsessed and unbearably high-maintenance Chris Cole. When Zara catches her mother , Brooke hooking up with Chris, her entire life is turned upside-down as she does everything she can to break the two up. Zara seeks solace in her grandmother (Bates), who attempts to teach Zara that mothers are people, too.

The film's official synopsis from Netflix reads:

When Zara (Joey King) quits her job as the personal assistant to Hollywood heartthrob Chris Cole (Zac Efron), she unwittingly sets the stage for a chance encounter between Chris and her famous writer mom, Brooke (Nicole Kidman). It’s only a matter of hours before Brooke and Chris realize they have an undeniable chemistry, which leads to laugh-out-loud consequences as Zara’s egocentric boss attempts to woo her incredulous mother. This multigenerational, coming-of-age romantic comedy follows each character as they face the tangled complications of love, sex, and identity.

A Family Affair is directed by Richard LaGravenese , whose previous films include Freedom Writers , Behind the Candelabra , and Beautiful Creatures.

Executive produced by Michelle Morrissey ( Planet of the Apes ), additional producers for A Family Affair include Alyssa Altman , Jeff Kirschenbaum , and Joe Roth , the team behind the recent romantic comedy, Anyone But You . Roth and Kirschenbaum's production company, Roth/Kirschenbaum Films , is no stranger to working with Netflix, as they were behind the recent release Damsel starring Millie Bobbie Brown . Their additional productions include Fast X , as well as the Prime original series Panic .

Additional crewmembers for A Family Affair include writer Carrie Solomon , production designer Desma Murphy ( The Fabelmans ), and cinematographer Don Burgess ( Forrest Gump ).