In 2029, Logan aka Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is now an old soak whose mutant abil

ities are in decline and who makes a living as a chauffeur, boozing to ease the
pain and keeping a low profile in a desert hideout alongside his even older frie
nd Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). But trouble finds him in the form of a muta
nt-hunting mercenary squad searching for a young girl named Laura (Dafne Keen) w
ith a very familiar power-set...
?????
When asked what his cinematic influences were for the latest and supposedly fina
l Wolverine stand-alone movie, director James Mangold reeled off an impressive a
nd enticing list that included none-more-classic Western Shane, indie-hit heart-
warmer Little Miss Sunshine and Darren Aronofsky's bruising character piece The
Wrestler. Well, he wasn't lying. In fact, Logan owes these three films more than
it does the Mark Millar-penned comic series Old Man Logan, of which this is the
loosest of adaptations.

The overall mood is sombre and elegiac, much like the 1953 Alan Ladd movie; Mang
old (co-writing with Scott Frank and Michael Green) even has one character repea
t Shane's "there's no livin' with a killin''" speech verbatim to true tear-jerki
ng effect. Logan himself, meanwhile, echoes Mickey Rourke's lumpen, over-the-hil
l show-fighter in The Wrestler, being a shadow of his former perfect-killing-mac
hine self. He still regenerates, but more slowly and painfully, every wound leav
ing a scar. He's slower and clumsier, limping and lurching, and even his claws d
on't 'snikt' neatly like they used to; one's got a bit lazy and started to stick
.
Pursued by the kind of shifty, shadowy military-scientific organisation that wou
ld make William Stryker proud, ol' Logan hits the tarmac (in true Little Miss Su
nshine style) with a mute mutant girl named Laura and a cranky old geezer... Nam
ely Professor Charles Xavier, played with alternating tenderness and profane gus
to by Stewart, who gives his finest turn yet in the role, as Charles battles dem
entia with pharmaceuticals. A necessity, given, as Boyd Holbrook's snide cyborg
merc puts it, his brain "is classified as a weapon of mass destruction now".