Raw.
Raw is the word I'd use to describe this film. The movie was dry, bare, brutal, depressing, and grim. Yet it was also honest, charming, and oh so wondrous. Never would a film like this have worked had we not enjoyed, endured, and suffered through the myriad of X-men films put out by Fox with Wolverine in them. It takes watching both the highs and the lows of the franchise to fully appreciate this last ride. It's not some explosive finale or grand climatic ending but rather a much more quiet and endearing swan songs to a character audiences have been with for years.
An an aspect of this film that I really liked was the use of the X-men comics. The character X-23 sees these comics as a hope to hang onto, a beacon of good in a world of the unjust. Logan however only sees it as a reminder as to all he is not, commenting how half the events in them didn't even happen and the other didn't unfold anything like they were written. In a way, one can view this as commentary over the entirety of the Logan we've known in the films. This is not the traditional Wolverine from the comics. He's far from it, in many aspects. Yet, in many ways, Hugh Jackman's portrayal has risen above those restraints and criticisms and crafted a truly fascinating character in the process. It's a character, whose arc is bolstered by the astounding performances of two other characters, an ailing Professor X and a volatile X-23.
Like others have said, this a character piece first and foremost and a superhero film afterwards. It's a journey for 3 characters who didn't want to be in the positions they currently found themselves in but ultimately had to deal with it. It's saddening. It's fucked up. Yet in the end, it's strangely the most hopeful comic book movie of all. At the end it shows that these types of films don't have to be restrained by the genre they're in. They can go above it and become something greater in the process.
This is one sendoff you do not want to miss.
