Logan

A film set in 2029. Mutants are nearly finished. None has been born for years and the few who remain are hiding. Logan drives a limousine near the border. His healing has weakened, his wounds do not close, and he drinks. On the other side of the Mexican border he keeps the old Charles Xavier hidden in a plant. The man's mind is ill and when he has a seizure he paralyses everyone around him. A woman offers Logan money to take a child to Canada. Laura is eleven and does not speak. She was made in a laboratory and carries Logan's genes. From there the film is a road picture. A motel, a farmhouse, a water tower, a forest, and the team behind them. What the narrative is interested in is not superpowers but ageing: this is not a hero story but the last journey of a man whose body is failing, and the film never lightens it. The farmhouse section in the middle is its emotional centre, and what happens there is the narrative's most merciless decision. The violence is shown openly. The production was made with an unusual certificate for its genre, which made what the character's claws actually do visible for the first time. A comic is named as the source but the film takes very little from it; the structure is close to a western and scenes from an old western are watched inside the narrative. A black and white version was also released. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for adapted screenplay, a rare thing for the genre. Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen and Boyd Holbrook are in the cast. James Mangold directed. Who it is for: anyone who wants a farewell and some weight out of a superhero film. Who it is not for: anyone looking for family viewing; the film is hard, bloody and without hope.