The 10 Best Moments From James Mangold’s Logan

Logan has been receiving a great deal of critical acclaim since those first press screenings, and while Deadpool may have failed to break into this year's Academy Awards, there are those who believe that James Mangold's movie stands a very real chance of doing so, and we'd have to agree with them. Time will tell if that pans out, but Mangold and star Hugh Jackman's farewell to Wolverine is undeniably one hell of a sendoff for the iconic Marvel superhero and a story likely to stay with fans for a long time to come. It may not be as flashy or CGI-heavy as the X-Men movies, or as family friendly as your typical Marvel Studios fare, but there's still an awful lot to love about Logan. With that in mind, what you'll find here is a look at the 10 best moments from the movie. It goes without saying that massive spoilers follow from this point on, so if you've yet to see the threequel and want to walk into it unspoiled, we advise bookmarking this page and returning at a later date. You've been warned... 10) Not The Wolverine You Remember Logan kicks off with a drunk Wolverine asleep in the back of the limousine he now drives to earn a living. However, the clawed mutant is quickly woken up by some thugs attempting to steal the wheels from his new ride, and after they take him down with a shotgun blast to the shoulder, Wolverine's berserker rage is quickly unleashed. Desperate to protect the vehicle, he at one point uses his own body to shield it from getting damaged by another round of shells, but what's really interesting here is seeing how much Logan has changed. He's not as quick as he once was and the blows dealt to him are clearly taking much longer to heal. From the start, the movie makes it clear that this is a very different Wolverine adventure. 9) The Fate Of Mutantkind When Wolverine, Professor X, and X-23 wind up on a farm with a family who they help out on the roadside, we seemingly get a throwaway line about how people now consume corn syrup since pretty much everything which ails them. At first, it appears as if this is just a reference to how much the world has changed, but when the villainous Zander Rise later confronts Wolverine, we find out that that's actually played a role in the decline of mutants. Rice came up with a way of altering people's genomes so that new mutants would no longer be created and this is a surprisingly satisfactory explanation. For comic book fans, it may also bring back memories of mutant killing substances like the Legacy Virus and the Cure, though it's a shame that it's never referenced as such in order to further tie Logan to the source material in a more significant manner. 8) Wolverine's Daughter In the comic books, the emphasis is very much on the fact that X-23 is Wolverine's clone. In a universe where The Clone Saga happened (a convoluted tale where Spider-Man encountered multiple replicas of himself), that works, but in the often quite grounded X-Men Universe? Not so much. Making Laura Wolverine's daughter is a much more interesting move and makes a lot more sense from a scientific standpoint despite the fact that Logan does later go down the clone route with X-24. This also deepens the relationship between the two and assuming Laura returns somewhere down the line, the fact that she lost her father after such a brief time could play a big role in where she goes next as a character. Furthermore, it also puts Wolverine in a situation he's never been in before and it makes for a compelling viewing experience seeing the ageing mutant go through all that. 7) Caliban Not so much a moment as a series of them, Stephen Merchant's Caliban proves to be a real scene stealer in Logan. His dry wit is the perfect counterpoint to Jackman's gruff and world-weary Wolverine, with comments about staying beneath deck to clean the clawed mutant's underpants when he heads out to sea on a boat providing some unexpected humour in this otherwise quite grim movie. However, he's also unexpectedly brave, as Caliban later sacrifices himself in a bid to take out Rice and Donald Pierce so that his mutant tracking powers can no longer be used against his friends. All of this proves to be more than enough to help us forget we saw a different version of the character in X-Men: Apocalypse last year. The door is even left open for him to return down the line after a throwaway comment by Rice about preserving his remains. Seeing as Wolverine kills him, though, someone else will obviously have to take over getting that sorted out. 6) Wolverine vs. X-24 As a concept, I really didn't like X-24. The role of an unstoppable killing machine should have been filled by Sabretooth (who was almost in the film, actually), even if the history between the two was wiped away as a result of X-Men: Days of Future Past changing the timeline. We've never really been treated to an all-out brawl featuring the duo (who have an iconic rivalry in the comic books) and this was the perfect opportunity for that, especially after Liev Schreiber has made his interest in reprising the role clear on a number of occasions. Complaints aside, though, and there's no denying that the fight between Wolverine and his clone was still pretty cool. A seemingly unstoppable force, X-24 is genuinely terrifying and the way he tears into the older Logan is both horrifying to watch and a reminder of the animal the ageing hero once was. As far as fight scenes go, this absolutely ruled. It's just a shame that Mangold didn't turn to the comics and utilize one of Wolverine's may powerful foes instead. 5) A Family Dinner Logan is a movie packed full of awesomely bloody and violent action scenes, but it's during one of its quieter moments that it may very well be at its best. After helping a family at the side of the road, Wolverine, Charles and Laura are invited back to their house for dinner and it's here we get to see the trio find at least some happiness. Even poor X-23 gets the chance to smile as she experiences the life of a normal child for the first time, and you have to hand it to Mangold for finding a way to really delve into their family dynamic in such a touching way. It sadly doesn't last due to the fact that X-24 later slaughters the family, but it's nice for those few hours, even if we ultimately see that it's a life Wolverine can never truly have. 4) The Fall Of The X-Men Logan is frustratingly vague when it comes to explaining what became of the X-Men, but we do ultimately learn what happened to some of them. It's never made fully clear whether or not Rice's genetic tampering also wiped out existing mutants, but the movie confirms that it was an out of control Professor X who killed at least seven of the heroes. That was during one of his seizures and a tearful Charles tragically remembers what he did in a confession to Wolverine, who's quickly revealed to be X-24 (the clone then murders the Professor). The film doesn't provide a lot of definitive answers, but we can assume that Wolverine's plan was to take Charles out to sea until his eventual death in order to protect people from him and to ultimately kill himself once his father figure - who he clearly couldn't just take out given their history - had passed. That's some dark stuff, and as good as it would have been to see what became of the team, perhaps that would have been a tad too grim. 3) X-23 Unleashed Again a series of scenes rather than just the one, seeing X-23 in action throughout Logan proves to be a real treat. With a feral fighting style, watching the youngster tear her way through the Reavers or attacking X-24 proves to make for viewing every bit as compelling as when Wolverine himself is in action. The fact she has a claw in each foot is a real game changer, but as great as these action scenes are, it's important to also highlight how talented an actress Dafne Keen is. I went into Logan fully prepared to hope I'd see more of X-23 as an adult with a new actress in the role, but Keen really owns Laura in this movie and it would now be vastly more satisfying to watch her grow into the role and ultimately suit up as the new Wolverine. If nothing else, the action scenes which should accompany that journey will no doubt continue being a highlight. 2) New Mutants As of right now, there's no way of knowing whether or not any future X-Men Universe movies will be set in this timeline following the events of Logan, but the introduction of a new batch of young mutants has some serious potential. Rictor appears to be the only one of them outside of X-23 who hails from the comic books, with the rest made up of seemingly random youngsters with a batch of familiar and not so familiar abilities. Even so, this definitely sets the stage for some new form of the X-Men to exist somewhere down the line, and for all we know, upcoming releases like New Mutants and X-Force could easily take advantage of that. That would signal a big shift for the franchise, as we go from tales set in the past to those in the near future, though one which would help differentiate this world from the shared universes delivered by Marvel Studios and DC Films. 1) The Death Of Wolverine Ask 100 different comic book fans how they would have liked to see Wolverine's death play out on the big screen and chances are you'd get 100 different answers. For me, Mangold didn't go down the best route by having X-24 tear into Logan before impaling him on a tree branch, but considering the fact he wanted to die and was severely outmatched, Wolverine going down fighting does make a lot of sense. I do wish he's been given a bigger hero moment rather than having X-23 be the one to stop the clone with the use of an Adamantium bullet, but his last few moments with Laura are undeniably powerful and this ultimately feels like a fitting enough farewell for the iconic character after seeing Jackman play him for the past seventeen years. I'd be lying if I said I don't hope his healing factor kicks in so he can claw his way out of that grave, though. However, for the time being, Logan brings this version of Wolverine's story to a mostly very satisfying close.