What The Critics Really Think About Logan

The reviews are rolling in, and it sounds like the Wolverine sequel Logan is ready to give Wolverine fans the movie they've been waiting for.

James Mangold's film is well on its way to being "Certified Fresh" by Rotten Tomatoes, sitting well over 90 percent positive with more than 60 reviews from the site's approved critics. The sequel, set in 2019, follows Logan (Hugh Jackman) as an old man, taking care of Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and the young mutant X-23 (Dafne Keen). Critics are absolutely raving about the comic book story, with some going so far as to say it's arguably the best comic book movie ever made—Marvel, DC, or otherwise. Here's a rundown of some of the leading reviews ahead of the release.

In describing Logan, USA Today's Brian Truitt looked to another famous sci-fi franchise to connect the style, calling the "excellent adventure" the "Dark Knight of the mutant-filled X-franchise, a gripping film that transcends the comic-book genre by saying something important." He said the most refreshing thing about Logan is how it steers clear of typical superhero clichés and tropes, instead telling a deeply personal story about a character fans have been watching for years. She called the film, apparently Jackman's final X-Men outing, a "sendoff fans won't soon forget."

It might not seem like the most obvious marriage, but Entertainment Weekly's Chris Nashawaty called Logan both "the most violent film in the series and the most sentimental one" when looking at the X-Men franchise as a whole. He noted that if the movie isn't spilling blood, it's spilling tears, telling the story of the last handful of mutants left in the world. He also praised the relatively low stakes, which is a rare thing when it comes to superhero movies. Instead of saving the world or fighting off an army, Logan and his ragtag family embark on a mission to save X-23. Plain and simple.

For a film in a tentpole superhero franchise, the Daily Telegraph's Robbie Collin touted Logan as a "creatively risky superhero movie" that deserves success. He said he was impressed with where the story went, and praised Hugh Jackman's turn as an older, more jaded version of Wolverine. He also likened the film to the cult hit Mad Max franchise, pointing to a "terrifically staged desert car chase—in fact, at times the bearded, wild-eyed Jackman looks uncannily like a mid-penance Mel Gibson—and there as elsewhere, the use of computer graphics is subtle, and the action looks dusty and authentic." Certainly not the type of description you'd expect for a major superhero flick.

Looking at the X-Men franchise as a whole, Vox's Todd VanDerWerff calls Logan the best X-Men movie since X-Men 2 in 2002. VanDerWerff argues that the film comes across as a "lonely, pre-apocalyptic Western" featuring the fan favorite mutant. Instead of trying to deconstruct the superhero genre itself, VanDerWerff notes Logan simply assumes the audience is up to speed on how these types of movies work and dives in to tell an engaging story: "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."

Instead of opting for massive special effects and action set pieces, Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson wrote that Logan is instead a "low-to-the-ground, intimate kind of action movie, allowing for many gnarly close-ups of metal going through throats and skulls and other stuff." Unlike most superhero films, Lawson said Logan truly has an air of finality, with the story a "blood-drenched stab-a-thon that frequently hits bone."