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August 14, 2025

S.H.Figuarts Deadpool & Wolverine Wolverine

By Joe
Another figure from last summer’s blockbuster. We like to stay current here.

It feels like a theme this summer for me is buying action figures I previously deemed unworthy of my money as they go on clearance. Sometimes that’s a dumb thing to do. If I didn’t want something six months ago why should I want it now just because it’s cheaper? In the case of today’s review, the answer is because I think it’s a good figure. The S.H.Figuarts Wolverine from the movie Deadpool & Wolverine is probably the best figure yet of the character from that film, with the caveat it’s the most expensive and technically isn’t from the film. Both of those aspects of the figure is why I cancelled my original preorder, but when I saw I could get the figure for 40% off I decided that was good enough to get this imperfect representation of Wolverine.

Probably the best figure from the movie so far, even if he never looked like this in the movie.

Let’s cut to the chase – this figure is not really from the movie. It depicts Wolverine in full costume which includes the mask and the sleeves. At no point in the movie did we see Wolverine look like this. By the time he put the mask on he had ditched the sleeves. Unfortunately, Bandai didn’t base their figure on this look nor did they include an unmasked head like the Marvel Legends release. There could be reasons for that which are perfectly valid. Bandai may have been going off of concept art released to them by Disney which is probably the most likely reason. They may have also not wanted to pay for the actor likeness to include a Hugh Jackman head which would make them cheap. It would have been nice if such could be included, or if there were bare arms also included (or just made the default look), but we can only judge the figure on what is present and what it’s trying to achieve. It just meant that it wasn’t worth $85 to me. As imperfect as the Legends release is, I was mostly sated in having it, but the lure of a better price has brought me here today.

And for those wondering, no, you can’t use the Legends unmasked head with this one.

Wolverine stands at approximately 6″ to the top of his head, or just a little taller. Hugh Jackman is 6′ 2″ so that little tick over the 6″ mark basically puts him at an accurate 1:12 scale, assuming the boots he wore in the film didn’t add an inch or two. He is shorter than the Legends version which I had at 6.5″, but that’s pretty consistent for Legends which tends to run a little bigger than true 1:12 scale. He seems a little shorter than the SHF Deadpool though that seems to mostly be in the head. That Deadpool has an oversized melon that becomes more apparent when placed with this figure (for the record, Jackman and Reynolds are both listed as being 6’2″). The costume is textured all over like the one from the film and it’s comprised mostly of colored plastic. The yellow is a pale yellow, especially compared with the more saturated Legends release that is more like honey colored. This shade looks more accurate to my eye. The blue and black is what’s painted, as well as the tiny silver buttons, and everything is pretty clean. The finish is nice and on the blue of the gloves, boots, and shoulder pads there’s a bit of a glossy finish which reflects the look of the film as well. The claws are a nice, metallic, silver and quite pointy. Be careful swapping hands as those claws are rigid and will hurt if you’re not careful.

Deadpool is actually a little taller this time.
It works.
They don’t like each other.

What stands out the most with this release vs the Legends ones are the proportions. The head size, shoulder width, and leg length all look pretty accurate to the film. The Legends one was pretty stumpy despite being a taller figure and it was my main peeve with that release. There’s a solid amount of mass as well in the torso, legs, and arms, though I would have liked the chest to be pumped out just a little more, but that’s more of a nitpick. The details of the costume are all captured well and I like how they did the folds of the neck portion. The Jackman likeness also looks fine to me. Granted, it’s just the area around his mouth, but the paint is clean where it could have easily gone off the rails with all of the facial hair. The fins on the head are also a rigid plastic which likely helped keep their shape in transit whereas the Legends one is a little warped.

He comes with three sets of non-clawed hands, but I bet most will never use them.

Wolverine is much lighter than his co-star when it comes to accessories, but he also doesn’t demand the sort of weaponry that Deadpool does. For portraits we get two: neutral and teeth gritting. I like the personality of the teeth gritting head more, but both are fine. For hands, we get fists, open, and relaxed hands. For clawed hands, there are fists and open and that ends the accessories. It’s light, but in terms of hands I’d say we’re set. Yes, we should have bare arms and an unmasked head and that’s a shortcoming of the figure. If they couldn’t give us an unmasked head they could have given us a yelling one. It was five dollars cheaper than Deadpool so at least that appears to be reflected in the price, but it’s still an $85 figure so if you wanted more from it then I think you’re entitled to such feelings.

If you find fists boring there’s these hands.

Since this is a SHF release it should also make this Wolverine the best articulated figure of this version of the character and for the most part it is. The head and neck work together allowing Wolverine to look up and down, but maybe not down as much as some would want. It has all of the rotation and nuance you would expect of a SHF setup. The butterfly at the shoulders doesn’t allow for much, but the figure can do the claws across the chest pose. The shoulder pads are pegged into the front of the shoulder and can be moved out of the way. The shoulder can raise a little past 90 degrees and it rotates fine. The double-jointed elbows and knees bend past 90, and the wrists, thigh swivels, and toe hinge do what they’re supposed to.

The articulation isn’t amazing, but is probably good enough for this version of Wolverine.

The torso is a little more mixed. There’s a ball joint in the center which allows for some forward and back. In conjunction with the ball-jointed waist, the figure can bend forward a decent amount, but it adds nothing going back. There’s no rotation in that upper torso joint, but there is tilt. The waist is where the rotation comes from and even more side-to-side tilt. The hips go out to the side almost to full splits, but kick forward a tick shy of 90 degrees and have no range going back. The ankles can go back a little ways, but have little to no forward movement. The ankle rocker works fine at least, but there’s no boot swivel or swivel at the glove. In terms of visuals, none of the joints are ugly. The thigh swivel is pretty apparent, but not to the degree it has been on some of Bandai’s Dragon Ball figures. The elbow joints stand out a little because they are a slightly brighter yellow and bending them all the way will produce small gaps. The same is true of the knees.

It’s not the Wolverine I want, but it is pretty fun to have.

This Wolverine from the film is basically what I expected of the figure. It’s articulated reasonably well and for the look it’s going for it pretty much nails it. It’s just not the look I wanted and wasn’t willing to buy for full price. And that was my mind set when I cancelled my original preorder: why buy something I really don’t want? I want a sleeveless Wolverine. If he was that way and still lacked the unmasked portrait I would have paid full price. Ideally, we’d get a figure that comes with both. In a way, I place almost no value on the sleeved look. I’d happily ditch those arms in favor of the bare arms look and that’s how I felt with the Legends figure as well. I just think the costume looks better that way. At a reduced price though, this is fine. It’s very functional and I’ve had him on my desk for about a month and I mess around with him when I have some downtime. He’ll look good with my Deadpool, and if Bandai comes back with the version I want I’ll have to consider that one was as well. Since they’ve apparently had trouble moving this one though I’m not holding my breath. If this is the look you want for Wolverine on your shelf, then you’ll probably be satisfied with this release provided you feel it’s worth it vs the cheaper Legends release. And since basically everyone seems to have this one on sale, you probably won’t have to pay full price for the pleasure of finding out for yourself.

Here are all of the other Deadpool & Wolverine reviews we’ve done up to now:

S.H.Figuarts Deadpool & Wolverine Deadpool

Despite the fact that I own dozens of them, I don’t really consider myself a fan of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends series of action figures. They largely are able to get a purchase out of me thanks to Hasbro’s exclusivity agreement with Marvel/Disney which basically makes them the only game in town. Despite that, I will…

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by Joe

Marvel Legends Deadpool & Wolverine Wolverine

It might be hard for the young folk to believe, but once upon a time movies based on comic book characters were treated like box office poison. Unless you were Superman or Batman, you just didn’t belong in cinema. Even those characters weren’t bulletproof. Superman had a nice run, but fizzled out with the fourth…

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by Joe

Marvel Legends Deadpool & Wolverine Deadpool

Despite the amount of reviews presents on this blog, I still do not consider myself a Marvel Legends collector. That’s because my interests are somewhat narrow when it comes to the Marvel brand. Over the years I’ve developed a fondness for Deadpool as depicted on film by Ryan Reynolds. I think the comic book character…

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by Joe

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November 14, 2024

Marvel Legends Deadpool & Wolverine Wolverine

By Joe
“Bet you thought it would never happen, bub.”

It might be hard for the young folk to believe, but once upon a time movies based on comic book characters were treated like box office poison. Unless you were Superman or Batman, you just didn’t belong in cinema. Even those characters weren’t bulletproof. Superman had a nice run, but fizzled out with the fourth flick while Batman basically did the same in the 90s. Still, 1989’s Batman was a massive hit in all of the ways Hollywood dreams up. It not only did well at the box office, but it was a cultural phenomenon with a hit soundtrack, tons of merch, and home video sales to back it up. Because it did so well, studios started to look at Batman as the blueprint for what could work in movie theaters when it came to comic book characters. If you couldn’t fit a franchise into that mold, then why bother? That’s probably why Spider-Man could never get off the ground despite someone always holding the option to start a film franchise. It’s also probably why a little known comic book hero in Blade did manage to sneak into theaters and actually do fairly well. And it meant that when it came time to bring the X-Men to film that franchise needed a dash of Batman.

“Why are you so short?”

This mainly manifested in the film’s look. Audiences weren’t going to believe a bunch of people in blue and yellow spandex could save the world. They’d look stupid, so out with the colors and in with the black. Almost all black, and since the film ended up being a hit I guess the lesson to take from X-Men was that approach worked, but was it the only way? When we finally made it to the now Marvel Cinematic Universe there seemed to be a willingness to just take the costumes people liked in print and just go with it. The Fantastic Four film franchise isn’t celebrated as a massive hit these days, but it made money with blue spandex. Spider-Man wore his traditional costume and faired well, so when Marvel got to Iron Man they basically let him do the same. Along with Captain America and, to some extent, Thor. Fox’s X-Men franchise still tiptoed around the subject, but eventually some of those comic blues made it in, but one thing we never got was Wolverine with the mask, with the yellow (or brown, for that matter), until a little movie called Deadpool & Wolverine.

Is this what we’ve wanted the whole time?

I didn’t do a review of Deadpool & Wolverine here. I probably should have, though it would have been lost in the many other reviews of the same. If I were to summarize it briefly, I’d call it Fan Service: The Marvel Way. It was plenty fun, maybe a little too long, but an overall enjoyable movie-going experience. It sure seemed like a big reason for the movie to exist was just to get Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine into a movie with a proper Deadpool (not that abomination from the Wolverine movie) and in a costume more reflective of his comic book self. Mission accomplished. The only surprise was that Hasbro wasn’t at the ready with Marvel Legends figures at opening. Now, I suspect there’s a good reason for that. Marvel and Disney probably wanted to keep the whole Wolverine look under wraps for as long as possible, at least until that first big trailer, and in doing so froze out action figure makers. They need a long lead time to get product on shelves and it probably wasn’t doable. They did manage a filler wave of older releases to try and placate fans, but now we finally have the first go at proper Deadpool & Wolverine figures and today we’re looking at Wolverine.

And who could forget his trusty sidekick, Deadpool?

Wolverine stands at approximately 6.5″ to the top of his noggin and comes clad in that bright yellow and blue suit you’ve likely seen by now. By default, he’s sporting his cowl which is interesting because this figure depicts a version of the character unseen on the screen. That’s because he has his yellow sleeves. If you’ve seen the movie, and I suppose light spoilers if you have not, then you know he begins the movie with the yellow sleeves, but eventually discards them. Before doing so, we never see him with the mask on. That’s saved for a big reveal later. He could have worn the mask at any time so I guess this figure is sort of like a depiction of the character before we ever meet him when his life was presumably better. And had Hasbro withheld the masked portrait people would have likely complained. They’re complaining anyway, but we’ll get to that.

I hope you like yellow.

What stands out with this figure right away is holy yellow, Batman! Or Wolverine. The yellow is very bright, though not necessarily inaccurately so when compared with the film. It’s just that in the film Wolverine acquires a fair amount of grime pretty quickly which this figure does not reflect. The yellow is also bare plastic which gives it a cheap look. Yellow is a tough color to sell and it would not surprise me if a lot of would-be customizers out there give this guy a wash to dampen that effect. There is a lot of blue on the costume as well which is mostly painted on. It’s fairly clean and Hasbro also painted the little, silver, rivets on the front of the costume which is a nice touch (they’re unpainted on the back, a fairly common tactic utilized by Hasbro). The X emblem on the belt looks nice and there’s black mixed in with the blue on the gloves and boots. The yellow is also all textured so it’s not a smooth figure. It almost has a sandpaper feel to it.

Deadpool and Wolverine from the film.
Proportions aren’t great here.

There are good and bad things to be found with this sculpt. The somewhat cheap look is one of those bad things and another would be the almost frumpy look Wolverine has. If you’ve seen Hugh Jackman in the role, then frumpy is probably one of the last words one would use to describe Jackman’s Wolverine. We see a lot of these issues with the comic Legends figures, but it’s largely a matter of proportioning. His chest is very narrow and there isn’t much thickness to it either. It doesn’t taper in like a human’s torso (or superhero’s) should and the head is too big. The legs seem short and he’s got these wide, birthing, hips. Now, this is all an issue when you have the figure just standing straight up and down on your shelf. Widen his stance and the issue is mitigated, but there’s no hiding completely that this body shape is off. And that’s a shame, because I bet we’re going to see most of this figure again at some point in the future. The other noticeable blemish that shows up more in pictures than in-hand is the different shades of yellow. The torso is almost a pale yellow while the limbs are more vibrant. The torso feels a touch harder and it’s thinner which may be the cause of the discoloration because both are cast in yellow as opposed to painted.

That’s a good looking face.

What undeniably turned out well though are the portraits. Well, specifically one portrait, but the masked portrait is solid too. It’s a good likeness of Jackman in the mask from the film which, honestly, looks a little goofy, but this is what we wanted, damn it! The yellow paint on the bridge of the nose is a little dingy, but that’s what happens when you paint yellow over black. The facial hair is a little messy too and there’s some overlap of the flesh on the edges of the jaw opening. It will look okay on a shelf, but up close isn’t all that impressive. And that’s assuming you want to display Wolverine masked and I’m not sure many will because this Jackman alternate portrait is fantastic. I don’t know if any other company at any other price range is going to top this likeness. It’s uncanny how lifelike this looks. Sure, get up real close and you see that almost pixelated paint app that’s a result of the face printing Hasbro uses, but at half an arm’s length it’s going to look awesome. The paint for the beard will probably vary a little from figure to figure and there’s a missed spot near my figure’s right ear, but overall I am very happy with this portrait. It’s the main reason why I decided to get the figure since the import versions look like they won’t even have a Jackman portrait.

The extra set of hands are kind of worthless. Just stick with the claws.

Accessories with Marvel Legends are rarely a selling point these days. Aside from the stellar unmasked head, this figure just comes with a set of clawed fists, a non-clawed right fist, and a trigger finger left hand. He has no gun to shoot so I guess Wade will have to loan him one. The clawed hands are probably what most care about and they’re fine. Claws are fairly straight and look good. The yellow paint on the hands is a little like the yellow paint on the nose, but what are you going to do? My hands did have some excess yellow paint in places, but I got it off with a Magic Eraser sheet. Obviously, the big omission here is the lack of optional arm parts. I mentioned earlier how we only see Wolverine in the film with bare arms while wearing the mask and that was certainly needed here. Was Hasbro not aware of that detail when the figure was designed? It’s possible. Or, they looked at all of this unique tooling they had to do in order to create this figure and decided a double-dip was in order. They can re-release this figure, throw in some arms that may not even need to be tooled, and call it a day. Maybe we’ll get a new head or something. An angry masked head, a yelling non-masked (which they could also repurpose from another figure), or maybe just this figure with bare arms. Personally, the bare armed look is the one I like best. Wolverine just looks weird in sleeves, like he’s wearing pajamas. Because it feels like such a certainty, I definitely don’t blame anyone willing to play the waiting game.

“Oh great, now there’s two of them.”

Wolverine’ articulation is a little different from what we’re used to. The head is a double ball peg and while it’s not executed perfectly, it is better than most Hasbro double ball pegs as Wolverine can look up, down, and there’s some tilt at play. He doesn’t have a neck joint though so those low Wolverine crouches aren’t really in play. The shoulder joints are basically big ball pegs. It’s what a lot of import companies use, but they do it in tandem with other joints to create more range. This one doesn’t. There’s a black, floating, cap and some space cut out of the chest to get a little range going across the chest, but it’s minimal. There’s almost no range going back so I wouldn’t even consider this a butterfly joint of any kind. Perhaps worse is that the shoulder pads just peg onto the shoulder itself. And it’s a big old peg with no play which means the shoulder pads are static and will hinder range at the hinge. He can’t raise his arms out to the side a full 90 degrees and even rotation is a bit cumbersome. The bicep, double-jointed elbows, and wrists are fine. The trigger finger hand has a horizontal hinge which is mostly worthless.

“And I thought Gambit was horny.”

The torso features an old school ab crunch. It goes back basically one “click” and forward two clicks. There’s a little nuance in between clicks, but not much. It’s very limited and the lack of a ball joint there is unfortunate. The waist twist is just a waist twist. The belt is floating so it can get out of the way. The hips are big ball sockets. He can almost hit a split and kick forward about 90 degrees with no room going back. There’s a thigh twist, but it breaks up the pattern on his thighs which is one of those things that may bug me more than most. The double-jointed knees work as expected as do the ankle hinges and rockers. The gloves and boots appear to both be separate pieces, but there’s no rotation to them. Overall, I’d call the articulation mediocre to average. Wolverine not being able to rear back with a fist is pretty disappointing and I don’t know why they let the shoulder pads become such a problem. I’m guessing there was a reluctance to break up the sculpt in the chest, but I personally would have done so for a ball-jointed diaphragm joint as well as a neck joint. I guess we’ll have to look to another company if we want a super-articulated Wolverine.

Friends forever?

Hasbro’s first stab at Wolverine from Deadpool & Wolverine is a bit of a half-baked release. It’s lacking in accessories including a major one and doesn’t hit a homerun with the articulation. It’s sacrificing articulation for sculpt, but the sculpt isn’t exactly deserving of such reverence. It does however deliver an incredible likeness of Hugh Jackman in the form of the unmasked portrait. Even with the limited articulation, it’s still possible to pose away some of the sculpt’s shortcomings. Because fans have been waiting so long to see Jackman in such a costume, it feels a little bit like this is a figure from a company that knows the fans were going to eat it up no matter what. And as a result, they only managed to deliver a satisfactory product. Hey, I’m clearly part of the problem in this instance since I bought this even though I really wanted a version of the character sans sleeves. And I fully expect such a character to come out in 2025. Knowing it’s likely to happen makes this a hard recommend. If you just want an MCU Wolverine right now and the imperfections don’t bother you then I guess go for it. I think the future S.H.Figuarts Wolverine will be a better action figure, but it too appears to lack a set of bare arms and I don’t think it’s even coming with an unmasked head. Plus it costs more than triple the amount of this one so I guess what I’m saying is I understand anyone who decides that this is good enough for now. I clearly did and while I’m not entirely satisfied with the decision, I’m not exactly regretting it either. Maybe I will when and if I replace it with something better, but who knows when that will be? At least for right now I get to enjoy tiny Hugh on my desk.

Do you like Wolverine? Do you like Deadpool? Well, I’ve got some other stuff you can check out:

Marvel Legends X-Men Animated Series Wolverine

The toyline of my dreams was announced last October. In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the television series X-Men, Hasbro is doing a dedicated line of Marvel Legends with figures based on the look of the show. The show was obviously inspired by the designs of Jim Lee, but there are differences in the…

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by Joe

Marvel Legends Deadpool 2 Two-Pack

Look through my various toy reviews and you’ll probably notice that I’m not much of a Marvel guy. That wasn’t always the case for me though as I was huge into Marvel Legends once upon a time. I basically stopped around the time Hasbro was awarded the Marvel license. I felt there was a dip…

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by Joe

Mondo X-Men TAS Wolverine 1/6 Scale SDCC Exclusive Action Figure

When San Diego Comic Con was cancelled for 2021, many of the entities that would have sold exclusive merchandise at the event pivoted to web sales. And since the 2020 iteration of the famed event was also canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many seemed to expect the same for 2021, or the massive delays…

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by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Comics, Film, toys

March 14, 2017

Logan

By Joe

logan

Logan (2017)

A popular “gotcha” question from when I was a kid concerning comic books and the X-Men was, “What’s Wolverine’s mutant power?” The desired response was a reference to his claws, at which point one could interject with a “Nuh-uh! It’s his mutant healing factor!” Of course, later in the 90’s it would be revealed that his claws actually were a part of his mutation, thus putting an end to that one, but it was always kind of a stupid piece of trivia anyway. Wolverine’s defining trait are his claws, the healing stuff was just a way to excuse the beating he took in the pages of Incredible Hulk and X-Men. If he didn’t have those unbreakable claws, he probably never would have become the most popular member of the X-Men.

And yet, Wolverine’s claws were always a bit of an obstacle for comic writers and artists, and eventually animators and film makers as well. You have this violent, bad ass character, equipped with blades that can cut through almost anything, but he really can’t use them because of the obvious gore factor that would involve. Instead, Wolverine would often use the claws for show, deflect some attacks, cling to walls, cut through a fence, and everyone’s favorite – hack up some robots. That’s why it’s particularly liberating to see Wolverine go all out in the opening moments of Logan.

To a newcomer, or even someone who has just fancied themselves a casual fan, the violence and gore present in Logan will seem over the top, perhaps juvenile. The R rating the movie garnered may be viewed in a cynical fashion to appease young males who want f-bombs and blood out of their movies. For those who have been with this character since their childhood though, it’s a stark reveal of just who Wolverine is. This is the Wolverine we hear about from other characters, spoken of in hushed tones and feared by his enemies. This is a superhero who’s primary offense, and defense, is to just start hacking. And since this is applied to an older, very cynical, Wolverine we get a character who doesn’t operate in half measures – if you get in his way and threaten him or those who cares about, Wolverine won’t hesitate to remove your face from your skull.

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If you’ve always wanted to see Wolverine do this, then Logan will make you very happy.

Logan is a film set some 15 years or so in the future. It’s not a dystopian world or a wasteland. There are no flying cars or laser rifles, the setting is just an excuse to take a look at an aging, dying, Wolverine. When the film opens we see Wolverine has taken on a very mundane job as a limo driver. He walks with a limp, is an apparent alcoholic, and his wounds don’t close as quickly as they used to. When he’s not working, he’s scoring drugs and hopping the Mexican border where his perhaps only friends are hiding out:  Caliban (Stephen Merchant) and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). The drugs Wolverine purchases are for Xavier, who’s past the ninety-year mark and struggling to keep his wits about him. When the world’s most dangerous telepath can’t control his old brain bad stuff can happen. Wolverine is apparently saving up some cash to buy a houseboat where he and Xavier can live out the rest of their days without fear of harming anyone, or anyone bothering them (in the case of Wolverine).

Wolverine’s day to day life is disrupted when a borderline hysterical woman (played by Elizabeth Rodriguez) comes seeking his aid. Offering a substantial amount of money, she wishes for Wolverine to smuggle her and her daughter into Canada. Wolverine wants nothing to do with her, apparently not wanting any trouble. Soon a young man barges into his limo looking for info on the woman. He is Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), and we know from his demeanor and bad-ass cybernetic hand that he is certainly a bad dude and probably what the young woman is running from. Upon hearing this, Xavier naturally wants to help the woman as he senses a mutant presence, Caliban smells it as well (his mutant power). This is a big deal as there hasn’t been a mutant born in this world in over twenty years. Wolverine is sort of conned into helping the woman, and things get messy before they get any better.

Since she’s featured so heavily in the promotion, and the film makes little attempt to create any mystery about it, I might as well continue along and talk about Laura (Dafne Keen), the young mutant Wolverine and Co. end up taking in. Laura, known as X-23 in the comics, is a young girl with a very familiar set of powers and abilities, and also temperament. She is referred to by other characters as Wolverine’s daughter, but it might be more accurate to call her his clone. She’s on the run in search of a place called Eden and is running from Pierce and the people responsible for her existence. After the lengthy setup, the film turns into a road movie with Wolverine, Laura, and Xavier.

logan_charles

Jackman and Stewart are just beautiful in their portrayals of Logan and Xavier.

Logan is not a feel good movie, and it doesn’t offer much mystery. I found myself anticipating almost every beat the film hits, but I also didn’t care. The world of Logan is harsh and unfriendly, but there are small moments to break up the grim that either provide humor or just a small slice of life. Xavier and Laura make for a fun pair and easily form a warm relationship, even if Laura is essentially mute. Perhaps to the surprise of some, Xavier is the character most often relied upon for comic relief. He and Wolverine clash well, but underneath the surface conflict it’s obvious the two love and respect each other. Wolverine is a surrogate son of sorts to this version of Xavier, and waits on him like a doting son, though he seems to take some enjoyment in complaining about it every step of the way. The relationship feels very authentic, which is a word that kept coming to me as I took in this picture. Patrick Stewart comes across as especially authentic as Xavier. There’s a scene where the trio sits down to dinner with some strangers and Stewart plays Xavier in a way that’s reminiscent of every dinner I’ve ever had with an elderly person I had only just met. He’s delighted to speak with someone other than his irritable traveling companion, but his performance never teeters on parody.

Hugh Jackman is a captivating Wolverine in this film. I suppose that comes as no surprise since he’s been playing this character for almost twenty years now (the same can be said of Stewart). Jackman worked with director/writer James Mangold on the story, loosely adapted from the Old Man Logan story from the comics. It’s clear from interviews with Jackman that this was an important film for him and an important story for him to have a part in telling as Wolverine, for it’s to be his last turn as the character. The Wolverine of this film is best described as the exact assumption most would have of an old man Wolverine. All of his lesser traits -his irritability, cynicism, vices and so on have only been strengthened by father time. He’s still a good guy inside, but his pessimism makes him more of an introvert than he’s ever been. The film doesn’t dwell on the past, but it makes it obvious that all of the X-Men are dead. This is a Wolverine who has lost everything. He doesn’t want to start over, he’d rather just die. He’s pulled through this movie by other characters as well as his inner sense of duty, but it’s a struggle. The film tells this story through action and not so much dialogue. In doing so, Mangold is able to avoid a lot of the tropes that plague other films attempting to tell a similar story.

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I wonder where she gets it from…

Laura proves to be a compelling character in her own right. Portrayed by newcomer Dafne Keen, Laura is a wide-eyed girl experiencing the world for the first time. Everything is interesting and new to her, and Keen is forced to tell us what Laura is thinking through her actions alone while also being restricted from changing her usual stoic facial expression. She’s a fun character to watch when the film slows down, but also a sad character during the action sequences when we are forced to watch a young girl brutally eviscerate other people with cold precision. She’s in a way been denied humanity, while also being denied a childhood. Again, Mangold does a great job of just putting this out there in the film without editorializing it. We don’t need a character to tell us now depressing her upbringing was. The film slowly gives us more and more of the Laura character and it’s one of the few aspects that feels rewarding. I would guess most people will leave the theater wanting to see more of this character in the future.

All of this is to say the movie isn’t perfect. Like most superhero pictures, it’s probably longer than it needs to be. While there are no obvious scenes that could have been axed, the film does move slowly and if an editor had been ordered to keep the runtime under two hours they probably could have found a way without much compromise. The film is also so centered on Wolverine and Laura that the antagonists feel like after-thoughts at times. And as I mentioned, it is very predictable and there is a sequence in the middle of the movie that bothered me as a result because the characters should have been able to see the danger up ahead.

The flaws within Logan are minor and do little to bring down what some are calling the best superhero movie yet. I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate, as Logan could function as any kind of movie if you took away the super powers. The film isn’t centered on a conflict of good vs evil with the fate of the world in the balance. It’s a character driven film, and for people who have considered themselves fans of the Wolverine character, this is probably the film you’ve been waiting for. It’s a film for those who appreciate the essence of what makes Wolverine special, and it’s able to present the character in an authentic way without devolving into a ton of fan service. More importantly, this is also clearly a worthy story for Jackman to go out on. This is his finest performance not just as Wolverine, but of any film I’ve seen him in, and I assume that was the personal goal of Jackman going into it. I was totally fine with this being Jackman’s last time playing Wolverine, but once the credits started rolling I must admit I was starting to wish for more, and as they say in show business, always leave them wanting more.

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