Film: 'Logan'

I did see the first 'Wolverine' film but not the more recent one. It hardly matters as the plot, such as any exists, is a standard one of grisly violence, bloody fights and chases. I kept thinking of Mad Max - and the scenario is very similar - futuristic (slightly) and barren wildernesses, this time in America. 

I only went to this because of the starring of our hunky Hugie Jackman, here appearing at the end of his steel-clawed career as a sorry, washed-up, untidily-begrizzled, alcohol-dependent character, trying to keep father-figure and wheelchair-confined Professor X (Patrick Stewart) from the clutches of various nefarious characters, including Richard E.Grant as a demented scientist trying to create, by genetic engineering, an army of children with super-human powers and nature-twisting talents. One of these, a girl of around ten or eleven, he takes with him - a total irritant of a child who, it's revealed, is his daughter in a sense, as she's been given Logan /Wolverine's own DNA. Her ability to perform formidable feats of the physical is, rather strangely, far superior to her capacity to speak, as when she talks it's only in Spanish. She has the on-screen presence of an annoying little twerp and I wish they'd left her behind to her fate. The other children, about a dozen of them (Saints preserve us!) with their 'Superman' powers are held in reserve until the film's final quarter hour for the predictable grand confrontation.

Of some interest is the presence of Stephen Merchant whom I've only seen in comedies - as Ricky' Gervais' ineffectual agent and sidekick in TV's 'Extras' and popping up in the occasional British film comedy in brief cameo appearances. Here his role is quite substantial and 'serious' - a hapless albino with knowledge about Wolverine and his whereabouts with the girl which the adversaries are desperate to get hold of.

I found the film very disposable entertainment and hardly one I'd go out of my way to recommend. Direction is by James Mangold who is also responsible for the unimaginative story which is little more than a pretext on which to hang reasons for depicting bone-crunching, limb-lopping, blood-spurting fights. No doubt some are excited by seeing such whereas to my mind it's all very 'so what?'  
It wouldn't be right to say that I was bored, though it's all so standard without anything to lift it out of the rut. I do think the story would have been improved if that brat of a little girl hadn't figured so large in the telling. The two and quarter hours could also have been cut back by at least thirty minutes with no damage done. 
If this kind of film is your bag, then do go. On the other hand, if you only want to see it because of the main starring role of Hugh J., you may well feel disappointed to the same degree that I was.........5.