Logan

[Director] Mangold drags [Wolverine] - much older, if not much wiser - into a Western, and ends up with the best superhero movie in recent memory.

This isn't just a great comic book movie, isn't just a superb X-Men adventure, it's a fantastic motion picture, period, and Mangold, Jackman and everyone else involved with its creation should be more than proud of what it is they've accomplished.

Credit where it's due: this is a grown-up movie that's a drama first and superhero story second. Maybe you shouldn't give points for effort, but maybe you should when you're talking about a subset of films as locked-in to their formulas as these.

Make no mistake, Logan earns its tears. If Jackman and Stewart are serious about this being their mutual X-Men swan song, they could not have crafted a more heartfelt valedictory.

Whenever the filmmakers have a choice between cruelly slaughtering characters and letting them live, they almost always choose the cruel path.

Logan is a family drama, an action thriller and an epic superhero story. If this is indeed Jackman's last Wolverine film, he's going out in heartfelt, high-class style.

Logan ventures to all the places superhero movies have tended not to go.

Jackman and Stewart are why Logan works-why the film doesn't feel like a cheap exercise in bloody violence, and its subversion of typical superhero-movie tropes feels organic.

The superhero movie is a major American genre, and one that is malleable for the silly and the profound. And Logan is the most profound one yet.

Logan is a melancholic paen to the Western with enough blood and gore to redefine what a comic book movie can and should be.

Strips away the spandex, the posse and the chaos, distilling the story down to the essence of the man, Logan. What's left is the agony and the ecstasy of mutanthood.

The only problem with calling it the boldest and most affecting superhero flick in many years is that it's barely a superhero movie at all.

The ending of "Logan"... works in a bold and poignant way, providing the kind of closure that any story could be proud of.

Another expensive throwaway aimed at milking money out of people who still read comic books. Color it stupid.

Jackman gives Logan a withering rage that seems heartfelt, not hammy; Stewart is touching in his enraged befuddlement; and Keen, who resembles here what Katie Holmes might look like if she were Carrie, has a feral intensity.

Slow and depressing, and not in a good way.

Jackman's performance is Clint Eastwood-esque, and the lines in Jackman's face tell the story of his worn character; he plays Wolverine as a man at the end of his line, adding at least a decade to his 48 years.

Fans of Marvel, X-Men, and the Wolverine character should be pleased with Logan-it's a strong finale and arguably the best in this highly uneven spin-off series.

Logan was written by Scott Frank, Mr. Mangold and Michael Green. Their script is the crucial ingredient of this impressive production, a model of ambition, complexity and old-fashioned showmanship that's matched by Mr. Mangold's direction.

The film celebrates the medium by taking itself seriously, with an added hint of apology for the genre's earlier sins. Best of all, there's an element of risk.