In an era when super-heroics dominate the multiplex, Logan manages to offer something unique.
For a start, Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart have been playing these characters for 17 years now, bringing with them the full weight of that history.
Also, Logan is easily the dourest super-hero film in history,
surpassing even the Dark Knight trilogy. Characters you've seen in previous X-films suited up in spandex and kicking ass are now broken old men, kicking around various dusty locations, looking for an escape.
With Jackman and Stewart given material more challenging than the usual comic book biffo, the movie reaches emotional heights previously unseen in the genre.
When superhero films decide to go grim and gritty like this, the outcome can be ludicrously ill-fitting (see last year's Batman v Superman for a recent example). Logan follows the impulse to its extreme and by compromising nothing, it works.
