The X -Men franchise has been nothing if not a bumpy road with both glorious successes and utter failures. The franchise has largely been comfortable resting on the tried and true superhero formula of simple action and a PG-13 rating. Still, with the runaway success of the R-rated Deadpool, it seems that Fox may be rethinking that strategy.
Wolverine has long been a character associated with out and out gorey violence but this has hardly been transferred to the screen. With many asking for an Old Man Logan story without restraints, it looks as though the voices have been heard.
Doing away with the gleefully meta-comedy of Deadpool, Logan looks like it’s playing it fairly serious, giving us a grizzled and notably injured Wolverine, his healing factor either slowing or not working. Professor X, looking like he was wheeled out of the retirement home, attempts to convince Logan to protect X-23, an 11-year-old girl with powers similar to his own. As a secretive paramilitary group, a favorite enemy of the X-Men, pursues the trio, they are desperate to get away even if that means eviscerating a few fools.
The trailer has a strong note of intensity, marking this as perhaps a finale for several key characters in the franchise. The style overall shies away from the more heroic X-Men movies like The Wolverine or Days of Future Past, opting for a more western feel or something closer to The Fugitive. Logan looks like it’s not just aiming for young newcomers but also longtime fans of the movies and comics, taking notes from the original Old Man Logan series, while adding plenty of originality. Whether it will end up being a Deadpool or an X-Men: Apocalypse in terms of quality remains to be seen.
