Opening Image

Logan is awoken by the sound of gangsters trying to steal the tires of his limo. Hungover and barely able to stand, he’s shot down by them before he knows what hit him. As he struggles to pick himself up, the title card appears, telling us this is what has become of one of the world’s most dangerous mutants, Logan as he lives, a pitiful mess.

Theme

Logan is recognized by an unknown woman at a funeral who begs for his help, saying she needs Wolverine but he is quick to reject her pleas, wanting nothing to do with his past life. As she drives away Logan sees a young girl in the backseat of the car looking back at him.

Set Up

The year is 2029, Charles Xavier now suffers from dementia causing him to have extreme telepathic seizures and Logan is trying to save up enough money to buy a boat to keep Xavier away from everyone as they both wait to die. As of now, mutants are all but extinct.

Outside a hospital, Logan is confronted by Donald Pierce who works for Transigen and is looking for the child we saw earlier. Logan says he knows nothing about their whereabouts but now that he’s been made, he tries to buy the boat and disappear immediately before his past catches up. Logan heads back to the abandoned smelting plant where he, Xavier and Caliban hide from the rest of the world.

Xavier spends his days rambling away, all alone in a water tank. The structure along with its multiple holes that lets the sunlight in is meant to resemble Cerebro, a machine which Xavier once used to amplify his powers and how he’s placed in a cage meant to obstruct it. He along with the X-men were what gave Logan a purpose in a life that previously amounted to nothing more than senseless bloodshed but now with mutants being all but extinct the two of them are just waiting to die. Xavier says he no longer recognizes Logan in his current wretched state and Logan pauses for a moment because even he doesn’t recognize himself anymore. However, Xavier still believes new mutants will rise and that they will need Logan’s help.

Logan’s been carrying an adamantium bullet telling us he’s been contemplating suicide and we also learn that the adamantium in his bones are what’s slowly killing him.

Catalyst

Eventually, he meets the same woman from the funeral again, Gabriela who tells him that she will pay him well to drive her and the girl, Laura to Canada.

Debate

Logan agrees for the sake of the money involved. Upon returning to the motel, he sees Gabriela’s been killed so he flees the scene. Back at the smelting plant, they find that Laura snuck into the trunk of the car.

Break into Two

Logan, Xavier and Laura escape Pierce, who uses Caliban to track Laura. While getting him to comply, Pierce tells him about how his mother must have warned him about staying away from sunlight, telling us about the strong natural connection an offspring shares with their parents, which further comes into play when we see that Zander Rice is the only one X-24 obeys and how Laura can learn to be better from Logan.

B story

From Gabriela’s phone, we find out about the new mutants that were being created. Being treated as products and not people and being forced to fight battles they want no part of, the children chose to run. Xavier tells Logan what he’s too afraid to confront, that Laura is his daughter.

Fun and Games

Despite wanting nothing to do with her, Logan does behave like a father figure to Laura as he teaches her to not act on anger and not be what she was made to be.

Transigen has created the perfect soldier, X-24 so the children and nurses make a plan to escape to a place they call Eden. Meanwhile, the group arrive at a city and for the first time, Laura sees a life outside of a lab. At the hotel, she sees a child and adult mannequin holding hands as she longs for a family. Logan finds X-Men comics in Laura’s bag and he mocks her for believing in heroes and in a better time. Meanwhile, she watches the movie, Shane with Xavier and we hear how a man can’t change who he is, you’re either good or bad and you will be so till you die.

We find out that the name Eden is from one of the comic books and so are the coordinates, implying that the new mutants don’t know for sure if Eden even exists or not but they have faith that things will be better there just as people once had faith in the X-Men to make things right.

Midpoint

Pierce catches up to them causing Xavier to panic and have a seizure (later, on the news we hear that a similar event happened a long time ago at Xavier’s mansion). Logan makes his way to Xavier by killing the Reavers along the way and injects him with medication. Laura also deals with the Reavers violently, almost as if she’s acting on what her father does i.e. being a weapon rather than a mutant.

Bad Guys Close In

While on the road again, Xavier is disappointed to learn that Logan derives no sense of purpose from helping a young mutant as they once did decades ago. Xavier also says that Laura can learn to be better.

Additionally, Xavier refused to take his medicine because he believed he needed his powers to help Laura but after what’s happened, Logan knows that his naturally occurring mutation is best left suppressed by man made medicine (this is further elaborated upon by Zander Rice’s motive)

Logan reluctantly helps the Munson family after a traffic accident because Xavier wants him to be able to set a good example for Laura. The family offers them dinner as a gesture of gratitude. Meanwhile, Transigen sends Zander Rice to aid Pierce.

At the house, the group learns what it’s like to be a part of a family again. Kathryn Munson says she’s wanted her family to go on a vacation for a long time but Will Munson says they need to stay here and take care of the land, to while she replies that “the Lord will provide” telling us that she shares the same blind faith in God as the children do in the X-Men. Xavier reminds Logan that this is what life looks like, and experience they haven’t had since the X-Men disbanded

Will and Logan go to check the water supply as it’s being tampered with by a corporation that owns the surrounding land, paralleling Logan’s own war with Transigen as he tries to keep only surviving family safe. Will says that as children get older they become more difficult to deal with which echoes Logan’s desire to abandon Laura. On the other hand, Nate Munson tells Laura that the trophies in his room are from winning second and third places in several competitions, he says his father makes him take part even though he isn’t very good, telling us that his father pushes him to be better, paralleling Laura’s relationship with Logan, it also gives her a glimpse of what having a normal childhood is like.

Additionally, Will also mentions the new corn syrup that is being harvested and how it ties into their world trying to achieve a sense of control in the name of perfection. All of Pierce’s men and himself too have been artificially enhanced, the old mutants were made extinct by additives in food meant to suppress the mutant gene in favor of creating their own mutants which they can control

Logan intervenes when Will has trouble with corporate enforcers who want his land, going back to his old ways of helping those in need.

All is Lost

Xavier finally recalls that it was him who killed all the X-Men because of his seizures and so we learn that the one man who has been pushing Logan thus far is in no condition to do so, he even admits he understands what made Logan so cynical.

X-24 arrives at the house, he is the living embodiment of everything bad about Logan, as in what would have happened if Logan was never taken in by the X-Men and shown a better path and what would’ve happened to Laura if she remained at Transigen. Additionally, his appearance also appears to be similar to that of Sabertooth from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, who was Logan’s darker half. By killing Xavier, he is killing the last bit of good that’s left in Logan, causing him to engage X-24 with violence. Additionally, by killing the Munson family, it’s a bitter reminder to Logan that he can never have a normal life and that everyone good around him will end up dying.

Will saves Logan from X-24 by hitting him with his car but then points his gun at Logan, reaffirming the belief in Logan the importance of why he and Xavier should have isolated themselves. Rice says that all mutants are bad and need to be wiped out and that he’s simply doing what he was hired to do

Dark Night of the Soul

With the X-Men gone, Logan lost his purpose and with Xavier gone, Logan has nothing left to live for. Laura offers him comfort by holding his hand, reminding him that being a father is still a reason to keep on going but he rejects it.

Laura takes Logan to a clinic and the doctor offers to do more tests but he refuses saying if he wants to save someone he should save himself or else he could end up just like the Munsons. Laura relied on what Transigen taught her to steal a car telling Logan that maybe she is better off being whatever they made her.

Break into Three

Logan takes Laura to the location to show her that there’s nothing there but what they do find are the other children. When they have a moment alone, he tells her that it doesn’t matter if you kill good people or bad people, it will all haunt you just the same, pushing Laura further down the path of being a weapon as Logan admits he’s is no state to show her how to be better.

The children cut his facial hair to resemble what it used to look like when he was Wolverine, they offer him the money he was promised by he refuses saying they need it more than he does, making another step towards being the selfless hero he used to be.

Laura is upset that Logan will be leaving them, he says it’s for the best because bad things will always happens to those he cares about, to which she responds that she should be fine then as he clearly doesn’t care about her.

The next morning, Logan wakes up and sees that the children have left but Pierce isn’t far behind so he heads out after them.

Finale

Logan uses the serum created by Rice to gain the upper hand but it also makes him aggressive and ruthless, if you can’t be the hero, become the animal you were forged to by man to survive. He and Laura fight alongside one another to beat Pierce’s men.

Rice tells Logan about his goal to achieve perfection and he’s shot down by a revolver, an older weapon, the act works as a way of rejecting his beliefs.

In his final moments, Logan tells Laura to go with her friends and she can be free and to not be the killer she was meant to be.

Closing Image

Logan is buried and Laura recites the ending dialogues from Shane about a man being who is is till the very end. As they depart, Laura tilts the cross marking the grave to create a ‘X’, telling us that this is Logan as he died, an X-man.