Was this trip really necessary? I’m far from convinced that it was. I won’t say there isn’t any funny in here; there are some real laugh-out-loud moments along the way in this script. But then again, a lot of the story reads like it was copied and pasted from fan fiction posted on message boards. I wasn’t quite sure how and why the main characters were where and what they were at the start of things—I guess I really don’t live and breathe these flicks after all; score one for me—and it never got all that much clearer as things went on. Others may be satisfied with the Easter egg experience of seeing some obscure characters brought into the plot as cameo devices, but that only goes so far in my view. (Dafne Keen’s appearance worked best for me, as her character actually had some relevance to the last time we saw Hugh Jackman as Logan.) And, of course, the over the top violence is fun, for a while. Then it gets numbing, and your mind starts to drift onto other ideas—like, for instance, what is the point to all this besides making money? The answer may not surprise you. Alas, everyone’s favorite unkillable supersomething may live on again and again, until the profit margin grows small enough to invoke the powers that no franchise can resist: studio accountants. I guess that’s the real subtext of this thing. That certainly is the lasting takeaway of this movie. Let’s see how many wisecracks it takes to overcome that.
