It seems after what felt like a dynasty of multimillion blockbuster hits and soulless Hollywood money makers, Marvel has finally reached a place where they can claim they have produced a masterpiece. “Logan” is one of those rare superhero movies that come out once every decade, succeeding in their brevity and their simplicity (like “The Dark Knight” trilogy). While briefly giving in to the temptations of spooked studio heads with action sequences that could have been a little bit shorter and strange sub plots that could have been a little bit longer, the outcome is a deeply moving film that has lost fear of going too far.

Logan (Hugh Jackman) is what remains of the long-dead, metal-clawed mutant Wolverine we have all come to learn and love from years of sequels and spin offs. Age has finally gotten the best of him as his claws struggle to extend from his hands and his injuries now start to become permanent. He resides just south of the US/Mexico border with Caliban (Stephen Merchant), an albino mutant who is confined indoors away from the sun and a dementia-ridden Professor X (Sir Patrick Stewart who is also running out of time. A mutant hasn’t been born for years and their legacy is at its death bed. That is, until Laura comes along and the fight against evil Texan corporations to save the mutant kind ensues.

“Logan” makes it very clear from the first scene that it’s going to be taken seriously with Wolverine decapitating the same kind of bad guys he would be bloodlessly punching and kicking in the PG-13 counterpart. But it’s also its sentimentality that helps it grow up. It will probably be the only superhero film you see for the next 10 years that will have a five minute, unbroken scene of conversing at a dinner table.

Most tragic is watching what were once these titans of the superhero universe now reduced to broken souls that curse and kill with none of the restraint they demonstrated before. It makes you want to go back to the good ol’ days when themes of mortality and killing were at the back of your mind.

Especially after hearing of Jackman’s and Stewart’s retirement from the X-Men series, it makes you want to cry. This movie is so good but so sad. They end on a bittersweet note that is impossible to walk away from with satisfaction, but there’s a voice in my head that whispers, “How else should they have ended it?” to which I cannot answer with satisfaction.

I suppose I found I thoroughly enjoyed the film once I considered, not its ending, but the journey. Besides, what fun would it be if we, the audience, were to always have the answer to the significance of every story ever told? Quoting Stanley Kubrick, “How could we possibly appreciate the Mona Lisa if Leonardo had written at the bottom of the canvas, ‘The lady is smiling because she is hiding a secret from her lover?”