Somewhere online, the third and final WOLVERINE is said to have been influenced by films ranging from SHANE... playing on a motel TV... to PAPER MOON: One involving a hired gun protecting farmers and the other a father and daughter traveling across country: But what LOGAN really seems like is an X-MEN reboot of NEBRASKA: an dark comedy where a put-upon son takes his aging, ailing father across Middle America...

Whatever the connections, deliberate or otherwise, LOGAN seems to be critic-proof, and has gained over 8.0 on IMDb. And while the first venture, X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, was an entertaining Neo-Noir adventure and the followup, THE WOLVERINE, rolled like a Japanese Graphic Novel brought to life with washed-out colors, tons of action and what seemed to be an intentionally simplistic plot-line, LOGAN is an extremely vague Road Movie that, like the last couple X-MEN entries, introduces another young mutant (to carry on): Logan's daughter, a rescued "orphan" with a one-note expression - born to kill - and starting out with the grungy, non-dialect scowl of Newt from ALIENS that, once the levee breaks, you'll pray for a muzzle (almost as annoying as her rambling caretaker "mother"... who thankfully doesn't last long). Actually, the kid's alright, and not an overly-trained child actor type, but she simply takes away from what Logan could have done alone and with a lot more suspense.

The sick old man/NEBRASKA comparison is none other than Dr. Xavier: Patrick Stewart ends his classy and prestigious reign with an awkward, blasphemous whimper, not a bang, while the SHANE-like farmers are a black family that takes the trio in right as the road-rolling aspect almost beings to shape into something, anything. Meanwhile, there are sporadic cuts to a nasty villain bullying a helpful white-faced mutant who compares himself to Nosferatu but is more a tall, bald and skinny version of Robert Blake's Mystery Man in LOST HIGHWAY (pictured below). Obscure enough reference?

Yeah, okay, fine... There are too many comparisons and pop culture name-drops here: The problem is, LOGAN is so clunky, misguided, forgettable and downright unnecessary... combining hackneyed car chases with noisy gun-fights between forced melodrama... it would've been a life-saver if, instead of SHANE, the original X-MEN were playing in that motel room, and we could once again experience a topnotch comic book adaptation with a nicely balanced ensemble and action that moved the story as opposed to exploiting the (first time) R-Rated ultra-violence for hardcore fans, proud not to be kids anymore: who must have been shocked when an actual X-MEN Comic Book turns up. LOGAN describes it as, "Ice Cream for bed wetters," which beats the hell out of vegetables for breakfast. And this benign, uninspired crap isn't even good for you.