So I haven’t seen the last few X-Men movies, and skipped some of the Wolverines, too. But people say this stands alone and that it’s all super-good and deep and shit, so I watched it.

And everyone who praised it is now on my eyebrow-raised list, because this movie is worthless. The best I can say for it is that it’s inoffensive, in a bland enough way, but it’s the most basic-ass zero-surprise movie ever. Hey, Logan has to do one more quick thing before he can pick up the woman who is desperately on the run, she’ll be okay until he gets back, right? OF COURSE NOT. Hey, our gang of heroes on the run stops to have a peaceful moment with a rando family — that’ll go well, right? OF COURSE IT WON’T, we’ve seen an action movie before. Action movies don’t have scenes that are just pleasant interludes with no larger significance, they’re just preludes to stabbing.

The movie is basically immune to being spoiled, because as soon as you know every bit of setup, you know exactly how it’s going to resolve. I’m pretty sure AI is at the state where it could write this screenplay without human intervention.

And it uses that bland predictability in the service of literally no meaning whatsoever. What does Logan have to say about superheroes? Nothing, really. What does it have to say about getting old? That it sucks, I guess. What does it have to say about government programs that spend a ton of money building weapons with no thoughts about the consequences and send out armies of black-clad gunmen to hunt down a little girl? That they’re bad, which probably you’ve already gathered from the 300 other movies that touch on this theme. What does it say about whether a little girl will teach an old man who’s given up on life that in the end what really matters is love and family? Seriously, I hope you don’t need me to answer that question for you.

This movie is the cinematic equivalent of a downtempo minor-key indie chanteuse cover of a pop hit. It thinks that being kinda synthetically depressing is the same thing as being deep and meaningful, and it’s wrong.

This is the worst kind of trash. Not only does it have nothing to say, but it also refuses to have any fun along the way. Bleak, joyless, and soulless. Do not waste your time on it unless you’re an X-Men movie completist, which ps also rethink your life choices if you are.