You Know His Name

Taking a cue from the powers that be behind Jason Bourne – who named their eagerly anticipated summer-2016 fourthquel after the beloved character we the audience dutifully have been following for close to two decades – here comes...Logan.

Got that right: The boy with claws is going out in style and claiming his given name in the upcoming Wolverine threequel, the first trailer for which arrived today.

The Wolverine’s James Mangold is back in the director’s chair, calling the shots and delivering what looks like – from the subdued preview of it all – as a total thematic and stylistic departure for the Hugh Jackman-led franchise and, indeed, the Xverse as a whole.

It is as if sensible auteurship has taken hold of the mutants at last. (Could this last?)

Based on an arc from Jackman’s career-defining character’s Old Man Logan comic-book story, Logan appears to promise a sort of taking of stock for the guy, with the action set in a barren world in which an older Wolverine finds himself pretty much alone thanks to his healing powers (his face has begun to catch up to his years thanks, perhaps, to what happened to him in his 2013 sequel?).

Patrick Stewart’s Professor X is still around, although barely: Mutants have all but vanished or gotten vanished, and the former leader of the X-Men turns to his old ally for help in protecting a mysterious young girl (newcomer Sienna Novikov) not all that dissimilar from from the gruff mutant.

Mmm....

Wanna know what that’s about? Then mark your calendars for March 3, which is exactly when Logan – co-starring Boyd Holbrook (Netflix’s Narcos) and Elizabeth Rodriguez (AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead, Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black) – is scheduled to begin bustin’ some blocks.

Photo: EW.com.