In a future where mutants are nearly extinct, the X-Men have long disbanded. Logan (Hugh Jackman), whose own powers are disappearing, makes a living driving a limousine. He takes care of the terminally ill Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), whom he keeps hidden near El Paso, in a water-tank lined in such a way that Charles’s dangerous telekinetic seizures will not be detected. The albino Mutant Caliban (Stephen Merchant) helps. Logan is offered $50,000 to drive a young girl named Laura (Dafne Keen—12 at the time--who is incredible in this movie) to a place called Eden, near the Canadian border. She is a powerful mutant with powers much like Wolverine himself. It turns out that the biotech corporation pursuing her—Alkali-Transgen--has created her from Logan’s DNA. He goes to pick her up but finds her caretaker dead and the girl missing. But she has hidden in his trunk, and the Reavers searching for her, lead by Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) track her to the hiding place.
The adamantium bonded to Logan’s skeleton is slowly killing him and he does not heal so quickly anymore, but Laura is a growling, animalistic little killing machine and takes out most of the Reavers with the Wolverine blades on her hands and feet so they can escape. The company, of course, is breeding a mutant army. Most of the children, she believes, have made it to Eden, but Logan discovers a reference to Eden in an X-Men comic and thinks it’s all a myth.
In Oklahoma City, they are just about to be seized by the Reavers when Charles has a seizure that affects most of the downtown, and they escape again. They are sheltered by a family of ranchers, putting them tragically in harm’s way, mostly from a powerful clone of Logan called X-24 (also played by Hugh Jackman in some of the most shocking scenes in a Marvel movie). The Professor is killed.
They finally reach Eden. As Logan sleeps, exhausted, the girl and the other mutant children head for the border, still pursued by the Reavers. Logan sets out in pursuit, leading to a final battle scene in the forest, in which we see the powers of the children at work, as well as Logan’s final confrontation with his clone.
Let’s face it, if you are a powerful corporation, there are only two things you can do with mutants: 1) Kill them to save the human species, and 2) Breed them and create an army. This movie has all of the battles and chases and escapes we are looking for, but the tone is not rollicking, but melancholy, with the only glimmer of hope being that the mutant children might now be left the hell alone in the Free North, where such immigrants are welcome, and where Wolverine came from in the first place. The screenplay was nominated for an Oscar.