Hugh Jackman stars as Wolverine in new X-Men film

Released: March 1 (UK & Ireland)

Time waits for no mutant in Hugh Jackman's grim and explosively violent swansong as one of the most iconic characters in the X-Men universe.

Set in the year 2029, Logan paints a bleak portrait of super-powered beings on the verge of extinction in a brutal, intolerant world that destroys what it cannot understand.

Director James Mangold turbocharges the muscular action sequences including several bruising skirmishes between the lead character and his pursuers that invariably end with those razor-sharp claws slicing through flesh like a hot knife through butter.

There is plenty of spectacle here, punctuating a moving story of unconventional families in crisis, exemplified by the touching relationship between the title character and his 90-year-old surrogate father, Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart).

When protegee defies mentor, the script arms Stewart with some crisp and occasionally potty-mouthed rebukes: "I wish I could say you were a good pupil, but the words would choke me!"

These outbursts are tinged with regret and a mournful acknowledgement that no one is immune from death's icy grasp - not even a man of science, who can supposedly stop the tick-tock of time with the power of his mind.

World-weary Logan (Jackman) lives under his birth name, James Howlett, in a tumbledown ranch in the desert, where he cares for ailing Professor Xavier (Stewart) aided by albino tracker Caliban (Stephen Merchant).

Logan's abilities as Wolverine are waning - pus oozes from his knuckles when he retracts his Adamantium claws and his body no longer self-heals.

He earns a meagre wage as a chauffeur to pay for medication to alleviate the Professor's violent psychic seizures, which paralyse humans and mutants alike within an ever-expanding radius.

Out of the blue, a nurse called Gabriela (Elizabeth Rodriguez) contacts Logan and offers him 50,000 US dollars to drive a mysterious girl called Laura (Dafne Keen) to "a place up north" called Eden.

The child is a vital link to a new generation of mutants and is being pursued by Transigen head surgeon Dr Zander Rice (Richard E Grant).

Logan hits the road accompanied by Professor Xavier and Laura, with Transigen's thuggish head of security, Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), in hot pursuit.

En route, Logan discovers secrets about his inglorious past and reluctantly takes on the role of the little girl's snarling protector.

Logan strikes a contemplative tone, which sets it apart from the other standalone Wolverine films.

Director Mangold and fellow scriptwriters Scott Frank and Michael Green relish the freedom to explore familiar characters with fresh eyes.

They adopt a leisurely pace, closing one chapter of the X-Men mythology while potentially opening another.

Strong performances from Jackman and Stewart, whose on-screen partnership began 17 years ago, coupled with a sparkling film debut for 11-year-old Keen, ensure a fitting send-off.

:: SWEARING :: NO SEX :: VIOLENCE :: RATING: 7/10

KONG: SKULL ISLAND (12A, 118 mins) Action/Adventure/Fantasy/Romance. Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, Corey Hawkins, Tian Jing, John Goodman, John C Reilly. Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts.

Released: March 9 (UK & Ireland)

Mankind tumbles several links down the food chain in Kong: Skull Island, a rollicking 1970s-set action adventure directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, which revives one of cinema's iconic monsters.

Unfolding predominately on a Pacific island where "God did not finish creation", the picture unleashes a menagerie of hulking beasts as well as the titular ape and contrives a series of digitally rendered showdowns between these leviathans of a lost world.

Kong's briskly edited ding-dongs ping-pong between the spectacular and the dizzying, choreographed to the relentless beat of Henry Jackman's bombastic orchestral score.

There are fleeting moments of humour to punctuate the carnage, like when a shadowy US official arrives by car in his nation's political capital, which is swarming with Vietnam protesters, and deadpans: "Mark my words, there will never be a more screwed-up time in Washington."

Very droll.

Director Vogt-Roberts and his three screenwriters are apparently fans of Jurassic Park and its sequels.

Key sequences pay homage to Steven Spielberg's dino-blockbuster, and Samuel L Jackson, who played the park's chief engineer, recycles one of his iconic lines of dialogue - "Hold onto your butts!" - in the guise of a squadron leader shortly before the gargantuan primate starts swatting helicopters.

Bill Randa (John Goodman) spearheads a secretive government organisation called Monarch, which specialises "in the hunt for massive unidentified terrestrial organisms".

He leads an exploratory geological survey to a Pacific island, which is encircled by an electrical storm, and sequesters Preston Packard (Jackson) from Da Nang airbase to fly the mission.

Packard corrals his best pilots and loads aircraft with sonic bombs to map the island's topography.

Passengers include tracker James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), anti-war photojournalist Mason Weaver (Brie Larson), geologist Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins) and biologist San Lin (Tian Jing).

The sonic weapons rouse a giant ape and the best-laid plans of men of science are smashed to smithereens.

Crash-landed on the island, the survivors encounter a crazed US airman called Hank Marlow (John C Reilly), who has been living wild for 28 years and 11 months since his aircraft was downed during the Second World War.

"Kong is king around here," confirms Marlow and he joins the race against time to reach the extraction point.

Kong: Skull Island angrily flexes its muscles, but punches below its weight.

In moments of calm, character development is given disappointingly short shrift and cast including Oscar winner Larson are squandered in bland roles.

Hiddleston is unconvincing as a former British soldier, hired to lead the otherworldly expedition, and his swaggering hunk's centrepiece action sequence involving a samurai sword and gas mask is superfluous and almost laughable in its execution.

A brief coda, nestled in the end credits, teases the head-on collision of monster franchises in next year's Godzilla: King Of The Monsters and the full-blown rumble Godzilla Vs Kong in summer 2020.

:: SWEARING :: NO SEX :: VIOLENCE :: RATING: 6/10

VICEROY'S HOUSE (12A, 106 mins) Drama/Romance. Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi, Michael Gambon, Simon Callow, David Hayman, Lily Travers, Tanveer Ghani, Denzil Smith, Neeraj Gabi, Simon Williams. Director: Gurinder Chadha.

Released: March 3 (UK & Ireland)

British Punjabi director Gurinder Chadha explores the 1947 partition of India from myriad perspectives in the lustrous period drama Viceroy's House.

This chocolate box of historical fact and forbidden romance, a la Romeo And Juliet, aims for a similar collision of upstairs downstairs affairs of the heart as Robert Altman's film Gosford Park and ITV costume drama Downton Abbey.

The script's frothy rendering of a dark, blood-soaked episode on the subcontinent, which resulted in the mass migration of 14 million people, is epitomized by one emotionally charged scene.

Hindu and Muslim servants at the eponymous residence come to blows over their beliefs and the viceroy's dour, Scottish head of household (David Hayman) is knocked to the floor in the commotion.

"It's worse than Glasgow on a Saturday night!" he deadpans, dusting himself off.

Chadha and co-writers Paul Mayeda Berges and Moira Buffini distil complex political wrangling into a glossy soap opera, replete with an implausibly tidy and emotionally manipulative final act that shamelessly tugs heartstrings in time with A.R. Rahman's orchestral score.

Lord Louis Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville) arrives in the swelter of 1947 Delhi at the behest of King George VI to replace Archie Wavell (Simon Williams) as viceroy of India and oversee the transfer of power.

Lady Edwina Mountbatten (Gillian Anderson) and daughter Pamela (Lily Travers) also make the journey in the face of shocking reports about sectarian violence.

"You're giving a nation back to its people. How bad can it be?" naively remarks young Pamela as they arrive at a gargantuan residence with 340 rooms, which Edwina pithily observes, "makes Buckingham Palace look like a bungalow".

Louis and chief of staff Lord Ismay (Michael Gambon) host the political elite including Jawaharlal Nehru (Tanveer Ghani), Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Denzil Smith) and Mahatma Gandhi (Neeraj Gabi) to debate the way forward and end the bloodshed.

In the absence of compromise, barrister Sir Cyril Radcliffe (Simon Callow) arrives to decide geographic borders that will define Pakistan.

Meanwhile, romance blossoms between two members of the household - Hindu servant Jeet (Manish Dayal) and Muslim sweetheart Aalia (Huma Qureshi) - who will be torn apart if partition goes ahead.

Viceroy's House apportions sympathy between the central characters, including Lord Mountbatten, who is portrayed as a pawn of a distant British government that intends to implement its crude exit strategy, regardless of the repercussions.

Bonneville is an affable scapegoat, while Anderson gets many of the best lines in icy, clipped tones, reminding her husband and his entourage, "We came here to give India her freedom, not tear her apart."

Solid production values evoke the post-war period and Om Puri, who died in January, enjoys a small, yet affecting supporting role as a blind father.

Ironically, he's one of the few people to see the light about the heavy price of division.

:: NO SWEARING :: NO SEX :: VIOLENCE :: RATING: 6/10