Deadpool & Wolverine
Deadpool & Wolverine is an endlessly entertaining movie that is light on plot, but has just enough heart to make it more than just a vehicle for empty laughs.
Full Disclosure: I really liked the first two Deadpool movies. The first one was a breath of fresh air for a superhero genre that had already become a bit too formulaic, even back in 2016. And the second one added just enough in the way of new characters and ideas to keep the party going. This third one seemed like a no brainer. Ryan Reynolds is effortlessly charming all the time, even while wearing a mask, and adding his good friend Hugh Jackman in his iconic Wolverine role, seemed like it would just be more of a good thing.
Review
At this point, you always know what you’re getting with a Deadpool movie – crude jokes, lots of 4th wall breaking, fun action sequences (usually in the form of graphic fight scenes), sprinkled with just enough heartfelt sentiment to keep it all together. This movie has all of that, but this time adds one of the most iconic film iterations of a comic book character in Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, in his 374th appearance in the role.
Although its R-rating means that whole families won’t be able to see it, Deadpool & Wolverine is a perfect summer movie. It’s incredibly fun and entertaining, is better seen on the big screen at the movie theater, and you don’t need to think too hard to keep up. The onscreen chemistry between Reynolds and Jackman is obviously, and reflects their off-screen friendship. The fact that their two characters, Deadpool and Wolverine work as a perfect straight man/funny man comedic pairing just makes it all the better, with Deadpool’s constant banter and Wolverine’s gruff antisocial reactions.
I can already see some of the complaints that other critics will give this film. A lot of this was fan service. There were a ton of cameos of Marvel characters that we’ve seen on film over the years (more on that in the spoilers section). Near the beginning of the end credits there’s a montage of clips from 20th Century Fox Marvel properties, and at times the whole movie seemed like a eulogy to the Marvel output of the now-defunct studio. Many of these cameos didn’t really even have much impact on the plot, but despite that it never quite got tiresome for me. The humour almost always landed, and they sped through them quickly enough that, with the aid of Deadpool’s constant banter, we had already moved on before anyone wore out their welcome.
There wasn’t much story, and I’m not even sure that the plot made much sense. The story, such as it is, has Deadpool being taken up to the Time Variance Authority (from the Loki series – basically the people that decide which multiverse timelines get to continue or not) and told by a TVA director named Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfayden) that his universe was going to be destroyed because it was breaking down due to the death of Wolverine (at the end of Logan). Deadpool’s solution to this is to find a living Wolverine from another timeline and bring him back to the TVA, but when he does so Paradox informs him that he’s brought back the “worst” Logan (one that selfishly failed his world), that he’s still going to destroy Deadpool’s universe, and he casts both Deadpool and Wolverine into the “Void”, a sort of MCU purgatory for superheroes who are going to be eliminated.
Slo-mo superhero walk! You know what you’re getting when this happens. Shit’s about to get crazy.
The leader of all of these castaway superheroes is Cassandra Nova (played by Emma Corrin), an unborn twin sister of X-Men leader Charles Xavier, who has essentially grown up in the Void and has seemingly boundless telekinetic powers and is able to physically reach into someone’s mind to read their thoughts. I’ll be honest, Corrin doesn’t have a lot to work with here. As sometimes happens in Marvel movies, the main villain isn’t given much in the way of backstory or motivation. So it’s to Corrin’s great credit that she managed to make Nova an interesting and extremely watchable character onscreen. Corrin has really shown her range as an actress so far in her relatively short career, from the shy and overwhelmed young Princess Diana in The Crown, to a relentlessly curious Darby Hart in the recent A Murder at the End of the World, and now to playing a comic villain. I can’t wait to see where her career takes her, and what she’s got in store for us next.
This is the first Deadpool movie following the Disney purchase of 20th Century Fox. Disney’s MCU has had a lot more hits than misses lately, something this movie didn’t hesitate to point out. Throughout the film, Deadpool refers to himself as “Marvel Jesus”. It’s obviously meant as a tongue-in-cheek joke, but I think it actually begs a serious question – could the Deadpool franchise be the saviour that Marvel has needed as it’s become increasingly bogged down in its multi-verse saga? Honestly, probably not, one movie isn’t going to save this sinking ship, and one R-rated superhero can’t lift the MCU on its shoulders the way that Iron Man did to launch the whole enterprise. But I do think there are a lot of things that Marvel can learn from Deadpool.
Marvel was at its best when it seamlessly blended light-hearted banter with spectacular action sequences by characters that we understood and cared about. But most of all, it never took any of it too seriously. It realized that it worked best as good emotional storytelling in the clothing of pure entertainment. Deadpool does that. While recent Marvel outputs include ridiculous characters giving super serious explanations of multiverse complications, Deadpool & Wolverine doesn’t really bother with any of that at all. It doesn’t give two shits about the inner logic of the multiverse idea. It knows at the end of the day it’s all ridiculous, and just wants to have fun.
So is Deadpool Marvel Jesus? No, but he’s definitely the saviour that the superhero genre in the summer of 2024 needs.
Spoilers Ahead
Emma Corrin is great in a role where she honestly doesn’t have much to work with.
Ok, so let’s get into the cameos. Please don’t read this section if you haven’t seen the movie, but are intending to see it soon. That would take away half of the fun of all of the surprises in the film.
There are actually too many cameos of familiar faces to do anything more than just list them if I wanted to be exhaustive, so instead let me just focus on the few that are more integral to the story. In the Void, Deadpool and Wolverine end up getting help from a surprising group of heroes – Dafne Keen reprising her role of X23/Laura from Logan, Channing Tatum as Gambit, and a couple of Marvel characters we haven’t seen in a while, Jennifer Garner as Elektra, and Wesley Snipes as Blade.
Seeing Garner and Snipes back in their Marvel roles from the pre-MCU days was a treat. They’ve both kept themselves in great shape, so seeing them as Elektra and Blade wasn’t visually jarring at all, just fun. They each have their moments, either by reciting familiar lines, or making subtle 4th wall breaking jokes about the actors’ lives outside of the franchises. I’m not really a comic book ready, so I really have no idea who Gambit is, but Tatum has proven that he can carry comedic scenes, and he fits right into the tone of the group.
Of these characters, the one who actually impacts the story, and provides a bit of emotion to the film is Laura. The whole movie ends up being one about the nature of heroism, and whether or not flawed characters and people can overcome previous catastrophic failure to make an impact and save the day. For a lot of the movie, Logan has no interest in helping Deadpool save his world. He’s haunted by his version of Wolverine’s selfish failure to prevent the death of all of the X-Men in his world, and his murderous reaction to that incident. It’s Laura who reminds Logan that even in her universe, he’s never been the right guy to be a hero…until he was.
Deadpool is also trying to come to grips with his own inadequacies for most of the movie. Having been rejected by the Avengers and other crime fighting superhero teams for not understanding what it takes to be a hero, he begins the movie having hung up his outfit and is working as a car salesman with his buddy Peter (the non-powered member of Deadpool’s X-Force group from Deadpool 2). While Logan has to learn to forgive himself and accept the mantle of hero when it’s thrust upon him, Deadpool comes to realize that he can’t be a hero because he needs it, but instead because others need him.
This being a Deadpool movie, the film never lingers too long on this sentiment for it to become too heavy or affect the overall tone. It’s just enough to make us love and root for these characters, despite all the horrible things they might do along the way. All the humour and all the crude jokes are fucking funny, but they’ll only take you so far in a movie. The arcs of the two title characters are what brings it all together.
The guys with Dogpool, the ugliest cute dog you’ll ever see, or the cutest ugly dog. You figure it out.
5 Quick Hits
The Deadpool movies have hit on a formula for their soundtracks – using familiar songs used in unexpected ways. They knock it out of the park again in this movie. You never know which songs they’re going to use, but the needle drops always add to the hilarity of every scene.
Reynolds is a proud Canadian, as am I. So I loved all of the Canadian references sprinkled throughout movie, as did the theater where I watched it in Toronto. Some additional fan service for his home country fans.
Matthew Macfayden is great at playing someone who is awkward at wielding the power they have. He always manages to seem in over his head even as he’s giving orders or coming out on top in tough situations. It’s a pretty specific character trait, but Macfayden seems to have cornered the acting market on it.
This movie clearly brought Deadpool into the MCU, but I have no idea how or if it will actually impact any of the other MCU storytelling. Most of it takes place in the Earth-10005 timeline which…I have no idea what that means, except that I believe most of the MCU is from Earth-616, so…who the hell knows? Maybe that’s the point. It’s Deadpool. We shouldn’t think about it too much.
You’ve probably seen the dog in the trailers that is Dogpool. It’s the ugliest fucking dog I’ve ever seen. The dog’s name is Peggy, and it’s a Chinese Crested Dog, the breed that often wins the world’s ugliest dog competitions. But it’s also so damn ugly that it’s cute. I can’t explain it, except that it looks so ridiculous that you can’t help but feel for the thing, and that makes it cute. Deal with it.
