Deadpool & Wolverine is not a good movie; at least, not in the traditional sense. It’s impossible to judge this film on its own merits when there are so many past (20th Century Fox) and future (the Marvel Cinematic Universe) elements at play. It’s such a strange mashup bridging the gap between two studios that the only way it could possibly work is if it became almost a parody of a comic book movie. In that regard, it must be treated as a typical comedy: it will work for you if you find it funny, and it will be a miserable exercise in fan service if you don’t.
On paper, there are a lot of elements that would normally annoy me about this movie. I like Reynolds and Jackman, and I think they’re both perfectly cast, but I didn’t really care about what happened to them in this. And just like seemingly every other MCU film, the bland villain trying to destroy the entire universe or timeline or whatever was not compelling to me at all. How am I supposed to still care about an end-of-the-world threat at this point? (The only fic for this is to start making smaller movies with more personal stakes for the characters, but that seems to be an impossibility for the MCU.) And the timeline stuff is getting too messy, especially when you toss in the already sloppy X-Men continuity (they never did give a legitimate reason for Charles to be alive in Days of Future Past or the mid-credits scene in The Wolverine). And is Logan a movie in the Deadpool world or real life? It’s treated as both, but neither scenario makes sense…never mind. This is a movie that demands your brain to be put into sleep mode and just go with it, and that’s what I did.
Based on all this dorky complaining above, it would seem like I hated Deadpool & Wolverine, but I actually loved it. I’m so tired of the MCU at this point, I enjoyed this movie as a spoof of it. It’s like the Hot Shots! of the franchise, and that is high praise from me. I’ll avoid spoilers for now, but every cheap element of humor, fan service, and cameo worked for me. Aside from Multiverse of Madness (which I was mainly interested in because of Sam Raimi), this is the first MCU film I’ve actually wanted to watch since Endgame. Every other movie felt like homework that I had to keep up with. This is just fucking fun.
A lot of my enjoyment of this is because of my immature sense of humor. This movie made me feel like a thirteen-year-old fuckhead, and I mean that in the best way possible. There may come a time when Ryan Reynolds making dick jokes or REDACTED talking about “husk-fucked charred remains” won’t be funny to me anymore, but I pray that day never comes. (Ha ha, “comes.”) It’s more than just having the right sense of humor for this; it’s also about simply liking the actors.
Reynolds and Jackman can play these parts in their sleep at this point, so it’s nice to see them seemingly enjoying themselves in this one. I haven’t grown tired of Reynolds’s schtick yet, so he still works for me. As for Jackman, this was the first time he got to dive into a funnier R-rated version of Logan. Yes, he’s had some comedic moments through the years (the claw finger he gives Cyclops in the first movie is a classic, and I liked the “Go fuck yourself” cameo in First Class), but they’ve only been small moments in the midst of a brooding performance. There’s a little brooding here, but there’s a lot more banter, and it’s great to watch him talk shit to Deadpool for two hours.
The only other element I want to cover before spoilers is the action. I’ve been largely disappointed in this regard for a while with the MCU, but I mostly enjoyed it this time, mainly because of the indestructible main characters and the R-rating. There’s no John Wick-worthy moments or anything, but it is nice to see some gnarly shit in these movies when most of the action lately seems to be like kids playing superheroes rather than actual superhumans trying to kill each other.
Usually, I hate comparing a movie to a bunch of other movies as a way of critiquing it, but Deadpool & Wolverine is an unusual movie. Because of this, you’ll likely come across the highest praise and the lowest condemnation of this one. But I truly believe it’s all about your personal sense of humor and your relationship with the MCU. For me, those elements were right in step with the movie, making it one of my favorite cinematic experiences of the year so far.
Now for the SPOILERS
Okay, I mainly loved this movie because of the cameos. I’m a basic bitch, and bringing in Chris Evans as Johnny Storm and Channing Tatum as Gambit was enough to win me over. Snipes and Garner were just fun extras for me. Evans in full foul-mouth New Yorker mode cracked me up, especially in the end credits scene. And Tatum’s cajun accent was hilarious. There’s no way that’s what he was planning on doing before his Gambit project got killed, but I would gladly watch a whole movie with him doing that swamp voice.
They didn’t have them do much, but it was great to see Tyler Mane and Ray Park back as Sabretooth and Toad, respectively. Though I was hoping for a Liev Schreiber joke.
Speaking of jokes I was hoping for, I was a little disappointed that T.J. Miller’s absence wasn’t mentioned, but he talked shit about Reynolds on a podcast or two, so maybe that’s what made it off limits.
All of those Wolverine variants were great, and of course I loved the yellow suit. It was weird and amazing to see him with the cowl on. It’s funny to think about how far these movies, and that character specifically, have come over the years. In the first X-Men film, Logan talks shit about their black leather costumes, and Cyclops makes a joke about Logan preferring “yellow spandex.” And at the time, it was the right move to make. If they came out the gate with classic costumes, it would be hard to take seriously. The silver lining to this incomprehensible multiverse/branching timeline stuff is that you can just have comics-specific looking characters and not have to justify why they would be dressed like that.
This movie in general had the kind of fun I wanted them to have with the alternate timeline versions. Get crazy with it. Bring back Aaron Stanford as Pyro, why not? Jason Flemyng as Azazel with no lines? Sure. Throw Kelly Hu back in the mix, too. You get it.
The downside to all of this fan service is that this movie kind of fails at being a sequel to its own second part. Multiple characters (Cable, Domino, Weasel, Firefist) are simply gone (I think he says something about Cable being dead, but I didn’t catch anything about the rest). And the ones that do return, aside from Peter, get absolutely nothing to do aside from standing around a table like they’re filming an Olive Garden commercial. As I stated earlier, I don’t really care that much about any character, but it did feel like they got short changed because they’re part of the old, dying storyline. And that makes sense, but not when the entire plot is about Wade trying to save them. Anyway, it wasn’t like I was wondering where Yukio was while Gambit was blowing heads up with his charged cards, but it did occur to me once the fan service high wore off a bit.
This is why I usually like to wait way too long to write about movies. I have no clue how this is going to hold up. I might be writing about it again in a couple years claiming it’s an abomination that ruined everything before and after it. But I hope not.
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