Rumors of Marvel Studios’ demise has been greatly exaggerated. They certainly have swung and missed big in the past few years, but it has always annoyed me that we keep skipping over the hits that work, like Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 3. And Black Panther Wakanda Forever. The latter of the two was hoping to repeat the success of the first Panther feature landing in the Best Picture category, and came really close with a PGA nomination. It is now known for being the first Marvel title to gain an Oscar nomination. However, if you talk to any angry white male on YouTube, Marvel essentially is in apocalyptic free fall.
That’s when Deadpool And Wolverine enters stage right, directed by Shaun Levy, and fully embracing the foul mouthed hero as being part of the MCU canon. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are expected to save marvel. Can they? did they? Is Deadpool and Wolverine entertaining enough?
How much you like Deadpool and Wolverine will depend highly on how much Marvel content you have consumed,and if you are a pop culture knowledge master. This film isn’t just a third Deadpool film, it is nostalgia bait all the way, but it also features so many little asides from Deadpool that you wouldn’t catch unless you are essentially writing about film and celebrities for a living.
Case in point, Emma Corrine plays Cassandra Nova. Well, who the hell is that? She’s a Marvel deep cut, a twin sister of Charles Xavier who was purged from her timeline by the TVA and sent to a void. But, the jokes around her character range from Deadpool making a joke about ableism, to a direct reference to wanting an intimacy coordinator. The joke is so specific, you’d be forgiven if you were unaware that while Emma Corrine was back doing press around the release of Lady Chatterly’s Lover, she made a big deal about how great it was to have an intimacy coordinator, and clapped back at Sean Bean who claimed that having intimacy coordinators was ruining those scenes. She kinda became the face of the intimacy coordinator movement, advocating for their use. So, Deadpool’s joke here is just one of many that isn’t about the context of these characters, but really a fourth wall breaking joke for anyone who would get that reference.
the basic plot, without too much spoilers, is that Deadpool is living a normal life as a car salesman, with peter working by his side. he feels like a failure as a hero, and he couldn’t get into The Avengers. Vanessa apparently wanted him to stop being lazy, so he does the 9 to 5 job. That is, until his life is interrupted by Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) a TVA agent assigned to his world who explains to Deadpool that every timeline has an anchor hero, and his was Logan, who died, and now his universe and all his friends are going to die. However, paradox wants Deadpool to join The Avengers in a different timeline, but when he realizes he can’t bring his friends, he decides to steal some TVA gear and find and steal a replacement Wolverine. He hilariously jumps through a few options, and lands on a sad sack wearing the original yellow and blue costume, who has a very tragic backstory. He takes that Logan back to Paradox, who isn’t having it,and sends them both to The Void.
The Void is a lot like Mad Max, but was also featured in Loki. It is like purgatory for timelines. Deadpool and Wolverine have to figure out how to get out of the Void and back to the timeline to stop it from being deleted, and along the way will either fight or team up with a metric ton of cameos. Some really brilliant deep cuts, and some who are currently trying to use the goodwill they gained to get another movie. Or, a movie in general.
There are also Deadpool variants in the void, which makes it even more hilarious for Ryan Reynolds to have to fight oddly specific versions of himself.
So, I really loved this, because it spoke to me as a nostalgic person who can take that for a long period of time. It is very different than the last film in that the plot seems to take a backseat to the fun, but the first two Deadpool films leaned heavily on the story, and managed to bring the humor. This one seems like someone told the team here that they literally have to save Marvel. Hilariously, Deadpool even openly acknowledges this, referring to himself throughout the film as Marvel Jesus. So, it knows what it is, it knows why it is, and it works.
I also really loved Hugh Jackman’s performance here. He was obviously terrific in Logan, but this gives him an opportunity to explore the same character, but find a very different dimension to him. It is a much more nuanced performance than you’d think, as Jackman is using the years having played this character to really flesh this variant out.
The soundtrack is popping, with fight scenes happening to Bye Bye Bye, and also just the range of Goo Goo Dolls, to Avril Lavigne, and Madonna. All over the place. I missed a few characters. My big note to Marvel would have been that Domino should have been here. There’s no reason she would be gone. But, Cable and Domino do not appear in the film.Weasel is gone. TJ Miller claims he had a rift with Ryan Reynolds, but he’s also had a run in with the me Too movement, so I’m not sure disney was actually inviting him back.
I want a fourth Deadpool, but I also want some of these revived cameos to live on. I’m not really sure what is going on with this anchor hero thing, as Deadpool takes place before Logan, pretty obviously. I mean, in Logan, they openly address the death of all other X-Men, and the lack of new mutants, but Colossus and Megasonic Teenage Warhead do appear here. They cannot co-exist. But at the same time, maybe Logan happened twice in two different timelines, because Deadpool’s version of X23 speaks with no accent, when just a few years ago she exclusively spoke Spanish.
With the opening of different timelines, anything is possible. I would have had a few more cameos, especially including fan casting, and people who almost played a hero. As an example, in the Logan sequence, Reynolds had an opportunity to use the original actor tapped to play Wolverine, who backed out, allowing Hugh Jackman to be cast. There are some pretty good deep cuts, but what about the really cheap Marvel movies? Like, the first Captain America? The first and super cheap Fantastic Four, and not the one with Jessica Alba. A lot of potential untapped.
I can’t wait for this to hit Disney plus so I can watch it again. Also, so I can coherently understand the audio description. If you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned it, it has a lot to do with having seen this in theatres. I never seem to have a good experience, and my theater was loud as hell, and those earphones at max volume just couldn’t keep up in some parts. I got about half the audio description, but enough to get through it. thank god. But we really need to have conversations with NATO. Not that one. The other one.
Do I think Deadpool will be in one of the upcoming Avenger films? Absolutely. Will Hugh Jackman? Probably not, but perhaps another lost mutant from this film will be seen again instead. Also, bring back cable and Domino for the next Deadpool film, please? Thanks.
Final Grade: A
