DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE

  As a sequel to ‘Deadpool 2’, it’s fine. It has the comedy and violence, but this is the third time we’ve seen this character and there isn’t much new comedy here. I laughed, but tight chuckles compared to the first two. We also live in a world where the Ryan Reynolds brand of comedy has ruined mainstream films; it’s just very played out. Where the first two films were connected and had a decent balance of heart and comedy, this kind of throws that out in favour of cameos. The film also doesn’t know what to do with ‘Deadpool’ characters, and while they are present they have nothing to do, with any meaningful connection we had with them from the first two lost.

  The team of Deadpool and Wolverine is also lacklustre. I know the two of them are huge in the comics and even in the films we know this has been teased, and yes it’s cool to see them together, and while there are fun moments it’s not really the focus here. There are only so many fights between two people who can’t die that we’ve seen before; it’s just boring. It’s no surprise that 24 years on, Hugh Jackman is still great in this role and getting to see him a little more comic book-accurate was delightful.

Warning: the following three paragraphs contain some spoilers. Scroll down to the spoiler end if you haven’t seen the film yet.  

The film’s credits play behind-the-scenes footage from a series of the Fox Marvel films - even the box office smash ‘Fantastic Four (2015)’ (‘Fant4stick’)! It makes it clear that this was an attempt to be fan service for those films. This is fine, and the cameos (which I won’t ruin) were fun and a lot where my favourite characters who I thought we would never see these actors in those suits again. All in all, the cameo aspect of this film was pretty tasteful, which was something I was worried about; the film actually managed to be restrained and a lot actually have things to do outside of showing up. But that’s not really what ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ is about, and because the film didn’t lean into that aspect it just fell flat. ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ at least made those characters linked to the central plot, here it wants to be this big farewell to this time period of films but didn’t really put much thought into how to tie that into the story. I was fine with the cameos, but this montage at the end made the movie fall flat - it clearly wants to celebrate these films but didn’t know how to tie it all together.

The film also suffers from the typical Marvel tease. I understand in the case of ‘X-Men’ that I’m sure something is coming and they will have their own MCU film and probably a couple of hundred Disney+ spinoff shows. But this was the opportunity to bring in those characters in a bigger way, especially when this is a fan service piece to the Fox films - and the biggest Fox Marvel films are ‘X-Men’. Of all the cameos they were the ones lacking; we finally have mutant’s Filly present in an MCU film, and yet we are still being fed crumbs. I understand that’s what the MCU does - it teases and sets up future things - but we can’t just keep going from tease to tease.

I also have a small grievance. The film opens with Deadpool digging up Logan’s grave and then using his corpse to fight the TVA. Look fine, funny for some, but not for me. Logan’s death should be one of those things that’s kept sacred. I’m fine with this humour, and it’s on brand of the film. The reason it became an issue is because the film wants to have heavy emotional beats taken seriously and when the film starts with the corpse of one pf cinema’s most iconic superheroes being used as a weapon and wants me to laugh but then wants me to feel emotional when Wade is sad about his girlfriend no longer loving him - bite me. The joke isn’t my issue it’s the tone, this death that was handled honestly quite respectfully in ‘Logan’, a perfect emotional farewell, used a joke while still expecting me to feel moved at the end just didn’t land.

Spoiler end.  

The film, I imagine in an effort to subvert expectations, has a very messy plot. There'ss a lot of explanation that goes in one ear and out the other. It easily should have been ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ travelling the multiverse, you can tie it in better to the fan service Fox stuff and it allows for a tighter, simpler plot. But here with all the jumping around and double weak villains, the story itself just didn’t come together. A positive is the movie actually uses the Madonna song ‘Like a Prayer’; so many films have pop songs remixed in the trailer and then not present in the film. They use the song - in fact, all the needle drops were quite well used, and it was an incredibly enjoyable sequence.

‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ is truly fine; I had fun with the run time, but it’s not this legacy film it wants to be. It has too much pressure on it - the Fox merger, the current state of the MCU, and most importantly being a follow-up to ‘Deadpool 2’. I had more fun with this than I expected, but it’s biting off more than it can handle. The ride-or-dies are going to love it, the cameos will be raved about, and they will love that a Marvel movie has so much blood and swearing - honestly, good for them. For me, it needed a stronger structure to justify some of the things it was trying to go for.