"DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE" - REVIEW
Deadpool and Wolverine have now come together in 2024’s sole Marvel movie DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE… but as for Deadpool and Marvel Studios finally teaming up?
It reminds me of a story I heard years ago about a family, and the children had just started using swear words in public. It came back to the parents. One night at dinner, in an effort to make the children uneasy and put a stop to it, one of the parents said, “well, if we’re going to start swearing in our family, then pass the f***ing potatoes.”
Ryan Reynolds faithfully shepherded his vision for a hard-R rated Deadpool to outrageous success with his first outing in 2016 (directed by Tim Miller), and again in 2018’s DEADPOOL 2 (directed by David Leitch). In the words of a friend, “Deadpool is the role Ryan Reynolds was born to play. That’s not a compliment.” Indeed, it was Reynolds off the leash, and we got four-letter and twelve-letter words, vulgar sexual references, a high body count (and a bloody one at that), and surprisingly sweet narratives at their core. However, when Disney absorbed 20th Century Fox (which held exclusive rights to many Marvel properties), it finally got its claws into the X-MEN franchise, but it also got the Merc with the Mouth as part of the package. I feel like Disney agreed to it not because they love Deadpool, but because they want that Deadpool moolah, and if making that moolah means swearing at the Disney family dinner table, so be it.
So what’s it about? The basic spoiler-free plot is that Wade Wilson (Reynolds) has retired the red suit and is now living a normal life as a used car salesman, working with Peter (Rob Delaney) and adjusting to a new job, new hair, a new way of behaving in public. He still lives with his elderly coke-fiend roommate, Blind Al (Leslie Uggams). Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) is only in his life as a friend, but still comes to his birthday party, along with Dopinder (Karan Soni), Colossus (Stefan Kapicic), Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) and her adorable chipper girlfriend Yukio (Shioli Kutsana)… and then the movie just leaves them at the birthday party, because it has bigger, sacred-timeline-related fish to fry! An unusually hyper Matthew McFayden plays Mr. Paradox, who heads up the Time Variance Authority, and needs Deadpool to go find Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, a masterclass in bringing your best while given almost nothing to do) so they can go do a thing, and then there’s Cassandra Nova, the movie’s chief protagonist, played with great relish in a fun and memorable performance by Emma Corrin… and so it goes.
I will share no further details. Why not? For three reasons.
First, the bursts of joy that this movie provides are truly joyful. There are some incredible moments and truly epic cameos, and even one that made me jump out of my chair and scream (I’m not even a comic book guy).
Second, I’m not sure how I could spoil it, since it seems that not only do you need to be current with all things MCU, but given all the movie industry in-jokes, you should probably be caught up with Variety and The Hollywood Reporter as well.
Lastly and most importantly, the people this movie is for, it is absolutely for, and I do not want to rain (or whatever Deadpool would do instead) on their parade. I write this knowing full well that I am not the target audience for this movie. I even walked out of the first Deadpool (I didn’t hate it, but it was in the days of MoviePass when I could burn a freebie, and I was just not in the mood). I did eventually check it out in its entirety, and it sort of wore me down. DEADPOOL 2 (my favorite of the trilogy) grew on me while still maintaining the relentlessly juvenile aspects that make him such a popular character.
For this slick, flat and outsized outing (directed by Reynolds’ FREE GUY helmer Shawn Levy), in addition to MCU baggage, we get the usual Deadpool staples (and not just the ones that hold his civilian toupee in place): Yes, we get some fourth-wall-breaking quips. Yes, we get all-out blood-soaked brawls. Yes, we get profanity. Yes, we get funny needle drops.… But what we don’t get is a soul.
Wade/Deadpool’s need to belong to a cause bigger than himself, and to a team in which he is not the center of attention, is a nice and noble goal for the character. But the way they go about it in DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE made me wish that Deadpool had remained ambivalent about his likability. Additionally, to see repetitive scenes of two beings who can infinitely regenerate literally stab, shoot and rip each other to shreds to “hilarious” pop songs means that none of this matters at all. Even some of the more outrageous setpieces don’t feel fully fleshed out, as if they never made it past the outline stage. While the violence and vulgarity were soaked into the fabric of the first two movies under Fox, this feels like it was just slathered over the top of something Marvel Studios was already planning on doing anyway, and the result feels less integrated.
Listen: I know that this is a critic-proof movie that will make a billion dollars, but it still brings me no joy to say this. It’s all a little sad, a little desperate, and insincere. This duo, while clearly enjoying working together, can’t overcome the rampant, unapologetic Marvelization. Then again, I know that will be a lot of peoples’ thing. It’s just not mine. Overcalculated and underwhelming, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE isn’t one of the year’s worst films, but certainly one of its biggest disappointments.
Now pass the f***ing potatoes.
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE opens in theaters Friday, July 26.
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Zach is a proud member of the Minnesota Film Critics Alliance (MNFCA). For more info about Zach, the organization, or to read other great reviews from other great Minnesota-based film critics, click here: https://mnfilmcriticalliance.wordpress.com/