'Deadpool & Wolverine' Review

One step forward, two steps back.

At this point in my movie-going habits- and just generally with the way things have been going with Hollywood- I consider purchasing a ticket to see a movie on opening weekend to be an act of good faith towards a studio. Opening weekend numbers have become so important (whether that’s fair or not to the quality of the film) in the public eye that to see a movie in its first three days (four if you count Thursday night) you’re essentially saying, “I want more of this” more so than if you catch the film in its second or third week. Therefore its unsurprising that at the time that I’m writing this Deadpool & Wolverine has already finished its weekend run with a record $438 million dollars to boot, the best ever for an R-rated film. And I think it has less to do with avid Deadpool fans (not that there aren’t a lot) or even fans of Wolverine, but the fact that it looks and smells like the kind of superhero movie fans haven’t gotten since Endgame. But does it deliver in that regard?

I have a confession to make: I never watched either the first or second Deadpool movie. Despite my being a fan of the character in the comics, the films just never appealed to me all that much. Being the chronically online film fan that I am, I still pretty much read every article concerning both movies and got the gist of what happened in them: Deadpool & Wolverine was the first one I was interested enough in from the outset to deem worthy of seeing in theaters. My take: after seeing the film, you don’t really need to see the first two to enjoy this one, as it seems the filmmakers have ensured that anything pivotal carrying over from the first two gets explained in the first 20 minutes or so. If you feel it’s not fair to review the third film in a series without seeing the first two on principle, I would probably check out now.

On to the review:

Fans of the character of Wolverine have had a pretty mixed bag concerning the portrayal of their beloved character over the years: this isn’t a knock against Hugh Jackman in the slightest, rather, the films he has been in have not often been up to snuff. For every Days of Future Past and Logan there’s a Last Stand and X-Men Origins behind it. Suffice to say, the character very much does get his due in this one, and the character’s arc in the film is absolutely the standout highlight. Jackman continues to hit emotional depths with the character that seemed all but exhausted with the previous outing, although as Deadpool is quick to point out mid-film, Disney is likely to want him to continue to reprise the character “well into his nineties”. My guess is he will probably play Wolverine one more time in Secret Wars before passing off the torch to a new actor for the eventual X-Men reboot. But as is the case with most characters in the MCU, no one’s every really gone.

Then there’s Deadpool. For those of you who have not ever come near a Deadpool film, the gist is: Ryan Reynolds plays a super-powered mercenary with a very crude sense of humor and a lot of weapons. A lot of the jokes are really more for shock value- “how far can we get with a Disney film”- then having any sensible punchline, and if you think you’ve heard rough language in an R-rated film before…you might still find yourself feeling the urge to wash your ears out with soap after watching one of these movies. That being said, amid the profanities there are actually a lot of genuinely funny lines and gags in this one, especially the ones at the expense of Marvel’s less-than-stellar output lately. Reynolds is also comically supported by Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Paradox, a rogue agent of the Time Variance Authority, and many more actors whose surprise appearances would be a shame to spoil. The primary antagonist of the story is played by Emma Corrin, and she actually does a pretty great job of playing the straight card to Deadpool’s relentlessly silly antics.

All in all, though, one does grow quite weary at the end of the day of all the “multiverse” shenanigans: it works better for a comedy where the stakes are less important than just entertaining, but going forward for these movies, it’s just not enough to just receive a bunch of cameos to clap at versus getting real, human, emotional stories. “Phase 1” of the MCU did that pretty well with Iron Man, Thor, and the first Captain America movie, and the success of those films at getting you invested in those particular characters was what carried the franchise for the next ten years. But since Endgame, we haven’t gotten anything to really invest us as an audience, except maybe Spider-Man, but who knows when that fourth movie is coming out.

And the interesting thing is: this film tries to get you invested in Deadpool & Wolverine, and, to an extent, it works, but at the end of the day being a part of the MCU was probably both the best and the worst thing that could’ve happened to these characters. Now that they are just a part of a grand corporate scheme, it feels just that less special. As much as this film gets a lot of things right in giving fans what they’ve wanted from Marvel for a while, it does really get bogged down by a lot of the tropes that haunted some of the earlier MCU flicks.

If you’re a fan of the previous two films, or just a big MCU/comics fan, you might enjoy this one. I certainly had fun with it despite the crude jokes and violence reaching some excessive points: there are some genuinely fun movie moments to be had with this one. But I also don’t blame anyone for not being willing to sit through all the bad jokes and gorey action sequences just to see Wolverine finally don his yellow suit and some crazy cameos. Just make sure you know what you’re getting into beforehand.