Deadpool & Wolverine movie review
There’s been some lofty expectations of Deadpool & Wolverine. The third Deadpool film — the first under the Marvel Studios banner — finds the Marvel Cinematic Universe at a weird crossroads.
No longer able to just show up at the box office and guarantee a box office juggernaut, the MCU has had an uneven stretch with inconsistent offerings. Fair or not, Deadpool & Wolverine is being looked at as the film that can save the MCU’s future.
It’s a fact star/co-writer Ryan Reynolds is keenly aware of as his title character very tongue in cheek constantly refers to himself as the ‘Marvel Jesus.’ It’s every bit as abrasive, shocking and pearl clutching as intended. At least it can’t be called incorrect.
Given free rein to trash, degrade and otherwise mercilessly rip on most things Disney, Marvel and 20th Century Fox, Deadpool & Wolverine does warrant its (MCU) messiah complex. While the bar might be significantly lower, Deadpool & Wolverine is easily the MCU’s best film since Spider-Man: No Way Home.
At the end of Deadpool 2, Wade Wilson aka Deadpool (Reynolds) used a device to seriously alter some timelines. The act didn’t go unnoticed as Time Variance Authority official Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) started keeping an eye on Wade.
With his world slated for erasure, Deadpool has the option of joining The Sacred Timeline — the one where the events of The Infinity Saga played out — or stay behind and die alongside his friends. The gang is mostly all here including Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), Colossus (Stefan Kapicic), Dopinder (Karan Soni), Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) and Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna). And of course, surviving X-Force members Shatterstar (Lewis Tan) and Peter (Rob Delaney).
Naturally, Deadpool chooses Option C — recruiting Wolverine’s help to save his world and make things right the old-fashioned way. By killing lots of people. Too bad Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) isn’t exactly thrilled with the prospect of helping the motormouth Deadpool especially when they get sent to The Void and have to work their way back to saving their universe.
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The Void is full of familiar faces that there’s zero chance I’ll spoil. Deadpool & Wolverine is one of those films where it’s best to go in knowing as little as possible. It might be best to outright ignore social media until your showtime. Otherwise, you run the risk of some very fun moments and sequences spoiled. And these are definitely the kind of moments that are best enjoyed actually sitting in the comfort of your movie seat.
Deadpool and Wolverine almost immediately come into conflict with a major player in The Void, Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), whose power level dwarfs that of some major MCU heavy hitters. Corrin is fantastic in the role making Cassandra a rare MCU villain who’s allowed to just be a villain without some tragic backstory to weakly justify why she’s evil.
Director/co-writer Shawn Levy (Free Guy) clearly understands that having a buddy-buddy Deadpool/Wolverine team-up wouldn’t mean anything if the film didn’t also include a violent showdown or two. Good news for everyone wanting to see adamantium claws clashing with unbreakable katanas as two self-healing mutants go at it. Deadpool & Wolverine doesn’t disappoint on that front. There’s plenty of blood as Levy happily embraces being able to direct an R-rated MCU project. This is by no means a sanitized version of Deadpool for Disney.
If anything, Levy might let these brawls go a little too long. When two unkillable characters hack and slash away at each other the drama and stakes aren’t nearly as high and comes off somewhat indulgent.
The film doesn’t require majoring in Marvel Movies, but a minor wouldn’t hurt. It won’t be nearly as rewarding for viewers who weren’t on the ground floor in 1998 when Marvel films started being taken seriously. And maybe checking out Loki seasons 1 and 2 on Disney + wouldn’t be a bad idea either as Reynolds, Levy and co-writer Rhett Reese fully grasp the whole multiverse angle.
Serious is a word that doesn’t mesh well with Deadpool thankfully. Reynolds’ hyper snarky line delivery makes Deadpool a character demanding intense attention. There’s no telling when he’ll pop off with some wildly inappropriate line that causes spit takes. And there are a ton of those moments throughout.
As their off-camera playfulness suggested, Reynolds and Jackman make for a tremendous pairing. Their chemistry is so in synch it comes off like they’ve done three or four films together as Deadpool and Wolverine.
Jackman is a perfect straight man to Reynolds say anything attitude. Although he’s appeared as Wolverine in nine films, this is the first where he’s actually in costume. Quick aside: Jackman pulls off the yellow spandex just fine. Turns out ripping off The Matrix films wasn’t necessary if costume designers Graham Churchyard and Mayes C. Rubeo are charged with making functional comic book costumes.
If this is truly going to be Jackman’s final time playing Logan, he made sure to make it very memorable for Wolverine fans.
Deadpool & Wolverine goes a long way to restoring some of the lost luster from The Multiverse Saga. For Deadpool and Wolverine fans, this is a must-see, but for audiences looking for a little escape from the real world, this is pretty close to being the best there is, bub.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Photo Credit: Disney
Learn more on Cassandra Nova in the New X-Men Omnibus on Amazon.
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