Deadpool & Wolverine
Fun comic book sequel offers cameos, fan service, little else.
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I wasn’t over the moon about “Deadpool” when I first saw it on Valentine’s Weekend back in 2016. (My wife and I did a double bill of that and the critically-maligned romantic comedy “How to Be Single” and I gave them both three and a half out of five stars.) My opinion of the film has risen upon subsequent viewings. The laughs were heartier and the violence seemed more visceral. I’m firmly a four out of five now.
I preferred “Deadpool 2” to “Deadpool.” I feel as though it had more heart, the action was better (no real surprise as it was helmed by stuntman-turned-filmmaker action maestro David Leitch) and it had a better cast – Josh Brolin, Zazie Beetz and Julian Dennison were awesome additions.
I was really looking forward to “Deadpool & Wolverine” (now in theaters), but had some trepidations. “Logan” seemed like the perfect sendoff to Hugh Jackman’s Weapon X – but I’ve always enjoyed the dude in the role (even in cruddier entries such as “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”) and the filmmakers are smart to give the people what they want … and will likely laugh all the way to the bank as a result.
I’m doing my best to keep spoilers to a minimum so this plot synopsis will be brief. Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is sent through different timelines by the Time Variance Authority from Disney+’s “Loki” and its figurehead Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfayden) in order to find a version of Logan/Wolverine to assist him in saving the world, which is being threatened by Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin of “The Crown”), twin sister of Professor Charles Xavier. In the process the men are sent to the Void (another “Loki” fixture) where they contend with Nova face-to-face, there are cameos aplenty and the film turns into a vulgar variation on the buddy road pictures of yore.
I liked “Deadpool & Wolverine,” but not as much as I wanted or expected to. The “Deadpool” movies have always been meta, but this one takes the meta to a level where I was almost unable to connect with the film emotionally. This isn’t concerned with telling a cohesive story so much as it is delivering fan service and paying tribute to comic book movies of the early aughts.
It took five folks to write “Deadpool & Wolverine” among them the returning Reynolds, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick as well as Zeb Wells (he penned an episode of “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law”) and director Shawn Levy and yet the script seems lazy. (C’mon, Reynolds, your production company is called Maximum Effort, dude!) Sure, a lot of the jokes are funny, but it’s hard to have stakes when your primary protagonists are almost unkillable.
There’s a bit where Deadpool and Wolverine plow through a plethora of Deadpools and it’s awesome, but the wind gets taken out of the scene’s sails when all of these Deadpools are reanimated and our wow gets wasted. I definitely preferred Levy’s previous collaborations with Reynolds (“Free Guy” and “The Adam Project”) and Jackman (“Real Steel”) as those movies were actually emotionally resonant.
I’d rather listen to Circle Jerks than watch circle jerks and “Deadpool & Wolverine” feels especially masturbatory. That said if you’re gonna see it go BIG (i.e. IMAX, Dolby or some other premium format) and in 3D (we’re talking dimensions, not dicks) like I did. It definitely paid dividends … especially during the bloody, NSYNC-soundtracked opening credits.