Oh, how I really want to love this movie! The first Deadpool was revolutionary – ingenious, for fourth wall breaks, hilarity, and R-rated comic potential. Like with most things, it’s hard to ante-up on something so profound, and so Deadpool 2 was a little underwhelming (sad face). But this movie, right here, already has its wow factor – it’s been able to coax Hugh Jackman out of retirement to play Wolverine once more; and pairs Logan with Deadpool for what promises to be a proper do-over of their first outing together in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I am expecting wall-to-wall surprises in this, as Reynolds and Jackman probably realise that this is their last dance; while the Marvel door has flung open to allow them full resource and relevance to the MCU 😍 I can temper myself, and just be grateful to have a laugh, but don’t tempt me with a good time!
💃🤡⚔🚙❤🎂🏜👩🦲🌩🐾🤡⚔😲😲⚔😲😍😍😍
Ladies and gentlemen, I was alive through the 2000s, so all these movie star cameos is where it’s at 😍 After a while, watching this movie, it’s like, “what’s the plot again?” But who cares?! Deadpool & Wolverine is all about them set pieces, and those cameos, baby. First and foremost, I was not expecting Blade (Wesley Snipes) at all – I know, I’m horrible, but I really need to watch those movies for the first time, and soon. On the other hand, although I have seen Elektra, I was still wrapped to see Jennifer Garner get another gig, if only to remind everyone that while the hype media were beating their drums of significance, for how Wonder Woman was a huge step forward for superheroes and women alike, movies like Elektra, Catwoman, and Supergirl, already existed! Not sure any two of those movies could combine their critic’s scores and claim blackjack, but that’s neither here nor there 😕 The edgiest joke in this entire edge-fest might be when these remaining heroes are bemoaning their fallen friends, and someone mentions Daredevil, only for Elektra to just go, “meh” 😂 No love-loss there, between Garner and her ex-husband Ben Affleck, who played Fox’s Daredevil.
It was also great to see Laura (Daphne Keen) come back again, not only to have some emotional resonance with our new Wolverine, but her inclusion probably shows that Keen and Jackman must’ve had an okay relationship off-screen in Logan, to urge them to work together again, and I like that too. Although, I would’ve been happier if the fourth reveal of the Void super-team was someone also relevant – I’d love to comb through 20th Century Fox’s rolodex to see who’d be the most thrilling, but off the top of my head, I’d have to say Jessica Alba, Toby Kebel, or Anna Paquin. But then, without Gambit (Channing Tatum), we wouldn’t have gotten all those jokes about a character who never got his time to shine. It’s true, it’s all true, but Gambit did appear in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, you know, played by Taylor Kitsch 🤓 Surprisingly, this movie sort’ve consciously ignores any stabs at where Deadpool and Wolvie first met, perhaps because this franchise has already exhausted that avenue across the first two movies 😄 But it also has to ignore X-Men Origin: Wolverine, to make the Sabretooth joke work, where Tyler Mane reappears as Sabretooth from X-Men, and Deadpool builds up the fight as if we didn’t have a whole movie where these two characters were entirely out to kill each other 💁♂️ On top of this, Pyro (Aaron Stanford) is back, along with so many memorable costumes from the X-Men movies over the years, including Toad, Juggernaut, Psyloche, Ezekiel, Lady Deathstrike, and probably more I missed, that really only further put Space Jam: A New Legacy to shame for their ugly attempt at doing the same thing 😖 But the biggest smile of the day, belongs to Chris Evans as Human Torch, and whoever thought we’d see him again? I’m sure I’m like most fanboys out there, who figured out the reveal moments before he took his poncho off – didn’t see that death coming though. Woah, mama!
So yeah, I don’t know what else there is to say, other than how Deadpool & Wolverine is extremely funny. I laughed a lot, and although I couldn’t hope for anything less out of Ryan Reynold’s quick-witted schtick, it still would’ve been a marked disappointment if he didn’t deliver. The opening sequence alone is absolutely spectacular, and I’m an eagle eye, who deciphered Deadpool reenacting the exact routine to *NSYNC’s ‘Bye Bye Bye’ music video 😂 The musical choices across Deadpool & Wolverine are your classic needle-drops, but they work so well at punching up each moment, and it would be an awesome soundtrack worth owning, if CDs are still a thing – any movie that utilises ‘I’m With You’ by Avril Lavigne already has my heart; a winner for Ryan Reynolds too, I’d imagine, as a fellow Canadian artist 🍁 Deadpool & Wolverine also articulates a really good point about The Wizard of Oz, in how it’s resoundingly the best multiversal movie ever made, way back in the 1930s, and the rest of moviedom should’ve really taken heed, knowing they could never exceed it 😶 Yep, the multiverse-era of superhero movies has really been a doozy. Yet, combined with another common trend of modern Hollywood, this movie does obviously bring the feels again, as a “legacy sequel”, in a way I haven’t felt since Spider-Man: No Way Home, while so many movies have tried, including The Flash, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and outside the superhero world, movies like Jurassic World: Dominion. The fight scenes between Deadpool and Wolverine are also rightly amazing – Deadpool warned me to have my sock ready for the first, but it’s the second fight scene that is peak, starting with a verbal barrage in the luxurious Honda Odyssey, with a bloody fight that ends up destroying it. Bellissimo!
But there’s always room for critique, and among everything else going on, I do wonder if Vanessa’s role (Morena Baccarin) could’ve been cleaner. Wade and Vanessa’s love is such a large part of the first two movies, so it really needs to make sense if they’re going to split. And I think it does – after Vanessa was shot as a consequence Deadpool’s dirty dealings, Wade Wilson aimed to go straight, but got cut down at every opportunity, making him feel dejected, and so Vanessa eventually moved away (or got pushed away) to give him space to figure it out… The only problem is that I didn’t feeeel it, deep down in my cockles. In English, I think the emotionality could’ve hit harder, in its limited screentime, while I do recognise that this movie has a lot more going on, and maybe I’ll be more accepting on my next go round. But moreover, and if anything, I would actually point to the role of Wolverine as the weakest point in this caper. I’d like a count of how many times he says ‘fuck’, or a variant of ‘fuck’, throughout the entire movie; and it ended up minutely grading on me, as I’m reminded of the wise words of Jerry Seinfeld, who famously figured out that swearing is a weak crutch to boost comedy. And look, I rewatched Logan ahead of this movie – that movie holds a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and if I was a professional critic worth my salt, I’d be in the other 7%. I don’t like how that movie insists on an emotional low for Logan without ever providing any context for us. I know, we are supposed to assume that Logan is sad because Jean Grey, Scott Summers and all the X-Men are dead, but it’s never stated. Charles makes a point of Logan rejecting what family is, but if he was an X-Men, then he would know what it was like, potentially sad and angry that it’s gone. X-Men: Days of Future Past was the movie directly prior to Logan, for the original X-Men cast anyway, and that film ends on the most optimistic note of the entire series, with everyone getting back what had been lost over the years. I guess, what I’m trying to get at is, there must be more to Logan in 50 years of comics than always feeling guilty; mopey Logan we’ve seen over and over again.
Yet this is still, no doubt, a team-up we’ve always wanted to happen. Deadpool is right – 20-fucking-years it took to finally see Wolverine in the yellow catsuit and cowl, and doesn’t it look outstanding on billboards alongside the ‘Merc with a Mouth’ in maroon. I did have a thought a few months ago, about how we’ve never had the Wolverine famously fight the Hulk on the big screen, and what an opportunity this movie might be to show Eric Bana’s Hulk some love, allowing Deadpool to make some cracks about a muscle-bound Aussie-off. Alas, no, but we did get reference to the Hulk v Wolverine bout, which was the first appearance of Wolverine in the comics, actually 🤓 Ang Lee’s Hulk was distributed by Universal, and this movie has a pretty clear agenda, honoring 20th Century Fox following their demise; and what a clever way to honour the memories gone by in the final credits. Initially, I thought they were only showing Jackman’s journey, through all of his 10 Marvel movies, but no, they included all of Fox’s highs and lows – and lows 🤮 – and we moviegoers were there for it all. An end of an era 😢 On the drive home, I also put the pieces together that these Deadpool movies have really worked to generate a metacommentary throughline like the Scream franchise, in that each movie has a specific bend of the comic hero genre, in each instalment – Deadpool is about the comic movie boom in general; Deadpool 2 is about the trend of team-ups, and this movie, Deadpool & Wolverine, is about multiverses. Pretty neat, huh? And I also only remembered on the drive home, that Henry Cavill had showed up in this as alternate Wolverine 😄 – so chock-full of brilliance and cameos is this movie, that it took me over an hour and a half to remember such a gigantic appearance; and I only found the backdoor in, recalling how this movie made a dig at the other comic studio “shit-fucks down the street”. What a thrill-ride.
4.0
P.S. More? You want more? Okay, there’s a few further things I could mention. I honestly can barely remember the plot to this movie – something about saving the timeline? Because the TVA wants to destroy it? Yeah, that sounds about right. Including Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) of Loki’s TVA, was essential for MCU cohesion, I reckon – and the cloud monster, Alioth, “from Loki, Season 1: Episode 5”, of course. Newer characters include the buoyant pest, Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), and Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), who must be a cool idea from the comics that I’ve never come across before – in this movie, she is uber powerful, she might even be able to take down Rey Skywalker 😏 And is it just me, or is baldie really cute? I may have awoken a fetish I didn’t know I had 😮😮 It was also pretty clear that TJ Miller’s Weasel wasn’t coming back, due to an off-screen fallout between movies, but plain-clothes Peter (Rob Delaney) really nosedives into the spotlight, where I personally believe I would’ve placed Dopinder (Karen Soni), as the final key that gets all the Deadpool variants to cease their spree – I guess Peter tested better with audiences, but Dopinder has been Deadpool’s dude since Deadpool’s opening scenes. Blind Al (Leslie Uggams) is still this franchise’s secret spice; a blunt and hilarious operator only matched in the warmth I feel for Colossus (voiced by Stefan Kapičić), Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), and Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna), and their collective sweetness. And since you’ve come this far, I’m sorry to end on a sour note, but I have to claim that I don’t think it really makes sense that Logan exists in the same universe as Deadpool, because it suggests a Westchester event that destroyed the X-Men, but Colossus existed in the initial X-Men universe, albeit in the background of X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. Unless we are supposed to assume that Deadpool 2 is somehow set before Logan, while Deadpool is also somehow aware of Logan’s events with all the references made, but now we’re getting into Micheal Keaton’s The Flash spaghetti timeline territory, and ain’t nobody got time for that! I’ve already been comfortable thinking of 20th Century Fox’s X-Men movies as a complete mishmash for years, so I don’t really need it to make sense now, especially so Deadpool can honk a few horns, but Deadpool & Wolverine does bring it up by labeling dead Wolverine as the anchor-being 😐 What do you think?
Leave a Reply