Deadpool & Wolverine ~ Review

In August 2022, Warner Brothers Discovery announced they would not release the completed Batgirl film about to enter post-production. It would save the studio money to take the tax write-off and not release the film. Let’s punt the implications that kind of thinking has on the filmmaking industry to another time. Instead, let’s imagine how the characters within the film would feel if their movie was ended by corporate fiat. How do they find meaning or purpose? Does their story matter anymore? Do they matter?
 
You’ve already decided if you’re going to see Deadpool & Wolverine. Hell, you’ve probably already decided if you’ll like the movie. This film is critic-proof. There’s no denying it will be the most successful movie of the summer, if not the year. So, why the opening paragraph filled with metafictional existentialism? I mean, to be clear, this is a Deadpool movie and we should not take things too seriously, however, I am here to tell you that there is more going on under the hood than one might expect, and I’ll try to explain this with as little spoilers as possible.
Deadpool & Wolverine opens with Wade Wilson the merc with a mouth AKA Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), in a depressive funk. After being rejected by the Avengers and dumped by his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), Wade hangs up his red suit and is now working as a used car salesman and living with his roommate Blind Al (Leslie Uggams). That is until the TVA (Time Variance Authority from Marvel’s Disney+ series Loki) arrives at his front door. 
 
At the TVA fussy middle manager Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) tries to induct Deadpool into the “sacred timeline” i.e. the MCU proper – however, to do that, Deadpool’s universe and everyone he knows has to be destroyed. When Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) died at the end of 2017’s Logan it caused a ripple effect that would lead to the X-Men universe produced by 20th Century Fox to end. And already, I can see your eyes glazing over with expositional nonsense – the upshot is that Wolverine is key to keeping Deadpool’s universe alive. So, Deadpool bops around the multiverse to find a surrogate Wolverine. Eventually, finding a Logan variant even more haunted, cranky, and alcoholic than the one we previously knew. None of this matters, because Mr. Pardox banishes both Deadpool and Wolverine to the Void – a post-apocalyptic wasteland (also introduced in Loki) populated by variants from other universes and ruled over by Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin). Can Deadpool and Wolverine put aside their differences, escape the Void, and save the universe?
 
Ultimately, I had a blast with Deadpool & Wolverine. The film is nonstop fun from start to finish. It gleefully plays with the tropes of the MCU and calls out some of the more annoying trends the studio has been making in the last few years. 
 
Reynolds is, as always, great as the Deadpool character. Deadpool is a tricky character to pull off because the clowning persona he presents hides all of his trauma and insecurities. And the character can easily tip into too much. And Reynolds can play both the snarky overtop side and the pathos side at the same time, which endears the audience to him…even when he’s being annoying. However, Deadpool works best when he’s opposite a straight man and luckily, he’s got Hugh Jackman.
 
Jackman has been playing Wolverine for 24 years now – he could, if he wanted, sleepwalk through this role. But in all of his nine appearances he never once has phoned it in. Here he brings physicality and pathos to a Wolverine who has been completely shattered by life. There’s one monologue in the middle of the film that is so well performed, it honestly shocked me.
Emma Corrin chews all the available scenery and hams it up as a villain who loves being evil. Matthew Macfadyen plays his Succession character to funny results.
 
Director Shawn Levy stages some brutal and hilarious action sequences (one set to N’Sync’sBye Bye Bye is a highlight) and he has fun playing with Deadpool and Wolverine’s healing factors. However, there is an action sequence near the end that relies too heavily on shaky cam which was a bit of a disappointment.
 
The script credited to Levy, Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Zeb Wells manages to toe the line between straight-up parody, multiverse plot nonsense, and pathos fairly well. However, it does feel like the film is missing about thirty minutes which could have fleshed the second act a bit more. But with so much going on, it’s amazing the script isn’t a complete disaster. 
 
How much you get out of Deadpool & Wolverine will depend on how much you bring into it. If you’ve been following the X-Men film series for the past twenty-four years, there’s much to love here. The film is a gleefully profane monument to the pre-MCU era of comic book movies. The cynical viewer will see this as nothing more than a corporate branding exercise with dick and fart jokes, but look past all of that it tells a story about trying to make your life matter. Being a hero means being selfless for the people you care about. It follows Across the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: No Way Homein using a multiverse story to show why heroes matter. I mean, kinda – this is a Deadpool movie after all so, really, really, don’t take any of this too seriously.

Three out of Four Stars