By Hey! Did you know Deadpool is now in the MCU thanks to Deadpool & Wolverine? Did you know Hugh Jackman is back as Wolverine? Did you also know 20th Century Fox’s output of Marvel movies is now owned by Disney? Great!
You’ve seen every joke in Deadpool & Wolverine.
Going into Deadpool & Wolverine, there’s a certain level of expectation most people are going to have. That’s true for most franchise movies, but Deadpool as a character has such a particular personality that people anticipate that he should behave in a certain way. Deadpool & Wolverine feels like the obvious conclusion of where the MCU would take Deadpool once they acquired the rights to his character, especially amid declining profits and fan goodwill; turn him into a parody of himself and lean in on the franchise’s worst tendencies.
Deadpool & Wolverine
Director: Shawn Levy
Release Date: July 26, 2024
Rating: R
Set some time after the events of Deadpool 2 (and also after the Disney/Fox merger), Deadpool lives a comfortable if unsatisfying life. He attempted to join the Avengers and was denied, so he now sells used cars with Peter (Rob Delaney). He has all of his friends from the first two movies and despite not being in the Avengers, he lives a good life. However, he learns that his universe is going to be destroyed by the TVA because his universe’s anchor point, aka a character the entire universe is centered around, died. That anchor, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine from Fox’s X-Men films, is believed to be irreplaceable, so Deadpool goes on a multiversal adventure not only to find a suitable Wolverine to replace his universe’s dead one but also to escape the Void, a pocket dimension he landed in that’s full of universal rejects, including the villainous Casandra Nova (Emma Corrin).
Let me make this perfectly clear if it wasn’t already obvious – if you like Deadpool as a character, you are going to love this movie. That isn’t to say that Ryan Reynolds wasn’t great as Deadpool in the earlier films, but here he’s almost unrestrained, saying and doing whatever he feels like. People who feared that Disney would try to tone down Deadpool’s unique brand of humor can breathe a sigh of relief that their fears have been alleviated. It helps that Ryan Reynolds has gained more and more control over the franchise in recent years. It may say that Shawn Levy is directing the movie, the same man who directed previous Ryan Reynolds vehicles like Free Guy and The Adam Project, but like Free Guy, Levy feels less like a director and more of an enabler for Reynolds to do the type of humor and jokes he wants to.
And again, if you like Ryan Reynolds’s take on the character, like most people, this is a good thing… at least at first. Because this has more-or-less become the Deadpool show, virtually all of the supporting cast from previous movies is left on the sidelines and ignored for the vast majority of the film, which is incredibly disappointing. Deadpool worked best when he was balanced by a large cast of different personalities, like Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, who were in both earlier movies but now are relegated to glorified cameos. It feels like the wrong move, one that also undercuts Deadpool’s main motivation of trying to save their universe. What’s the point in saving them if we hardly see them?
Copyright: Marvel
So Deadpool as a character works better when he’s bouncing off someone else. It was true in the original movie with the aforementioned X-Men, it was true in Deadpool 2 with Josh Brolin’s Cable, and it’s true now with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. A lot has been made about the actor’s return to the role, and it’s perfectly serviceable here. Jackman isn’t bad in the role at all since he’s just playing an unrestrained version of his earlier depictions of the character, but it comes across as somewhat hollow when the film stresses that this isn’t the Wolverine that fans loved from his earlier movies. It’s a completely different Wolverine, one that’s regarded as “the worst Wolverine.” Disregarding the narrative reasons for that, not making this the original Wolverine does undercut Jackman’s return to the role since this is just a random schmuck that Deadpool found and not the one from the Fox universe.
And yeah, we should probably talk about how the film tries to integrate the Fox properties into its world. On the one hand, I find it really clever that the Void is basically a home for the defunct Marvel characters that Fox used, and that leads to some pretty funny and unexpected cameos that had me chuckling. However, some moments come across as cynical at best and disrespectful at worst. Without going into spoilers, there was a sequence at the beginning of the film that literally desecrated the ending to one of the best comic book movies of the 2010s just to serve as a joke. Deadpool & Wolverine treats Fox’s X-Men franchise like nothing of value came from that era of Marvel’s history, but it completely ignores the numerous good to great movies that came out.
But that’s mostly because Deadpool & Wolverine is dead set on trying to make you laugh. It will take whatever cheap shot it needs to try and make you laugh out loud. There are dramatic moments, like when we learn about Wolverine’s past and the drama of Deadpool trying to save his universe, but that’s not the focus. Hell, the MCU integration isn’t even the focus here, despite how often Deadpool quips that he’s Marvel Jesus. A scene doesn’t go by without Deadpool saying or doing something that is trying to elicit laughs, but the problem is that the jokes feel so unimpressive. Deadpool curses. There’s hyperviolence. Deadpool breaks the fourth wall. We know how Deadpool is meant to behave and without a cast to bounce off of, it becomes tiring sooner rather than later.
Copyright: Marvel
Looking back, I can’t help but compare this movie to a comedy I saw earlier this week, Hundreds of Beavers. Both movies are aggressive comedies that do whatever it takes to make you laugh, but Hundreds of Beavers managed to make me laugh way more than Deadpool & Wolverine because it understood that comedy needs variety. There’s slapstick, visual gags, awkward situations, cutaways, hyper-violence, and plenty more styles of comedy that are thrown at the audience at an absurd pace. Both movies don’t try to hide what they are, but one feels like it has a creative spark and keeps on trying to find new and inventive ways to make people laugh more while the other is content to just replay the jokes that it knows people will laugh at.
Deadpool & Wolverine also has the usual trappings you would expect out of a modern-day Marvel movie. There are competent fight scenes, questionable usage of CG, and Cassandra Nova turns into a mediocre villain who’s only in three scenes. None of this should be a surprise at all to people who have been disappointed by Marvel’s output since the end of Endgame, but the film also makes the cardinal sin of calling its flaws out. It blatantly says that the multiverse isn’t working for Marvel and that things haven’t been the same since Endgame, both of which are true statements. So please explain to me why, oh why, you drawing attention to that fact and still using those features? If using the multiverse has been a negative feature in Marvel movies like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, then why are you using it here? Why intentionally use a feature that audiences are growing sick and tired of? Is it okay just because there are multiple Deadpools now and some crazy cameos?
The more I think about Deadpool & Wolverine, the more it comes across as a last-ditch attempt to try and squeeze some money out of its properties. Fox is dead, so let’s throw in as many Fox cameos as possible. Marvel is in decline, so let’s put Deadpool in one of our movies and say it’s sort of part of Phase 5. Hugh Jackman was the best thing about Fox’s X-Men slate of movies, so let’s bring him back for one more go because that will drive people into theaters. It all just feels so cynically engineered to make as much money as possible, but it does so with barely any creative spark. Deadpool and Wolverine pal around in a brown desert for most of the film with barely anything to do. When the film decides to actually be creative by featuring unexpected and clever cameos, those are the best moments. Again, it’s hard to say what those moments are, but you have to commend Levy and Reynolds for playing with audience expectations with them in a way that feels meta and fun.
Copyright: Marvel
Sure, maybe getting the guy who has grown painfully disillusioned to review yet another Marvel movie was a bad call, but it didn’t use to be this way. Marvel movies used to be exciting and superhero movies were perfect summer blockbusters. Now, they just feel so soulless and automated. Deadpool & Wolverine is a technically proficient film. Even if you take out my gripes with it, it continues a lot of the same comedy and action that made the first two Deadpool movies blockbuster smashes. Ryan Reynolds still is the perfect Deadpool and pairing him with Hugh Jackman was a smart move given that Jackman already has an expert understanding of Wolverine. The movie made the right call in putting the two together, but it stumbles because it forgets that Deadpool needs a large cast of people to work off of and the dynamic between them is almost too reminiscent of the dynamic in Deadpool 2.
Outside of that, the comedy of the film hasn’t evolved since we first saw it in 2016. Most of the same jokes are trotted out, only this time the meta-commentary is in full force with MCU and Fox shout-outs. At first, it’s cute, but when you realize that’s the only real joke they have, it loses its charm. Never mind all of the gripes I have with the film’s treatment of the Fox properties. Never mind how it tries to make light of Marvel’s increasingly diminished returns. Never mind how there are better comedies out there that are worth your time. The biggest problem with Deadpool & Wolverine is that it’s become a parody of itself. Deadpool used to be edgy and funny, but now it feels so sanded off that it feels tame. He may be cursing a ton and there may be blood and guts, but it’s all performative. The spirit is gone. It died alongside 20th Century Fox.
