All hail the Merc with the Mouth and Logan for bringing back the glory days of comic book movies. Here’s our spoiler-free review of Deadpool & Wolverine.
It’s an open secret that the Marvel Cinematic Universe – and comic book movies as a whole – hasn’t been in the best place after Avengers: Endgame, so there’s a lot riding on Deadpool & Wolverine to change fortunes. The fate of the genre depends on the Merc with the Mouth and his grizzly, angry friend convincing the audience that there’s still some life left in these marvelous movies about powered people and superhero fatigue is only temporary. Anything less and the golden age of Madea movies will be ready to be unleashed on the world…
The trailers and promotional material for Deadpool & Wolverine show immense promise, but the question remains: Does the film actually deliver on its potential or is it a chuckle-bust? Well, comic book movie aficionados, it’s time to rise and shine from the doom and gloom of the past five years, because we’re so back, baby!
If Deadpool & Wolverine had been treated like any ordinary MCU film, it would have flopped harder than a host’s joke at the Oscars. It needed to embrace the sheer insanity of Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson and the R-rated raunchiness of the previous films to connect with the audience. Fortunately, director Shawn Levy received carte blanche to go exploding balls to the wall and push every possible boundary – even more than the first two Deadpool movies.
Not only do the characters take shots at the multiverse and tease a homoerotic dynamic between the leads, but the film also goes extra meta into the actual actors’ lives, such as Hugh Jackman’s divorce, and throws shade at everyone from Will Smith to Warner Bros. Discovery. It’s very much one of those “if you know, you know” situations; however, it’s remarkable how Marvel Studios forgoed its cookie-cutter, safer-than-a-blunt-scissors approach to allow this movie to play outside of the sandbox. There are no sacred cows, and everyone’s fair game – including Marvel Studios, as Deadpool pokes and jabs at the MCU’s stale post-Endgame output.
The action matches the dialogue’s radical style, too. Both Wolverine and Deadpool leave a bloody mess throughout the film’s 128-minute runtime, as they carve up enemies and even use an adamantium skeleton to do maximum damage. The level of bone breaks and blood spills wouldn’t look out of place in a musclebound action flick where guts and glory are valued higher than Rotten Tomatoes scores, and it’s entirely welcome here. Plus, the major cameos receive a chance to strut their stuff in this symphony of destruction as well.
In the lead-up to Deadpool & Wolverine, much talk centered around how this would be the final nail in the coffin of Fox’s Marvel Universe. It’s a multiversal adventure where Wade Wilson and Logan would bid goodbye and good riddance to an era that delivered some of the worst superhero films such as 2015’s Fantastic Four and 2005’s Elektra. Essentially, it would wipe clean the slate, opening the door for the MCU to right the wrongs and create its own history.
That’s the furthest thing that Deadpool & Wolverine does. Instead, it acknowledges and embraces the influence of the major Marvel movies from yesteryear. Yes, it doesn’t fool around and pretend like everything was an unbridled success, but it respects the love and passion that went into these projects, even when they missed the mark. The film understands how these characters and ideas delighted viewers around the world, and how they hold special places in everyone’s heart. This isn’t about dancing on their graves; it’s a total tribute to the magic created.
Apart from Spider-Man: No Way Home, other multiversal productions fail to properly utilize the characters at their disposal – bar a quick Easter egg or nod and wink at the audience. The same can’t be said about Deadpool & Wolverine, as it’s clear the filmmakers scoured the internet to listen to what the fans wanted to see. In the end, it delivers timeless blockbuster moments, à la the Avengers assembling for the first time or Cap lifting Mjølnir. The audience experience is everything as Deadpool & Wolverine elevates fan service to an euphoric point.
For those who feared Deadpool & Wolverine would destroy the legacy and epic conclusion of James Mangold’s Logan, rest assured that this film treats it with the reverence and respect it deserves. Simultaneously, it creates a new problem for the MCU: There’s no way anyone will accept another actor except Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Even though a fan-favorite actor appears as a Logan variant, facts are facts: Jackman is the Wolverine and no one else is fit to shine his claws or chew his cigar.
Like any good buddy comedy, Jackman and Reynolds carry the movie through their insatiable chemistry and quickfire wit, but there’s no disputing that Jackman’s Logan serves as the emotional anchor of the film. He captures the spirit of this character who has seen too much in his life, experiences shame, and never feels worthy enough to be called a hero, but as Dafne Keen’s X-23 tells him: “You were always the wrong guy till you weren’t.” Jackman gets this aspect of Logan, and everyone sees it, since it’s impossible to miss.
Whether it’s returning for Avengers: Secret Wars, teaming up with Deadpool down the line again, or joining the MCU’s X-Men, Marvel Studios needs to keep Jackman around and never let him go again. Kevin Feige and collaborators must know it too. Jackman is a man who has played an iconic comic book character for a quarter of a century and will now also be partially responsible for the genre’s renaissance in 2024.
Undoubtedly, Deadpool & Wolverine is now the blueprint for the future of comic book movies, and if the MCU keeps up this energy – folks, we’re eating good.
