Deadpool & Wolverine opens with the titular mercenary (Ryan Reynolds) desecrating a burial site and digging up a skeleton, a precise encapsulation of how multiverse movies have repeatedly exhumed the past in the hopes of graverobbing its emotion for the present.
These films are a paradox: multiple copies of the same character mean that nothing dead ever stays dead, undercutting any emotional stakes; and yet an endless parade of cameos enables them to induce a swell of nostalgia-infused sentiment at will. It doesn’t matter how bleak the future appears in these movies, or what world-ending threats their villains envision. All that matters is how neatly the past can be commodified.
Deadpool is unsuccessful in reviving Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), whose bones are all that remain, but the spirit of the mutant’s 2017 film Logan still haunts the rest of the film.
