Deadpool & Wolverine: It’s hilarious, but……
SPOILER WARNING
The superhero team-up that Marvel fans have longed awaited has finally arrived, and it is smashing all of the records. With a record setting opening weekend and on pace for 1 billion globally, the third installment in the Deadpool franchise is on the verge of entering very rare company. That is good news for Marvel, a studio who has one theatrical release for 2024 and has struggled to find any traction with audiences A.E. (After Endgame). As Deadpool tells Wolverine, “Welcome to the MCU, you’re joining at a bit of a low point.”
The movie begins just after Deadpool 2, with Deadpool seemingly having a mid-life crisis after saving all of his friends and loved ones. On Earth 616, which I suppose is the “main” universe, Deadpool’s application into the Avengers is denied after an interview with Happy Hogan, as Tony Stark “doesn’t do these types of things anymore” presumably because he had to be at Comic Con this weekend. (I just remembered that Tony Stark died in Endgame, so I’m not sure if Happy Hogan was referring to Stark or another Avengers team member in that comment. This is the issue with multiverses, I can’t keep track of who and when anybody is supposed to be alive.). After this, Wade Wilson hangs up the red spandex and resigns himself to a life of mediocrity: sales quotas, daily commutes, that type of non-superhero stuff. But the TVA (Time Variance Authority) apparently didn’t approve of Deadpool’s time machine, so they bring him to their lair in another multiverse, and then Deadpool jumps from universe to universe to find Wolverine, and then they get sent in the void with other 20th Century Fox defunct Marvel projects, and there’s a time ripper……….look most of the plot is convoluted and yet doesn’t really matter. The main summary is Deadpool and Wolverine have to team up and stop the TVA from destroying their timeline with a MacGuffin style device called the “Timeripper”, which the movie doesn’t hesitate to joke about.
Deadpool & Wolverine, to use a term that I don’t enjoy in the context of cinema, is a love letter to the pre-Kevin Feige era of Marvel. There are a barrage of cameos from 20th Century Fox era movies, including Elektra (Jennifer Gardner), Blade (Wesley Snipes), Johnny Torch (Chris Evans in a pretty hilarious fake-out), and Gambit (Channing Tatum with a incomprehensible Cajun accent). There are well crafted jokes in reference to the perceived demise of Marvel, and if you view the film purely through the lens of comedy it is very effective.
This film also features an oddly incredible Hugh Jackman performance, to the point where it seems like he is in a completely different movie. There are real moments, in particular the fireside conversation Wolverine has with Laura, where Jackman is able project guilt, anger, and sadness effectively. Surprisingly, the juxtaposition in tones between Reynolds and Jackman……kind of works? Those moments that Jackman is able to give the audience is able to provide just enough to keep this film from going completely off the rails and can be a nice break from Reynold’s relentless assault of self-aware jokes and 4th wall breaks. It’s a great performance, but really feels out of place from the rest of the film.
If you look beyond that lens however, Deadpool & Wolverine doesn’t really offer much else beyond fan service. There isn’t anything new that has been added to the formula with this film, and the stakes feel way lower than a superhero movie should. The problem with introducing multiverses is that the classic “Fate of the universe is on the line” trope doesn’t work as well if the audience is consistently introduced to new universes. For a movie that supposedly doesn’t take itself seriously, the stakes don’t necessarily need to matter but you also can’t expect the audience to care when you dangle Deadpool’s friends or Wolverine’s past if you’ve been relentlessly unserious.
I am slightly worried about the incentive structure that we have set up for studios. Deadpool & Wolverine is so self-referential and unserious to a point past obnoxiousness, it’s actually literally insulting the audience. There are jokes made about how “Disney is so stupid” for giving Deadpool his own movie, and the film kind of mocks you for supporting this act. While I did enjoy many of the cameos, it also did make me feel a little dirty. Nostalgia bait is one of the cheapest ways to leverage audience joy, in my opinion. Why create anything new when you can just remind people of better times? So while I did have a brief moment of joy when I saw Blade on screen, I instantly felt the empty calories from that joy. It’s the same feeling I get after housing a double cheeseburger. Sure, the first bite tasted amazing, but I immediately felt terrible about myself after I finished.
I very much enjoyed my experience watching Deadpool & Wolverine, I laughed at a lot of the jokes and there are a ton of interesting Hollywood, palace intrigue type references that you can explore after the movie. (My personal favorite is that Ryan Reynolds and Wesley Snipes famously did not enjoy each other’s company while filming Blade Trinity, I also chuckled when Jennifer Gardner made a Daredevil-Ben Affleck joke). But after seeing the box office numbers for opening weekend, I also couldn’t help but worry a little bit about what precedent we are setting for studios. I’ve said before that how you feel when you watch a movie is the most important aspect of a review, and if you enjoyed Deadpool & Wolverine that’s awesome. I sure enjoyed myself, this film is extremely funny. It’s also a film that relies heavily on nostalgia, insults the audience, is incoherent and sloppy at times, meta to the point of nauseam, and ultimately doesn’t give us anything to care about. As a pure comedy movie, these are all fine. But in the context that this is Disney’s summer blockbuster and is on pace for 1 billion dollars globally? That’s where I want to examine this and ensure we are incentivizing the right behavior. Deadpool is sort of an exception to the rule, I don’t think Ryan Reynolds is particularly a good actor, but he is really good at this type of comedy. If Disney begins to export this tone into other franchises and movies, that’s where I think we’ll run into problems. I know I’m overreacting, the trailer for Captain America: Brave New World played before the movie and I’m kind of excited for another spy-espionage thriller in the Marvel universe. But it’s worth mentioning that I’m skeptical of Disney.
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