Deadpool & Wolverine

 

Deadpool & Wolverine 

My opinions on Deadpool & Wolverine can mostly be summed up by this Sarah Squirm tweet from 2020.

In a decades-long branding maneuver, Ryan Ragecomic has somehow convinced the studio system that his brand of humor is “twisted” and edgy, when in reality he’s one of the most normal guys around. Maybe that edge was there back in the Comedy Central days of Waiting and even Adventureland, but in 2024, Reynolds is synonymous with lazy snark and hawking his strange phone company in front of YouTube videos. Much like Reynolds, the most bizarre thing about this movie is how normal it all feels. By merging Deadpool with the ruling dynasty of mainstream culture, Reynolds hasn’t given us the most F’ed up MCU entry, but the least F’ed up Deadpool flick. 

Yet…call me twisted because I didn’t hate it. 

For starters, Jackman is locked in. Placed next to “the merc with the mouth”, Jackman is mostly relegated to growling “Shut the fuck up” –  but he wrings water from a stone during his limited dialogue, including a bitter monologue inside a Honda Odyssey. Unlike the city of San Antonio, I don’t have much affection for Deadpool, but I did wear out the DVD of X2: X-Men United as a kid. The over-reliance on nostalgia is a massive problem in this movie, but two things can be true at once, and I found Wolverine’s emotional arc to be fairly affecting (even if he’s not THE Wolverine we’ve spent decades with, but a variant we meet for the first time about twenty minutes in. Multiverses, man. I fucking hate them.) The final set piece is boring on it’s face, but I did find myself getting a bit misty as the choral version of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” played. As calculated and brand-wary as Reynolds is, I do think he genuinely cares for this character. After the debacle of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Reynolds campaigned endlessly for a proper Deadpool movie – even (allegedly) leaking his own proof of concept to get the backing of rabid fans. Does that care translate to the dozens of gratuitous nostalgia-bait cameos? That’s debatable. Sure, I had fun seeing Wesley Snipes shit on Mahershala Ali’s eternally-failing Blade reboot, but no movie should expect me to soyface for two hours at Toad from X-Men or Johnny Storm saying naughty words. 

Besides being a Deadpool movie, the real issue with this movie is its direction. From the Pedestrian Mind of director Shawn Levy, Deadpool & Wolverine kinda looks like shit. Most of the movie takes place in a limbo-esque realm of green and brown tones, and the action (aside from one fight in the aforementioned Honda) is just as bland. At multiple points, characters hype up a dual or action sequence that’s about to happen, only for it to be choreographed in the least interesting way possible. Every choice made feels like the easiest one at the time. Even his previous effort, the truly dogshit endeavor of Free Guy, had more interesting fights. 

I’ve seen a lot of critics I respect decry this movie as fundamentally evil. That may seem hyperbolic, but I see what they mean. It’s a true rat king, tying together the machinations of mega-corps, a band-aid for the failing post-Endgame MCU, a third entry for a beloved character, forced nostalgia for old IP, and also a weird amount of “isn’t it funny and le-random to be gay?” All of these elements are shoved into an unbelievably convoluted plot –  one maybe a bit too sugary for some to stomach. For me, it all feels too inoffensive to actually piss me off. There are jokes I laughed fairly hard at. There are long stretches where I Kubrick-stared into my TV. Overall, it’s a C+. And as the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, it’s clear that audiences and critics just aren’t on the same page. What’s worth noting is just how much general audiences are now clued into the inside-baseball of Hollywood. In years past, a coworker might ask me if Batman was a member of the Avengers. Now, they can name the executive producer of the movie, or know about Channing Tatum’s decade’s long quest to play Gambit. What used to just be the realm of dingy internet forums is now public knowledge. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing (who am I to play film-discourse gatekeeper) – but one can’t help but be frightened by the meta-ness of it all. Because when the characters know they’re in a movie, and the audience knows they’re watching a movie…then we’re all Deadpool.