Nerdgasm. That is, perhaps, the best (and only) way to describe Deadpool & Wolverine, which does a tremendously fun and fabulous job of being both a Deadpool threequel and the first Deadpool film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It serves as both Deadpool’s grand introduction into the MCU and a sincere and hilarious send-off to the 20th Century Fox era of superheroes.
If you are looking for a multiverse joyride that packs in a bunch of solid laughs, gory set pieces and the prospect of two violence-prone super-anti-heroes teaming up and brawling in equal measure, director Shawn Levy’s crossover blockbuster-in-the-making is the perfect watch.
Levy does a great job of appealing to Deadpool fans — who crave comedic splatter and bawdy lines — and the followers of Wolverine, who have always signed up for an experience that is grounded and often emotionally brutal. Marrying the two into a whole — which may not always be cohesive but that is not what Deadpool & Wolverine anyway aims for — is what makes this rollercoaster experience worth your time and dime. It is, honestly, the most I have laughed at the movies in a long time.
Deadpool & Wolverine is an R-rated love letter to comic-book lovers that is perfectly fine provided that you don’t think about any of its logic (or rather the lack of it) or question what it adds up to in the larger scheme of things.
Ryan Reynolds, padding up for his third Deadpool outing, demonstrates a true understanding of the demented mind of Deadpool. Over the course of three films — he also co-writes them — the actor has perfected the winning blend of risque comedy, gratuitous violence and a surprising amount of impactful sentiment.
But when we meet him first in Deadpool & Wolverine, Wade Wilson is a far cry from his ‘Merc with the Mouth’ craziness. In the middle of a miserable retirement, he is stuck selling pre-owned vehicles. Things haven’t worked out with his lady love, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), who has switched both jobs and boyfriends. Wade struggles to make rent, even while sharing a one-bedroom apartment.
His life, in true Deadpool tradition, takes a turn soon enough when foot soldiers of the Time Variance Authority (TVA), an organisation dedicated MCU viewers will recall from Marvel’s Loki, show up to demand that Deadpool answer for the time-travelling shenanigans he performed at the end of the previous film. Wade is brought before the mysterious Mr. Paradox (Matthew MacFadyen), who says he can give the disfigured, un-killable mercenary everything he ever wanted. All he has to do is forego his universe’s dying timeline to help save what is known as “The Sacred Timeline”. With Wade’s reality in danger of being annihilated, along with the handful of people he loves and cares about being doomed to certain death, he “respectfully” (which, of course, in Deadpool parlance means bloodily and snarkily) declines the offer.
Now his only hope to save his universe hinges upon somehow resurrecting or finding an alternate-universe version of Logan (Hugh Jackman), aka Wolverine, to help restore order to the timeline. Since Wolverine in his world is more dead than dead could ever be, Wade finds one from an alternate universe to take the old one’s place. The only problem is that this one is somehow the worst (and most broken) in all the possible universes and timelines.
If all this sounds too expository, then be informed that we haven’t even brought up the film’s villain — the bald-headed tyrant Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), who we know from the comics as a mummudrai, a parasitic life form born bodiless on the astral plane.
Deadpool & Wolverine throws everything it can at the viewer and comes up tops in terms of fan service. Along with irreverent humour, lots of bloody and brutal action and a host of inappropriate jokes, the tremendous chemistry between Reynolds and Jackman helps to expertly balance the thrilling, the silly, the meta references, the trademark superhero elements and also offers a few glimpses of actual sincerity.
It definitely is not complex art, but it was never intended to be, and watching the film expecting it to be something it is not is simply an exercise in futility.
There are no proverbial sacred cows in the Deadpool universe and Levy, working out of a script he and Reynolds have collaborated on with Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and Zeb Wells, pulls off an audacious sequence within the first five minutes of the film which sets the tone for the 120-odd minutes to follow.
In the first two films, a large portion of Deadpool’s appeal stemmed from the fact that he lived outside Disney’s more sanitised MCU. He, along with the mutants that form the X-Men, belonged to another studio, namely, 20th Century Fox.
With Disney now owning Fox, fans have been wary that Deadpool’s traits of swearing, violent adult-oriented action and frequently breaking the fourth wall to icily (and often with a lot of acid) comment on everything held sacrosanct in the superhero world would somehow be lost — or at least toned down.
The good news is that the snark is abundant, the humour remains juvenile and a couple of the darts thrown at the superhero genre are painfully accurate. The F-bombs are plentiful, the stabbings are just as bloody and the fourth wall is shattered every five minutes to throw insults at other superheroes, even those that belong to competing studios. Meta references and cameos (now don’t get us started on that one!) abound.
Propelled by two very different superheroes and two superstars who inhabit these bodysuits, Deadpool & Wolverine is definitely a return to form for the superhero genre (in a way). Tinged with heart, humour and heroism, it ensures a good time, even if the experience of watching it — with repetition in abundance and logic completely absent — sometimes feels like your brain is being taken through a grinder. It definitely is overstuffed and ultimately exhausting. But so is life. And this is infinitely more fun than life. Hands down.
