R-rated, bloody superhero flick for Millennials

It’s so fitting that one of the main characters in Deadpool & Wolverine is named Paradox. That’s what this movie feels like. Deadpool is a fourth-wall breaking prankster who has always had it both ways (pun intended), but that worked very effectively in Deadpool and worked well enough in Deadpool 2. Here, it’s used to both embrace and subvert the MCU, following a tried-and-true formula while adding an R-rated element. This is a movie that wants to be part of the MCU but also wants to praise (and mourn) 20th Century Fox.

Deadpool & Wolverine manages to be a film that feels underwhelming yet utterly inconsequential; highly entertaining yet utterly familiar; chaotic yet somehow so safe; the surprises are nothing new, and its ability to point out missteps (Deadpool assures the audience, after a few drawn-out, rambling scenes, that it’s over) both excuses and highlights them. In fact, you don’t need to have seen the previous films (Logan, or even Deadpool) to enjoy this one, but it will pay off if you have.

The film is full of contradictions, but I think there’s one consistent theme. Deadpool doesn’t proclaim itself to be a love story in the first film and then a family story in the second, like its predecessors. But I think people of my generation can understand what kind of story it is. It’s a homage to pop-culture-obsessed millennials, especially those who, for better or worse, have followed superhero movies.

Deadpool & Wolverine is a dense, very entertaining movie, and I’m not sure there’s anything else of importance to it.

Deadpool and Wolverine

release date

July 26, 2024

director

Shawn Levy

cast

Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Morena Baccarin

Writer

Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy, Wendy Molyneux, Lizzie Molyneux Logelin, Rhett Reese

Strong Points

• Energetic, funny and smart
• Millennial fan service
• Not essential to the MCU

Cons

• Weak Villain
• The familiar third act
• Not essential to the MCU

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Release date, rating, showtime

Deadpool and Wolverine It opens on July 26th. Like previous Deadpool films, the film is rated R, the first MCU film to receive such a rating. There is plenty of profanity, gore, and drug references. I saw the film at an early screening in IMAX, but it is also available in 3D, IMAX 3D, 4DX, and regular 2D.

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Deadpool-style MCU movies

Loud, hilarious, and sometimes distracting superhero entertainment

Like previous Deadpool films, the film begins with Wade Wilson in the middle of a fight as mutilated bodies pile up, then quickly jumps back in time to explain how he got there and what his motivations are. This quest isn’t crucial to the film’s appreciation, at least for the audience, and the film understandably doesn’t spend much time explaining it. A few events later, Deadpool is recruited into a version of TVA led by a man named Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen).)and is told his world will end due to the lack of an anchor – someone so important that the timeline would fall apart without it. This person is Wolverine, not Deadpool, and if he wants to save his world he needs to find an anchor (not Logan’s anchor, though, since he’s already dead).

This is the first of many ways the film tries to make it all work: No disrespect to Logan’s story, but Deadpool does a fair bit of damage to his corpse.

The complexities of this call to action aren’t important. What matters is that Deadpool wants to do something bigger than himself. He wants to feel important and support a noble cause (one very funny early scene sees him ask for a job with the Avengers). With those closest to him on the brink of being erased from existence, Deadpool, like his hero Wolverine, is ready to sacrifice himself and die a noble death.

The plot is fun, familiar and reminiscent of many previous Marvel movies, only with a lot more foul language, bloody deaths and fourth-wall mockery. Before Deadpool and Wolverine can become unlikely companions on their journey, for example, they must fight. Deadpool declares that this fight is for nerds, and he’s right. Like when Captain America fought Iron Man or Thor fought the Hulk.

The second act takes place in the void, a location we previously experienced in Loki season 1. If you haven’t seen it yet, Deadpool will tell you that’s where we’re from in Loki season 1. It’s a barren wasteland of people the TVA has deemed unwanted or dangerous, a place with no way out (until conveniently there is) filled with characters familiar to many millennials. The void also introduces the villain Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), whose main defining traits are that she’s related to someone fans already know, and that her powers are completely unstoppable (until conveniently there isn’t).

The third act will once again feel very familiar to Marvel fans, as our heroes reassemble, discover a hastily-conceived new threat, and, after a series of cinematic battles, reveal the only way to defeat the powerful MacGuffin.

All of this sounds pretty dire, but the way Deadpool & Wolverine presents it makes it feel less like irony and more like absurdist entertainment. That’s mainly because the film knows its audience and knows it’s trying to please them. It could be more ambitious, and the story certainly lacks any weight or coherence, but it does have Deadpool dancing to *NSYNC songs, Wolverine donning the iconic yellow suit, and slow-motion heroics. This is exactly what my generation, and no doubt many others, need in the theaters right now.

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Verdict: A fitting end to an era

20th Century Studios/Marvel.

Deadpool & Wolverine is a nostalgic, heartwarming film full of blood and foul language that is more memorable for 20th Century Fox than it is for the current MCU. It will be interesting to see how the film is received, but I think it has been mostly positive, and rightly so. However, it does borrow heavily from previous films, reminiscent of Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and even Marvels. It has all the pitfalls of some of Marvel’s worst films, but the earnestness of the characters makes it all feel a bit superfluous.

The film doesn’t set a new direction for the MCU in the way some had hoped, instead reminding studios that, given the right time and resources, a bunch of dedicated professional nerds who care about their audience can make something that’s both fun and artistic and makes a ton of money — the biggest contradiction of all.

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