‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Review: A Crowdpleasing Team-Up With A Convoluted Plot

Deadpool and Wolverine

Let’s get the positive out of the way first: Deadpool & Wolverine is a crowd-pleasing spectacle chock full of wild cameos, Easter eggs, and surprises that will make Marvel fans gasp and moan with pleasure. It’s also got a lot of heart, and despite the eventual multiverse ending stakes is surprisingly as initimate and focused on the title character(s) as the first two Deadpool movies. Unfortunately, it’s hampered by a mess of a plot, some at best passable action, and jokes that miss as often as they hit. It’ll pack audiences into theaters this summer as perfect popcorn fare, but despite — to use Deadpool’s term — maximum effort, this movie will have a minimal legacy.

Here’s the plot, which is mostly an excuse for Reynolds’s Deadpool to riff endlessly — and some spoilers here for the first act, just to provide some sort of framework for this movie. Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is trying to live a normal life, having given up the costume years earlier. Enter the Time Variance Authority (TVA) from Loki, which interrupts his birthday with an offer: become the hero he wants to be; but in exchange, he has to let all of his friends — and universe — die. What follows is a blood-soaked and quip-filled quest to find Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) for multiversal and time travel reasons too complicated to explain, even though the character ostensibly died at the end of 2017’s Logan.

The first act of the movie, without mincing words, is a confusing mess. At one point Deadpool shouts “That’s a lot of exposition for a threequel,” and while the meta-joke there was probably inserted to defuse some of drone of the explanations, he’s not wrong. The cast and crew — particularly Shawn Levy — tried to sell the movie as anti-homework, aka you don’t need to watch anything else to enjoy Deadpool & Wolverine. That is categorically incorrect. In fact, the opposite is true. In order to properly appreciate this movie you need to have an advanced degree in The Complete History Of Marvel Movies & TV with a minor in Filmography And Personal Lives Of Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. Not trying to gatekeep here, just clarifying that 50% of the references and characters who pop up need a minimum understanding of pop culture from 1998 on to even understand what anyone is talking about at any given moment. Apologies to Levy, but that’s definitely homework.

Deadpool and Wolverine

Nowhere does that weigh things down more than in the first 30 minutes or so, which sets up the emotional stakes and plot macguffins in the most unnecessarily convoluted way possible. It doesn’t help, either, that Levy is only an adequate director. He gets the job done, but lacks the “visual effects whiz trying to prove his chops” energy Tim Miller brought to the first Deadpool movie, and definitely doesn’t have the inventive visual flair and steady camera David Leitch brought to Deadpool 2. Instead, dialogue scenes sit static, and when it comes time for action it’s choppy and often amateurish.

It’s a minor miracle, then, that the movie works despite all this, and credit that to the chemistry and focus Reynolds and Jackman bring to the project. They clearly love these characters (your personal mileage may vary), and want to do right by them. That comes through in every frame. As with the first two movies, Reynolds puts his all into this, and as co-screenwriter is clearly giving 200%. The jokes, which alternate between deep cut references and Deadpool sexually propositioning various characters don’t all work. But there are so many of them that even with every cringeworthy call-out about cancel culture, he’s on to the next forty-five references before you can blink. Meanwhile, Jackman comes out of retirement as Wolverine with a particularly grim version of the character that is somehow even angrier and more watery-eyed than the near-dead ex-superhero he played in Logan. Yet again, Jackman is a seasoned enough actor that even with a character arc that feels like a less devastating version of what we watched seven years ago, he makes you feel what he’s going through.

In fact, once Deadpool and Wolverine get together, the movie’s pace picks up dramatically. There’s still too much exposition, down to an over-long explanation in the final scenes while a ticking clock was counting down that almost made me shout out loud “get on with it already!” But the buddy road trip vibe is mostly fun and brisk. Even more laudably, while Levy and company were flat-out wrong about anybody being able to come off the street and watch this movie (I would love to hear a neophyte’s reaction to all this), the “cameos” are — with one exception — actually multi-scene character arcs. Look, nobody is going to win a performance Oscar here, to be clear, but without spoiling who does show up, there are some genuine surprises. And it’s all much more impactful than, say, the “showing up to die” character cameos in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Cassandra Nova in Deadpool and Wolverine

Also lifting the movie up is Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova, yet another actor doing the most with a Marvel villain given the least. Corrin is an extremely engaging actor, and has upped the creep factor to a million in this role. I’ll give Levy this: the effect used to show how Nova, Charles Xavier’s evil sister, uses her power differently than her bro will give you nightmares. Unfortunately, the character gets bogged down in the usual third act nonsense after a promising start. But they’re a bright spot in the movie, and a surprisingly faithful adaptation from the page.

Also in the cast, Matthew Macfadyen effectively plays a British dweeb working for the TVA named Mr. Paradox, not too much of a stretch for him. And Leslie Uggams gets the biggest laughs in the movie, despite an even smaller role than usual.

But beyond all that, the most impressive feat the movie pulls off is making the focus the characters, rather than a preview of coming attractions for the MCU. A lot has been made from Marvel chief Kevin Feige about how this is the beginning of Marvel’s “mutant era,” now that Marvel has full use of Fox’s X-Men and Fantastic Four characters. Maybe it is, but that isn’t present in the movie. Instead, this serves as the poignant closer Fox’s “universe” never got after the fizzle of X-Men: Dark Phoenix. It also serves as a potential ending to the Deadpool trilogy, though chances are Marvel will want both Reynolds and Jackman back sooner, rather than later after the box office receipts for this one come in. Even with the mixed results the movie delivers, it is consistent with the first two Deadpool movies in making the stakes matter more for one person — in this case, Deadpool’s impact on Wolverine — than an entire multiverse of characters.

Look, will you enjoy this movie? If you’re a Marvel fan, probably. My screening was full of clapping and cheering when certain characters popped up on screen, and laughter throughout. But if you’re not a Marvel fan, it might be time to start doing your homework.

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