By George & Josh Bate
The once impenetrable juggernaut that was the Marvel Cinematic Universe has hit a bit of a rough patch as of late. In 2021, Eternals became the first MCU movie to earn the dreaded ‘Rotten’ label on Rotten Tomatoes, while 2023 saw the release of the financial failure that was The Marvels and the critical disappointment of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, a film that was supposed to introduce the franchise to its new big bad. On the small screen, things have looked similarly rocky with shows like Secret Invasion and Echo falling short of expectations. It’s rare for the MCU to be in an underdog position like this, but that’s certainly where the franchise is as the highly anticipated Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters. The MCU is in desperate need of a win. A win that will evoke the sort of sheer, universal enjoyment that Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home achieved so triumphantly. But Is Deadpool & Wolverine the win that the MCU needs? The short answer to that question: absolutely.
Deadpool & Wolverine is the 34th film in the MCU and serves as a sequel to the Fox Marvel hits Deadpool and Deadpool 2. The film once again follows Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson, the wisecracking and invulnerable mercenary-turned-superhero, now retired and living a quiet life. That is, until the Time Variance Authority (TVA) shows up to recruit him for a new mission. As his home universe faces extinction, Wilson teams up with a variant of Hugh Jackman’s Logan / Wolverine to once again save the world, while dropping more than a few fourth wall breaking jokes along the way.
The term ‘crowd-pleasing’ gets thrown around a lot, especially when talking about big-budget, spectacle superhero films. But this term rightly classifies the likes of Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home in recent years. Both films feature numerous moments that make a theater crowd cheer and clap with excitement – the kind of epic or surprising moments that send goosebumps across your body and generate a vocal expression of excitement. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s first appearances in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Captain America wielding Thor’s hammer Mjölnir, and the entire Avengers team going head-to-head with Thanos’ army are perfect examples of the kind of moments that make a film a crowd-pleaser. With Deadpool & Wolverine, the MCU has achieved the rare feat of producing yet another genuine crowd-pleaser, one filled to the brim with the kind of jaw-dropping moments that made the likes of Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home such resounding hits.
But such moments only truly work if they are included within a compelling film with characters the audience cares about. And Deadpool & Wolverine certainly does that. Although the introduction of the film feels very much like Deadpool 3, the introduction of Hugh Jackman’s Logan / Wolverine into the mix turns Deadpool & Wolverine into the superhero version of Trains, Planes and Automobiles. Like the classic Steve Martin and John Candy comedy, Deadpool & Wolverine closely follows two people with fundamentally clashing personalities. On the one side is the perpetually joking and crude Deadpool, akin to John Candy’s Del Griffith, and on the other side is the serious and determined Wolverine, akin to Steve Martin’s Neal Page. Pitting two discrepant personalities together for a buddy comedy is nothing new (just see the likes of Rush Hour, 48 Hours, or The Nice Guys, for example), but there’s a reason this plot trope is brought back again and again – it works. The initial clashing of personalities, which eventually turns into an actual friendship, is a tried-and-tested formula for making a movie with a lot of humor and a lot of heart, and Deadpool & Wolverine is just that.
The immense effectiveness of this heart and humor comes from the magnetic chemistry between Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. The two actors, who first worked together in the derided X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009, are off-screen friends and have spoken extensively about how Deadpool & Wolverine was such a joy for these two real-life friends to make. That joy presents itself loud and clear on the big screen as the actors and, in turn, the audience have a hell of time watching these two quarreling superhero trade blows (both physical and verbal). Just like the classics in the buddy cop genre, Deadpool & Wolverine features two stars who just so naturally work well off one another. Hugh Jackman expertly plays the stoic, hardened Logan, who is immediately tired of Wade Wilson’s insistence on infusing humor into every single situation. Meanwhile, Ryan Reynolds shows once again that he was born to play the role of Deadpool, now with an on-screen partner willing to push back against his jokes. The back-and-forth between Reynolds and Jackman is worth the price of admission alone, so much so that, even when their remarks to one another fall somewhat flat, one can’t help but smile and laugh along.
With its broader sense of humor, Deadpool & Wolverine very much feels like a natural successor to the prior two Deadpool movies. Those who found Deadpool and Deadpool 2 to be funny will very likely find similar joy with the fourth-wall breaking and crude, witty one-liners that characterize Deadpool & Wolverine’s sense of humor. Conversely though, the film is unlikely to convert those who did not find the prior movies to be funny. Over the course of the 2+ hour movie, many jokes land and many jokes don’t, as is often the case with Ryan Reynolds’ trademark brand of humor (that he has since generalized from Deadpool to various other roles and seemingly his real life personality altogether). Where the humor in Deadpool & Wolverine really stands out is with the extent to which it breaks the rules and actually goes there. Any concerns that a Disney-backed Deadpool film would be sanitized and censored are quickly dispelled as the film is about as bold, crude and unafraid as they come. Some of the most surprising and effective jokes come at the expense of Disney and the MCU, such as a couple references to the MCU’s recent struggles and audience fatigue over multiverse stories. The film also pushes the boundaries of its humor in poking fun at its two stars, with a reference to Hugh Jackman’s recent divorce being a particularly memorable and shocking jab. There is something so refreshing about seeing a movie with the budget and stakes of Deadpool & Wolverine so effectively ridicule massive corporations, sprawling movie franchises, and the personal lives of A-list actors.
Deadpool & Wolverine earns its R-rating, and then some. The very first scene shows Deadpool dismember and dismantle a whole battalion of TVA agents using a human skeleton as weapons with a level of blood and brutality the Marvel universe has never seen until now. That scene sets the tone for what is ultimately an action comedy. Seemingly each and every scene features some degree of action, many of which feature Deadpool and Wolverine brutally mauling one another with excellently choreographed action sequences. With so much action, and a plot that propels forward so rapidly, Deadpool & Wolverine suffers with unrelenting and overwhelming pacing. There is very little downtime in the movie to pause, catch one’s breath, and get a grasp on the proceedings, because it is always skyrocketing forward with the pedal firmly to the metal. Such pacing makes it so that the audience can never really stop to think too deeply about the plot, which is probably and ultimately a good thing considering the film’s rather flimsy narrative.
Dragging this narrative down are two weak villains. Emma Corrin plays Cassandra Nova, the twin sister of Charles Xavier who is a self-appointed dictator of The Void (the place at the End of Time in which pruned timelines and individuals reside, previously depicted in Loki). Corrin earned acclaim for their performance as Princess Diana in The Crown and shows off their acting range with a decidedly different performance here. Unfortunately, Corrin’s villain simply doesn’t really work. Cassandra Nova is little more than a plot device, serving as a point of conflict that unites Deadpool and Wolverine for a shared mission and not much else. Corrin attempts to bring a charming, Hans Landa-esque menace to Cassandra, but the performance is never grand or exciting enough to match the one-two punch of Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine.
Similarly mixed results exist with the film’s other villain. Matthew Macfadyen, coming off the acclaimed final season of Succession, plays Mr. Paradox, an agent of the TVA who kicks off the film’s plot. Mr. Paradox brings Deadpool to the TVA and offers him a place in the sacred timeline (aka Earth-616, aka the MCU). In doing so, however, Mr. Paradox confirms his plans to eliminate Deadpool’s home universe altogether. Messy plotting, especially in an early and clearly reshot exposition-heavy scene, makes Mr. Paradox’s motives unclear and his character uninteresting. Like Cassandra Nova, Mr. Paradox essentially serves as a plot device to instigate a narrative that sees the journeys of Deadpool and Wolverine intersect, but offers little else to the film, especially as Macfadyen’s character goes missing for much of the film’s second act.
Issues with Mr. Paradox highlight stumbles with the film’s narrative. Fundamentally, the film is rather simple: Deadpool and Wolverine team up to save Deadpool’s world from destruction. In order to do so, Deadpool and Wolverine need to escape The Void that they have been sent to. But the straightforward plot is told in a convoluted matter, amplified by the inclusion of a ‘Time Ripper’ machine that destroys entire timelines, jumbled exposition scenes, and two villains with little characterization, whose sole purpose is to create a conflict that allows Deadpool and Wolverine to team up. All of this is made worse by the fact that Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t the most beautiful of spectacles. Some shots in the film are so bland, lifeless, and lacking color that, when coupled with an uneven plot, can make the viewing experience less pleasant at times.
Thankfully, Deadpool & Wolverine largely overcomes issues with its plotting through surprising heart. While the background of the main Wolverine variant in the movie is told messily, the emotions underlying the character still work so well due to Hugh Jackman’s powerful performance. There are a few scenes in the film in which Jackman taps into the same raw emotion and anger that he brought to his performance in Logan, and it is down to Jackman’s superb performance that issues with plotting are fairly easy to overlook. The arc his character goes through across the film doesn’t seem like it’s going to come together and yet surprisingly it does in an emotionally resonant and powerful final act.
Even more surprising than the heart in Wolverine’s arc is the way in which Deadpool & Wolverine serves as a genuine love letter to the Fox era of Marvel movies. To get into the depths of this statement would entail spoiling some jaw-dropping cameo appearances, but know that the film honors the Fox Marvel movies that came before it with surprising emotionality. The Fox Marvel movies aren’t all the most beloved movies of all time (for every Logan and X-Men; Days of Future Past, there’s a Fantastic Four reboot and X-Men Origins: Wolverine), but these films nonetheless hold a special place in the hearts of many fans, and the creative team behind Deadpool & Wolverine know that. After previously tapering out with the misfires that were Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants, Deadpool & Wolverine serves as a poetic, fitting, and deserving conclusion to the Fox era of Marvel movies.
But Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t just a love letter to the Fox Marvel movies – it takes its adoration of those films a step further. Rather than just featuring empty cameo appearances for the sake of audience applause, Deadpool & Wolverine actually taps into the emotions and characters of these previous films. A scene between Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Dafne Keen’s Laura / X-23 perfectly encapsulates. Keen’s character speaks with a variant of the man she knew in Logan in a conversation that feels like it has been directly lifted from James Mangold’s acclaimed 2017 movie. In a single conversation, Deadpool & Wolverine not only strikes an emotional chord related to the story it is telling, but it also evokes emotions from a movie that released seven years ago now. This is layered, intelligent storytelling with an emphasis on character work that persists far beyond a single film.
VERDICT: 8/10
Deadpool & Wolverine is an epic crowd-pleaser in the vein of previous MCU hits like Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Playing like a superhero take on Planes, Trains and Automobiles, the 34th film in the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe excellently capitalizes on the magnetic chemistry between stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in their portrayal of superhero mutants always clashing, both physically and verbally. The cameo appearances (some of which are more like surprising, substantial supporting roles) are superb, but what excels even more is the film’s genuine emotional resonance. Deadpool & Wolverine serves as a genuine love letter to the Fox era of Marvel movies, while also telling an emotional story of its own, anchored by an incredible performance from Hugh Jackman. Such emotion makes it easier to overlook issues with pacing, plotting, in particular two weak villains, and some aesthetic blandness. Ultimately, Deadpool & Wolverine is the resounding win the MCU desperately needed. A powerful superhero epic with boundary-pushing humor, jaw-dropping cameos, and unrelenting entertainment that confirms the the MCU and superhero movies are far from over.
Check out where we rank Deadpool & Wolverine among every other MCU movie and show in our Ranking of Every MCU Movie + Show from Worst to Best below….