Deadpool & Wolverine (dir. Shawn Levy)
By: Adam Freed
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Not long ago the Marvel Cinematic Universe had the world in a chokehold. Boasting 9 films that crossed the billion dollar global threshold, audiences and most critics were swept away by the epic Avengers saga. Post the Thanos, Steve Rogers and Tony Stark era though interest and quality have diminished precipitously. A fact that only elevates the pressure being placed on Marvel to deliver with Deadpool & Wolverine, the attempted unification of multiple comic book worlds. At long last the X-Men and whatever is left of the Avengers will share a timeline, something for which audiences have been pining for decades . Director Shawn Levy helms the reclamation project in hopes of allowing Marvel a return to critical and box office prominence. The result is the Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman lead Deadpool & Wolverine, a comedic bloodbath of low stakes self-deprecation. As much as this may sound like the panacea Disney and Marvel so desperately need, it won’t be enough to save a storyline and studio now spiraling out of control.
To the film’s credit, the first act of the profanity laced multiversal gorefest lands as a humorous and welcome unification of the two title characters. Answering many of the “how are they going to do that?” questions posed after Wolverine’s heroic death at the end of Logan (2017), there is a great deal of successful fan service at play early in Deadpool & Wolverine. As it inevitably does in each of his three films, Deadpool’s sharp tongue dulls with time leaving audiences with a one note protagonist that borders on annoyance. The fundamental flaw in Marvel’s pairing of two adversarial indestructible characters is that the damage the two inflict on one another is inconsequential, lowering the stakes of the film considerably. What is left behind is a literal pool of blood and a muddled and middling multiversal story riddled with macguffins and self-identified painfully overstuffed levels of exposition.
The most successful X-Men and Avengers films possess a dramatic gravity, that regardless of the fun being had on screen, maintain a larger sense of eventual purpose. Deadpool & Wolverine incessantly utilizes fourth wall breaking visuals and commentary, much of which achieves its humorous intent, but in so doing, trivializes the dramatic stakes of the film considerably. The movie clearly desires audiences to invest in its outcome while simultaneously conveying that none of it really matters. The result is an action comedy that doesn’t feel like anything more than an opportunistic resuscitation attempt through which the post End Game (2019) string failure could be halted.
Dedicated fans are likely to enjoy the film’s weaponized cameos, many of which offer momentary endorphin rushes of recognition, but what the story asks of those surprise guests is painfully rote. The duo of heroes oppose antagonist Cassandra Nova, played by Emma Corrin, who earns credit for a valiant effort in her attempt to reconcile some semblance of purpose behind her underwhelmingly written character. While supporters of Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds will likely feel seen by their teaming, moments of honesty will likely betray the underwhelming nature of Deadpool & Wolverine, a film unlikely to attract new audiences on the basis of its glaring shortcomings. Five years isn’t long when laid out against the timeline of film history, yet the gap in quality between Endgame and Marvel’s latest feels a chasm too great to even imagine.
Target Score: 4.5/10 Deadpool & Wolverine is a far cry from what Marvel needed to plug the holes in their sinking ship. There is a price to pay for investing so much of the R rated humorous energy into self-depreciation and living outside of the fourth wall. While rabid fans may find moments of joy in this Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman vehicle, it is undeniable that this X-Men and Marvel mashup is a miss.