DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE - Mark Reviews Movies

Deadpool & Wolverine, Marvel Studios

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 25, 2024

A few things are different about Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) in his latest adventure. The most obvious change is all around him in Deadpool & Wolverine. He has a larger playground now, having become an official part of the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has expanded quite a bit over more than a decade and now promises to grow even more by way of various behind-the-scenes business deals.

The smart-ass mercenary kind of fits into this world, since these particular superhero movies stopped taking things too seriously a while ago. The selling point, perhaps, is that Deadpool brings several four-letter words, a 12-letter one, and plenty of vulgar phrases to the forefront of the vocabulary here. In other words, the character gets more out of the deal than he offers to this multiverse of superheroes and villains.

As for the other major change, Deadpool now is definitely a superhero, determined to save the world—well, his world, within the multiple that now exist in this franchise—and fight foes who are far worse than he has ever been. After a flash-forward prologue that has the now-hero fighting time-traveling agents with a desecrated corpse, our first glimpse of Wade Wilson, the scarred alter ego of the red-suited fighter, is of him applying to become part of the Avengers. After being rejected, Wade hangs up his suit, starts working as a car salesman, and gives up on his dream of being a legitimate hero.

One of the significant issues with the character's previous two outings is that those movies could never quite figure out who Deadpool is supposed to be. At times, he's simply a ruthless killer, slicing and dicing and shooting anonymous enemies while making plenty of off-color jokes, and a loner who sees himself as being outside of things like right and wrong, good guys and bad ones, and being part of a team with some heroic aims.

The defining trait of Deadpool, both in the comics and in these movies, is that he's a comic-book character who's completely aware of being part of a comic-book narrative. He is literally outside of the usual concerns, then, looking in and commenting on them with total awareness and a heavy dose of sarcasm.

At other times, Deadpool is just a softy, secretly wanting to fit in and have as normal a life as possible. With that opening interview and his resulting dejection and an entire plot that revolves around him trying to save the world, this movie firmly puts Deadpool among the ranks of this franchise's heroes. That's fine as a choice, because at least it is one, but now, what are the filmmakers going to do with it?

Well, the screenwriters (director Shawn Levy, Reynolds, Zeb Wells, and the continuing duo of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick) once again put Deadpool in a routine story, have him continuously joke within and about it, and make sure there is plenty of action with gallons of digital blood. For as much as has superficially changed with Deadpool's transfer to this franchise, both he and the formula sure have stayed foundationally the same.

The somewhat unique element of the new movie is that Deadpool gets a partner. The idea of a partnership isn't new to him, but this team-up is with Hugh Jackman's Wolverine—or, well, one of the many Wolverine's who exist in the assorted timelines of this universe. At one point, Deadpool mocks the franchise's recent dependence on a multiverse in its overarching narrative, by the way, which might have been funnier if this movie hadn't been so dependent on the notion itself. Like all of its critiques, the movie's satirical aims are hollow to the core. How else does one explain how a bit of anti-product placement about a model of minivan becoming an endorsement of the vehicle a few scenes later?

Anyway, to explain the plot would take far too long, but basically, Deadpool's universe is under threat by Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), a rogue agent with the Time Variance Authority that maintains the "Sacred Timeline." Wolverine's death in Deadpool's world is leading to its slow end, which Paradox wants to hasten, so Deadpool goes hunting for another Wolverine to replace the dead one and save his world. Ultimately, the pair arrive in the Void, where the time agency sends unwanted things (including an old studio logo), and have to escape.

The plot and our main heroes are mostly treated seriously (This Wolverine has a terrible past that has brought him infamy and shame), so the jokes amount to Deadpool's sarcasm, some self-referential humor that simply points out the movie and the larger franchise's shortcomings, and far more cameos than one might expect but fewer that are really worthwhile. The ones that are can't be named here, obviously, but worry not, because those characters are as underutilized as the rest of them.

There's something inherently dispiriting and cynical about Deadpool & Wolverine. In theory, Deadpool is an agent of chaos in these stories, who can shake things up and take the material to task. He may have a huge playground in which to have fun, but because the character has become so restricted by his own formula, this new world somehow feels smaller with him in it.