Mild spoilers follow for Deadpool and Wolverine.
“I am Marvel Jesus”, a humorously boastful Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) tells mysterious Time Variance Authority (TVA) agent Mister Paradox (Matthew Macfayden) in Deadpool and Wolverine. It’s a moment that’s ostensibly played for laughs – and one that takes on greater significance when you consider the inconsistent quality of Marvel’s theatrical and Disney Plus output since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame.
And yet, after leaving my IMAX screening of the highly anticipated Marvel Phase 5 movie, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Wilson wasn’t completely joking. That’s because Deadpool and Wolverine is easily one of the best Marvel movies of the last five years – and I’m not rolling out that clichéd remark to be an industry shill.
Yes, it’s overly chaotic on occasion, which is to be expected for a Deadpool-starring project, and its wobbly plot and half-baked villains underwhelmed me. Those niggles aside, though, it’s a gloriously gory, riotously funny, cameo-stuffed, and surprisingly endearing flick, even if it isn’t the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) savior we all expected it to be.
Time bandits
Set six years after 2018’s Deadpool 2, The Merc With a Mouth’s third big-screen adventure finds Wilson working as a used-car salesman after retiring from the superhero game. That is, until the TVA kidnap him at a birthday party to deliver some bad news: his universe – designated Earth-10005 – is dying, and there’s nothing he or they can do about it.
The reason for his reality’s inevitable demise? Its anchor being – a person of such vital importance to a universe that, without them, it cannot exist – has died, meaning that Wilson’s timeline is slowly withering away. Oh, and said anchor being is none other than the Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) that passed away in 2017’s grimdark X-Men flick Logan.
Deadpool and Wolverine is be an absolutely brilliant Marvel movie, but one I won’t be labeling as the MCU’s savior yet
So, the TVA offers Wilson a choice: leave his universe behind, cross over into the MCU, and fulfil his dream of becoming an Avenger, or turn them down, re-join his friends, and prepare for the end. Of course, this ultimatum doesn’t sit well with the renegade antihero. Devising his own on-the-spot plan – what did you expect? – Deadpool steals one of the TVA’s multiverse-hopping Temp-Pads and sets off to find a new Wolverine; one he hopes he can simply use to replace his timeline’s dead hero, and save it and his friends.
Unfortunately for Deadpool, said journey eventually leads him to cross paths with a new Wolverine (again played by Jackman) who, for reasons I won’t spoil, is responsible for destroying his own world. With no other choices available to him, Deadpool must convince the multiverse’s so-called ‘worst Wolverine’ to help him save his reality, no matter the cost.
It’s this odd-couple dynamic that, in light of its somewhat threadbare plot, Deadpool 3 hangs its hat on. As long-time friends, Reynolds and Jackman’s off-screen chemistry bleeds onto the screen with little effort, the duo using their playful real-life rivalry to great effect to bring wisecracks and melodrama aplenty to the pair’s fraught dynamic.
Unsurprisingly, Reynolds brings the requisite wit, fourth-wall-breaking snark, and periodic poignancy to a character who’s as ready to pour his heart out this time around as he is to drop a cultural reference or f-bomb. However, it’s Jackman, returning for one last outing as Wolverine in Deadpool 3 (apparently, anyway), whose rage-filled and regret-laced performance is far more brutal from an emotional perspective. He may have been playing the iconic adamantium-clawed mutant for 24 years (at the time of writing) but, Logan aside, this is his most accomplished and multidimensional display yet.
Deadpool and Wolverine is Jackman’s most impressive and multidimensional display yet
Reynolds and Jackman don’t just deserve praise for playing the titular pair, either. Indeed, thanks to the movie’s anarchic multiversal elements (more on these later), the A-listers portray numerous variants of their characters – read more in our Deadpool and Wolverine cameos piece – enabling them to play fast and loose with said variants, and showcase their unquestionable talents in all manner of funny and/or comic book-influenced situations within Marvel’s cinematic sandbox. There are two in particular – one for each actor – that not only made me laugh out loud whenever they appeared on the screen, but also had everyone else at my screening guffawing.
Controlled chaos
Given its title, it won’t come as a shock to learn that Deadpool and Wolverine leans heavily on the mismatched pair’s road-trip-inspired misadventures, but they aren’t the only individuals who show up throughout the film’s two-hour runtime.
One of Deadpool 3‘s other notable inclusions is Macfayden’s Mister Paradox, a slimy TVA mutineer who harbors ambitions of being the interdimensional bureaucratic orgainzation’s new commander-in-chief. A morally complex individual, Paradox acts as a secondary antagonist throughout, his unsettlingly calm persona reminding me of notable villains portrayed by beloved actor Richard E. Grant (incidentally, he appeared in Loki season 1 as one of the trickster god’s variants) in non-MCU TV show and movies, such as Doctor Who and, ironically, Logan.
Joining Paradox on the rogues’ gallery front is Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin, who uses they/them pronouns), the twin sister (she’s technically a parasitic lifeform known as a mummadrai, but the details aren’t important) of X-Men founder Charles Xavier/Professor X who reshapes Wolverine and Deadpool’s entire dynamic upon her introduction.
Like her ‘sibling’, Nova is an incredibly powerful telepath but, while her brother walks an honorable path, Nova is a malicious entity with a penchant for sadism. Given her and Wolverine’s ties to Xavier, Nova is an aptly evil foil to the film’s heroes, and Corrin imbues her with a delightful monstrosity and devilish glee that provides another example of their undisputed acting talents.
Deadpool 3’s shaky narrative threatens to collapse in on itself
The problem that mars Paradox and Nova’s involvement in Deadpool and Wolverine, though, is that they’re criminally underutilized. Macfayden and Corrin are a joy to watch as they plot and scheme their way towards their end goals, but their characters feel shoehorned into proceedings out of necessity. Yes, the movie needs a villain or two for our heroes to rail against, but it’s the manner with which they’re woven into the fabric of its story that disappointed me. They’re both compelling antagonists to our red and yellow costume-clad champions, and yet they feel like afterthoughts whose sole purpose is to drive the plot forward in minimalist fashion. The Marvel villain curse, then, strikes again.
But it’s not Paradox and Nova who suffer from Deadpool and Wolverine‘s extraneous storytelling – the plot itself doesn’t feel all that sturdy, either. On the surface it’s coherent enough, and contains its fair share of high-stakes action and drama; but dig deeper, and Deadpool 3‘s shaky narrative threatens to collapse in on itself, especially when it reaches its climax, which is cheaply assembled and simply wraps up one of the movie’s most important questions without a second thought. Without trying to spoil too much, apart from the odd comment about what might await Deadpool later in the Multiverse Saga, it doesn’t tease any future plans Marvel might have for Phase 5 or Phase 6. So temper your expectations accordingly.
Mutant mayhem
Considering its story and villain-based flaws, it’s a good job that Deadpool and Wolverine delivers on its nostalgia-fueled promise to, in Deadpool’s words, “give the people what they want.”
And by that, I mean not to scrimp on the Marvel cameo and/or legacy character front. Despite the fact that it delivered on the ‘fantasy casting’ with its own crowd-pleasing cameos, Doctor Strange 2 was a letdown in the multiversal character appearance stakes, while Loki could’ve gone harder – season 1 episode 5 notwithstanding – with its own variant collection. Spider-Man: No Way Home did, however, earn plenty of points on the sentimentality scale for bringing webslingers (and their biggest foes) from three different eras together in a big-screen team-up for the first time.
In comparison to that trio, Deadpool and Wolverine goes hard. Think of No Way Home dialed up to 11 and you’ll catch my drift. From the return of classic X-Men villains – one of whom partakes in an X-Men movie rematch that fans have waited 24 years for – to a poignant reunion (of sorts) between Wolverine and Dafne Keen’s X-23, the character’s daughter/clone who made her live-action debut in Logan, the 34th MCU movie is brimming with call-backs to 20th Century Fox’s X-Men film series. There are plenty of other astonishing Fox-based legacy superhero cameos in this celebration of the rebranded studio’s now-defunct cinematic franchise, but you’ll have to see the film (or read the cameo list I linked to earlier) to get the details on those blockbuster moments.
My verdict
Deadpool and Wolverine is a barnstorming popcorn flick that acts as the unapologetic and self-aware riposte that Marvel has clearly wanted to deliver to its detractors for some time. Yes, it’s a film that’s plagued by longstanding issues that the comic giant has struggled to get to grips with throughout its cinematic tenure, but, if you look past those deficiencies you’ll revel in its passionate tribute to Fox’s superhero-led projects, and the uproarious bromance at its heart.
Wildly entertaining as it is, though, I don’t believe that Deadpool and Wolverine will be the MCU’s savior – but that’s not the movie’s fault. Yes, it’s sure to be a worldwide hit at the box office (industry insiders suggest it’ll easily make over $1 billion globally), but it’ll take more than a single film to get Marvel’s cinematic juggernaut back on track. The last few years have proven as much, with every great release, such as Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and X-Men 97, being weighed down by widely panned projects like The Marvels and Secret Invasion.
If Marvel can recapture the magic of the Infinity Saga from this point on, we can wistfully look back on Deadpool and Wolverine as the fulcrum of the MCU’s resurgence. Until the likes of Captain America: Brave New World and The Fantastic Four charge into theaters to confirm or contest that reports of the MCU’s demise have been exaggerated, Deadpool and Wolverine will, to me, be an absolutely brilliant Marvel movie, but one I won’t be labeling as the MCU’s savior just yet.
Deadpool and Wolverine is out now in theaters (internationally) and launches in the US on Friday, July 26.