Everything wrong with this movie can be summed up with Cassandra Nova. Oh, I’m not calling out Emma Corrin’s excellent performance. They are dead on to the part as written in the comics. The movie version has the character’s powers. She has her drive to take over. She has her backstory. But the character is depicted as incredibly sexy and used as a generic villain unlike Grant Morrison’s very specific and remarkably ugly creation. The movie takes something unique and rare and makes it mass audience friendly.
That’s sort of how I feel about Deadpool & Wolverine. It takes material that matters deeply to me and sands it down to the blandest possible version then adds a lot of bad profane humor to render the whole thing barely watchable. I want to stress before I go any further that I’m not a hater. I’m a fan. I loved Deadpool 2. And writing this review hurts.
Deadpool & Wolverine is a frustrating film. It’s a soulless movie that exists largely to point out things you know but doesn’t do anything with them except point them out. The film’s plot is simple. To save his universe, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) attempts to find a new Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to serve as the center of his universe and keep it alive. However a rogue TVA agent (Matthew MacFadyen) is in league with the aforementioned Nova and schemes to erase the universe early. To stop the threat, the pair needs the help of X-23 (Dafne Keen), Elektra (Jennifer Garner), Gambit (Channing Tatum), and Blade (Wesley Snipes.) Things happen.
I want to get the good out first. There is good in this film. MacFadyen and Corrin are great. Keen has aged into a strong presence even in a thin role. Tatum makes you mourn his unmade movie. But the star of this movie is the one you’d think phoned it in: Hugh Jackman is better than ever as Wolverine. He’s wearing his years but instead of that hurting his work he’s a more intimidating Wolverine who looks better than the too pretty younger version. Jackman commits so hard and sells every line. If the whole movie was on his level, this would be a classic.
The problem is the movie is on Ryan Reynolds’ level and Reynolds goes for the gold in not caring. Which is amazing because Reynolds cared deeply. He not only starred, he produced and cowrote the film. But if you were to tell me Reynolds only did the brief unmasked scenes and a voiceover, I’d buy that more. Reynolds is outright awful. Now is when I need to stress, I’m wearing a Deadpool shirt AS I WRITE THIS REVIEW. But wow.
The movie is a profoundly ugly film that manages to look incredibly greenscreened even as it was shot on some impressive sets. The movie is one of the ugliest mainstream films I’ve seen in a while. Everything is gray. The color grading here reverts to the blandest lowest levels. I’m not even faulting the DP because this was a studio call. And the most I’m saying for Shawn Levy’s work here is Date Night was a long time ago.
There’s another issue. The movie claims to be a love letter to the Marvel properties brought under the Disney wing as the wildly offensive end credits montage tries to be. No. This doesn’t care. Not one of the minor characters acts like anything more than a prop. Blade simply walks through and says a few lines and never feels like himself. Johnny Storm gets it much worse with Chris Evans using a Boston accent to be incredibly vulgar and seeming like he shot his scenes in an hour.
This movie is plain and simple a victory lap for Disney buying Fox. There’s nothing more to it but that. It’s a movie bragging about the toys they bought. It has a bland and safe plot to allow for the simplest route to this goal. The giant Fox logo in the wasteland doesn’t feel all that ironic as a result. But you know what? I get it. That’s what this is. I’m not going to waste too much breath on it even if it’s vile. It’s not the big problem.
The problem with this movie is it is an endless, and I do mean endless, string of bad jokes. Every line from Reynolds is agony. So many sex jokes. So many uses of the f-bomb. It gets painful listening to all of these jokes but the movie never has the decency to slow down. It’s just one joke after another. The movie becomes exhausting.
The result is one of the most tiring experiences I’ve had as a film fan. I felt disenchanted with Marvel with Thor: Love and Thunder but this was the first time I was mad at the studio. The movie reflects all of their worst vices with none of their virtues. It is exactly what they’re said to be.
What is there even to say about this film in the end? It’s just a draining time. When even a fan like me wants out, this is a bad film. Watch Hulk vs Wolverine, the pretty good animated short instead. Deadpool is in that.
Watch the trailer right here.
All images via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
Directed by Shawn Levy
Screenplay by Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Rheese, Paul Wernick, Zeb Wells, Shawn Levy, based on characters from Marvel Comics
Produced by Kevin Feige, Lauren Shuler Donner, Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin, Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Leslie Uggams, Aaron Stanford, Matthew Macfadyen
Premiere Date: July 22, 2024
Running Time: 128 minutes
Cinema from the Spectrum 
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