Fan Service Does Not a Good Movie Make
Deadpool & Wolverine delivers a big sugar rush that will leave many in a diabetic coma
Deadpool & Wolverine is the ultimate fan boy’s wet dream come true. The third film featuring Rob Liefeld’s creation gives followers of both characters everything they wished for and more: two bloody mano a manos between the titular characters (who share the power to regenerate); so many cameos from the Marvel film universe that the studio had no choice but to leak one or two in the trailers; tons of industry insider and gay jokes; more viscera splattering the screen than in your run-of-the-mill slasher or zombie flick; another end of the world plot (as if it wasn’t enough that we are currently living in one) concocted by not one but two megalomaniacs; and, yes, the obligatory breaking of the fourth wall.
Not only does Deadpool & Wolverine bring Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back from the dead (some of us foolishly thought we had said our last goodbyes to the grumpy reluctant hero in James Mangold’s sensational Logan) but it also has him wear his original yellow comic book costume. Because, you know, now that 20th Century Fox (the studio that originally released the X-Men and Deadpool movies) and Marvel are just another branch of Disney, the Mouse can do whatever the hell it wants with its toys.
Deadpool & Wolverine not only bites the hand that feeds it but also eats its cake and has it to. It mocks the MCU films and Kevin Feige while lovingly looking back at those Fox films that paved the way for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For Disney, much like Warner Bros. and Mattel knew with Barbie, such mockery brings a certain level of cachet to it. It makes the studio look hip; they know what the cool kids want: South Park levels of irony. They are able to laugh at it while raking in the big bucks. The joke’s on you…bub.
Written not by one not by two not by three…but FIVE writers (including star Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy), the movie is obviously the result of many sessions where the writers went “Wouldn’t it be cool if Deadpool did this? Wouldn’t it be cool if Deadpool did that? Wouldn't it be cool if…?” ad infinitum at the expense of a reasonably credible plot or story. It;s a movie where everything and the kitchen sink were thrown to the wall to see what stuck. Since the script is laid with so many spoiler-like mines, I’ll thread carefully on the obligatory plot description and refer only to those events that made it to the trailers.
Like its previous entries, Deadpool & Wolverine begins in media res, with our eponymous “merc with a mouth” (Ryan Reynolds) battling it off with an army of goons employed by the Time Variance Authority (introduced in season 1 of Loki; and, no, you don’t need to have watched season one) to then interrupt the action and go back in time to properly set up the story. Wade Wilson/Deadpool is at a low point in his life: after being rejected by The Avengers and breaking up with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), he finds himself working as a used car salesman, hairpiece firmly stapled to his head until he’s kidnapped by those very same agents of the TVA in the middle of his birthday celebration. He’s told by rogue operative Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen who almost upstages Reynolds with his over-the-top loopiness) that Wolverine’s death has caused his timeline to collapse and he could either join the TVA and become relevant once again or go back and die with his friends.
Believing himself to be Marvel Jesus, Deadpool steals some thingamajig from the TVA and starts jumping from timeline to timeline in search of an alternative Wolverine that can stop his timeline from collapsing. He finally settles on one, considered the worst of all Wolverines, and drags him. But Paradox is going full steam ahead with his plans of using a MacGuffin called the Time Ripper to destroy the timeline and sends both titular heroes into a place called The Void, an apocalyptic land whose resemblance to the Mad Max films the film acknowledges. This is also where most other Marvel heroes who don’t want to play along with Paradox have ended. A place ruled by Charles Xavier’s sister, one Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin) who rules the realm with an iron fist and whose fingers have a way of literally getting into your head.. You could also call The Void, Cameoland since this is where most of the cameos take place, two of which have already been given away by the trailers and a couple of which were fun surprises for me (although, unfortunately for the film, one of those cameos made me recall a far better Marvel entry and its sequel before there was such a thing as the MCU). Of course, Deadpool needs to find a way to get back and stop his timeline from collapsing. Told you: end of the world stuff.
What made the first two Deadpool films stand out, besides its willingness to turn all superhero genre conventions on their head (not to say desecrate them), were the personal stakes. These films were not about saving the world from utter destruction. They were about the dangers faced both by Wade and those he cared the most about, including all those freaks he so identifies with. Although I don’t expect moments of introspection in a movie like this, I do expect some quiet character interaction; Deadpool & Wolverine delivers only one and it’s pretty much a spoilable moment. Suffice it to say that it involves Wolverine.
But the needs of genre convention outweigh the needs of the few and the many. There is, frankly, too much going on, as if Reynolds and his team of writers were desperate to get from one quip to the next, from one fight to the next. There is an eagerness to show their new masters at Disney that both Deadpool and Wolverine are, after all, compatible with the Disney brand in spite of the gore and the potty mouth humor. They are so eager that Reynolds and his team doesn’t quite know when to stop and so, the film “ends” with a prolonged action sequence that keeps going and going and going.
What made tose Fox/Marvel films so unique and so beloved (yes, even the mediocre, X-Men: The Last Stand) is that they were full of memorable, awe-inducing moments such as the introduction of Cerebro in the original X-Men, the lifting of the Golden Gate bridge by Magneto in X-Men: The Last Stand, and the opening sequence of Blade. Yes, there were major missteps (Dark Phoenix and Apocalypse, anyone?) but the films were, for the most part, craftily told, shot and edited than Deadpool & Wolverine.
I admit to have enjoyed a significant portion of the film. It works as a Saturday afternoon popcorn flick and it gives the fans what they want. But that should never be enough. Deadpool & Wolverine does deliver a big sugar rush that will leave many in a diabetic coma. Whatever pleasures you may derive from it will be short lived. And unlike the Mad Max films it so “wittingly” references, it will eventually be forgotten, its gore and language an impediment towards it being frequently played on TBS or TNT unlike other Marvel entries.