REVIEW: Deadpool & Wolverine

SPOILERS FROM THE START

Well, I can understand why this is getting mixed reviews. Deadpool & Wolverine is not, honestly, a good film. It's plot is thin and barely coherent; it ups the gore to absurd levels for shock value; it relies too much on fan-pleasing cameos and guest appearances, and pats itself on the back for pointing that out. I can definitely see why James Mangold hates it, and the multiverse concept altogether; D&W is not only an entirely unnecessary follow-up to his seminal 2017 film Logan, it quite literally desecrates the grave of its protagonist.

But we don't go to see Deadpool movies for artfully constructed plots and deep musings on life and grief. We go for over-the-top action set pieces, a relentless barrage of knowing in-jokes and the most creatively smutty insults ever committed to film. D&W delivers that in spades, and yet, it still manages to pull the Deadpool trick and actually give us some deep musings on life and grief.

Aside from some little references and that sneaky post-credits scene at the end of The Marvels, this is the first time X-Men film universe has been incorporated into the MCU since Disney bought Fox. Whether this acquisition was what prompted Kevin Feige and his team to run with the Multiverse as the overarching theme for Phases Four to Six, or whether they just decided to go with the zeitgeist and this happily fell into their laps, I don't know. Either way, Deadpool was the one character who could actually make this work. He can sell a movie that breaks all the rules because he never followed any in the first place.

Wade is hopping to Earth-616 (or Earth-199999 if you like - perhaps we should just let the numbering slide) even before the Time Variance Authority scoop him up. Is this because of Cable's time travelling device? Is it a universe hopper as well? It doesn't matter - Wade wants to join the Avengers so off her goes to the MCU. It's just as questionable that his reality is Earth-10005, the official designation of the original X-Men film trilogy's world, given how much monekying around in time there's been. As he said himself in the first Deadpool film, "I can't keep these timelines straight." Then again, continuity was never the X-Men films' strong point.

It's an oddity in itself that Logan appears to be the future of Deadpool's world, in spite of the apparent clash in backstory. Logan is still set in our future, just - it takes place in 2029 - but it saw a reality in which mutants had been more or less wiped out by 2020. So perhaps we can chalk it up as a possible future, using Marvel's ever-flexible sliding timeline to square the difference. No matter. In any case, Wolverine's death seems to be rippling back down this timeline and causing it to denature. (I think. Like I said, plot coherence is not this film's strong point.)

There really was no need to bring back Hugh Jackman as Logan, though. He'd had enough of the character, he'd officially hung up his claws, and he'd given the hero the best send-off imaginable. Anything else would be diminishing returns. Even Feige was against it, to begin with, and he just brought back Robert Downey Jr. to play Doom (which I actually think could really work). And yet... it really is great to see him back in the role, the one he made his own way back in 2000. It's clear that this whole film is two mates having a laugh, playing their favourite characters for perhaps the last time, backed by a ludicrously high budget. 

Still, they do make the right decision here in not bringing back the original Logan, who is very much dead. Focusing on a different version of the character, who like Logan's Logan, had fucked up, but who never got the chance to atone, is what really makes it work. It allows the whole odd couple dynamic of Deadpool and Wolverine to work, as they both work through their pain and go on a joint journey to be better heroes. That, and the indescribably dense atmosphere of homoeroticism.

The guest cast really help make it work, too. We spend surprisingly little time with the Deadpool series regulars (and not a trace of Cable or Firefist, sadly). T. J. Miller's out, of course. However, Vanessa, Dopinder, Yukio, Negasonic, Blind Al, Colossus and, of course, Peter, are collectively the core of the whole story, as Wade fights to save his universe but, truly, to save them. In place of the regulars, though, we have a slew of new characters and surprise returns (most of which I managed to avoid having spoilered). Emma Corrin is remarkably good as Cassandra Nova, managing to retain the character's genuinely frightening charismain spite of being reduced significantly in age (and look, I never expected to find Cassandra Nova hot, that's a weird experience in itself). Matthew Macfadyen is a joy to watch as the obsequious Mr. Paradox of the TVA. Together, they make for a fine pair of opposing antagonists.

It's those returning characters who inevitably got everyone talking, though. It's unfair to call the cameos - there are plenty of those, but these are fully fledged roles. Seeding footage of Captain America so that Chris Evans can pull the rug out from under us when he shouts "Flame on!" is a lovely touch. Bringing back his version of Johnny Storm reminds me just how much I enjoyed those fun, silly films back in the day, and also just how good an actor Evans is. Nothing will make me miss the Daredevil and Elektra films, but Jennifer Garner holds her scenes together as the de facto leader of the outsiders. Dafne Keen is exceptionally good as the now adult Laura Kinney,  whose chemistry with Hugh Jackman remains beautiful to watch. It's great to see Aaron Stanford back as Pryo once more. The funniest inclusion, of course, is Channing Tatum, finally able to play Gambit after being unavailable for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a film so terrible it almost killed off any interest in Deadpool or Gambit on the big screen altogether. Still, that Gambit movie was officially going to be made any year now until Disney finally killed it for good the second they bought Fox. 

What's so lovely about this is that D&W is a celebration of the entire Fox-verse of Marvel movies, which, while they whimpered to an end, were truly spectacular in their day. If not for 2000's revolutionary X-Men, the MCU would simply not be here. Given that Marvel Studios themselves got to celebrate their story in Avengers: Endgame (only to struggle to retain the pace afterwards) and Sony's Spider-Man movies had their love letter in No Way Home, it's only right that Fox's version of Marvel gets its dues almost a quarter of a century after revitalising the genre.

Yet, the most surprising, and perhaps most welcome, appearance here is Wesley Snipes as Blade, his first appearance in the role since 2004 (unless you count that cameo in What We Do in the Shadows). In 1998, New Line's Blade truly kicked off the modern superhero movie era after Batman and Robin almost killed the genre the year before. You can chart a direct line from Blade to X-Men to Spider-Man to Iron Man to the MCU's dominance of cinema. It's also a wonderful reminder of just how weird Snipes's performance is in those films. The joke about there only being one Blade is nice, too, although what would have been really funny would have been a cameo by Sticky Fingaz.

I'm not going to run through every version of Wolverine or Deadpool that appears here, nor all the other mutant characters who cameo in the wastelands of the Void. There are plenty of other sites exhaustively cataloguing those. Does it get too much? Arguably. There's still something irresistably fun about throwing that many walking, talking callbacks and in-jokes at a screen and making them scrap. There's only so long that the Multiverse can last as the fashionable idea in superhero media before it gets stale. It's arguable that it's already past its best before date, and it's hard to see Marvel making more use of it without it becoming tiresome. This film, though, idiotic and over-the-top as it is, takes the concept and wrings it for everything it's worth, and somehow makes reviving the Wolverine worthwhile.

The only real problem is that I didn't get to go see it with everyone I wanted to. Not in this universe.