Reviews

After suffering a post-Endgame slump, Marvel are hoping to reverse their fortunes with their only 2024 movie, Deadpool & Wolverine.

After being recruited by Mr Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) from the Time Variance Authority (TVA) for a mission, Wade Wilson aka Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) jumps around multiverses and timelines to find the right version of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman).

When he doesn’t do exactly what he’s told (classic Deadpool), they both get banished to The Void, a wasteland ruled by Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin).

Deadpool & Wolverine is filled with many brilliant moments, funny jokes, jaw-dropping cameos and extremely violent action setpieces, but the story itself is incredibly weak. Director Shawn Levy and co. have concocted a flimsy narrative that simply connects one cool moment to another, and while these sequences are mostly great, you can’t help feel a little short-changed afterwards.

The two leads jump around timelines and multiverses a lot and it’s hard to keep up with what’s going on, let alone figure out if it all makes sense (it probably doesn’t). But thankfully, most of its parts are so enjoyable that you don’t examine the whole too closely.

This is Deadpool’s third movie so you should know what you’re getting by now – knowing winks to the audience, inappropriate jokes, gory deaths and self-aware gags. As in previous movies, this shtick does becoming annoying after a while; Reynolds does too much and could have taken it down a notch.

Thankfully, we have Wolverine to bring us balance and keep Deadpool in check. The character is played as straight and serious as ever and this incompatibility works well for a buddy action-comedy. Reynolds and Jackman’s real-life friendship shines through and the Australian actor delivers an impressively emotional performance.

Deadpool and X-Men used to be properties of 20th Century Fox but have now been welcomed into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) following Disney’s acquisition of the aforementioned studio. This film is essentially a homage to the Fox-era superhero movies and there are many meta jokes about the merger, Marvel’s recent slump and characters that never to got fulfil their potential.

There are cameos that will make more sense if you’ve seen these films, but they work regardless. There are also a lot of very niche jokes that will only resonate if you have knowledge of Reynolds and Jackman’s personal lives and filmography (among other specific references) but the quip ratio is so high that something will make you laugh. There is a joke for everyone here.

Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t the flawless masterpiece Marvel were hoping for but there are enough entertaining moments that fans will still have a lot of fun.

In cinemas from Thursday 25th July.

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