Review: 'Deadpool & Wolverine' gleefully, mercilessly and bloodily spoofs the unified theory of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Where does Deadpool, Marvel’s foul-mouthed bad boy mercenary, fit in the stridently PG-13 Marvel Cinematic Universe? Based on his first movie under the Marvel Studios (aka Disney) banner, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” anywhere he bleeping wants to.
Star/producer/co-writer Ryan Reynolds — part of a five-member writing crew that includes director Shawn Levy — doesn’t bring Deadpool in line with the MCU’s sensibilities so much as drags comic-book lore into his sandbox of bloody carnage, scatological humor and elbow-in-the-ribs callbacks. The nerds will love it, and Deadpool even says as much the first time the two title anti-heroes start fighting each other.
Writing a review of how Levy, Reynolds and company do that will be tricky — particularly since Marvel Studios asked critics in advance to “refrain from revealing spoilers, cameos, character developments and detailed story points in your coverage, including on social media.” So here goes, as spoiler-free as I can make it and still give you a sense of the movie’s flavor:
The opening credits show Deadpool, aka Wade Wilson, in a forest dispatching a large contingent of helmeted stormtrooper types in the bloodiest ways possible. We notice that these shock troops wear the logo of the TVA, the Time Variant Authority — an organization introduced in the “Loki” TV series, which is supposed to keep the timelines of all the universes from bumping into each other.
As fans of the last Deadpool movie, 2018’s “Deadpool 2,” will remember, Deadpool aka Wade Wilson ended the movie with a time device in his possession, playing fast and loose with several timelines. According to a TVA official called Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), that’s not why the TVA is interested in Deadpool. Mr. Paradox wants to eliminate a lot of timelines, including the one where our Deadpool lives, because it’s missing something: Wolverine, who died at the end of 2017’s “Logan.”
Many movie lovers will argue, correctly, that “Logan” gave Hugh Jackman, who by then had played the adamantium-clawed fighter for 17 years, the dignified ending he and the character deserved. It’s fascinating to watch Levy and Reynolds — with Jackman’s willing assistance — mess with that legacy, and do so with the rough-and-tumble humor of the “Deadpool” franchise. And, mostly, it works, because it takes Logan/Wolverine back to how we remember him in the early going: A jaded, angry brawler who seems uninterested in making himself be anything more.
That version of Wolverine, it turns out, matches the Deadpool we find her almost too perfectly. After a brief attempt at joining a superhero team — which sets up both the first significant cameo and the first joke about cameos in a Marvel movie — a dejected Wade tries for a normal life, like his buddy Peter (Rob Delaney, returning from “Deadpool 2”), before the TVA enters the picture.
Levy is a comfortable choice as director, having worked with Reynolds on “Free Guy” and “The Adam Project,” and with Jackman on “Real Steel.” Here he leans into the chaos, knowing that he can throw pretty much anything up on the screen and people will laugh at Reynolds’ antics and the on-the-nose needle drops for every major action sequence.
Having Deadpool meet up with Wolverine isn’t that unusual, though, considering that the character, at least as long as Reynolds has played him, has been in the X-Men orbit. He met two of them, the mighty metallic Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) and the sullen Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), in the first two movies, and they show up again here.
What’s more fun — and, it turns out, the prime reason “Deadpool & Wolverine” exists — is how the movie not only references the MCU and crosses over into “X-Men” territory, but dredges up characters from the pre-MCU Marvel movie roster that some viewers may have forgotten ever happened. I’d tell you more, but Disney asked so politely for me to not divulge too much.
It says everything about Reynolds’ clout that “Deadpool & Wolverine” can be such a reference-heavy valentine to the hardcore Marvel movie fans at the same moment Marvel Studios poohbah Kevin Feige has been saying he wants the MCU films to stand on their own and not refer back so much to other movies (and now TV shows). Reynolds knows the secret sauce is to deliver the jokes fast and the blood in buckets, and it still works.
——
‘Deadpool & Wolverine’
★★★1/2
Opens Friday, July 26, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong bloody violence and language throughout, gore and sexual references. Running time: 127 minutes.