Deadpool & Wolverine (Levy, 2024)

Written by Tom Augustine.

I’ve made no secret of the end of my love affair with the Marvel machine. In my younger years, I was an advocate – even in the hostile landscape of film school, I defended the blockbusters wholeheartedly. This passion began to wane around the time of Avengers: Endgame (though my true last straw with nerd-dom was probably the deeply cowardly Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker). There was a necessary putting aside of childish things, which the Marvel films and, more specifically, their fanbase, constantly seem intent on reminding us they are. Around the same time, Martin Scorsese and other great filmmakers took the MCU to task for their detrimental (and demonstrable) impact on the film industry at large – the infantilisation, the commercialisation, the training of audiences to value nostalgia over artistry that the superhero films came to represent. It’s safe to say the series’ glory days are behind them – ‘You’re coming in at a low-point’, as Deadpool quips in their latest offering, Deadpool & Wolverine. Ironically, as Disney tightened its grip around the Hollywood system with their acquisition of the X-Men and the Fantastic Four and so on, the widespread interest began ever-so-slightly to wane (not entirely though – Deadpool is on track to a $200 million-plus opening this weekend). It has actually been a while since we’ve seen a Marvel joint on the big-screen – the last was the decidedly unloved The Marvels, making Deadpool the only offering from the supe studio this year – and I decided that no matter my distaste for the superhero sausage machine, and Deadpool in particular, I’d approach this with an open mind. 

This means taking as a given that Deadpool & Wolverine would be juvenile, targeted at teenage boys. There’d likely be gratuitous cameos, going all in on the model of Spiderman: No Way Home which traded nuance for nostalgia bait. It would be extremely meta, turning its focus to the output of 20th Century Fox, one-time owners of the X-Men movies, among others, only to be swallowed whole by the Disney juggernaut. Would the significance of the X-Men, or, say, Elektra or Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer be of interest to the teen audiences this film seems designed to please? Doubtful – but then, Disney and Marvel have been so singularly hell-bent on squeezing every drop out of the IP that they own, to great success, that it likely won’t matter, particularly as affection for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has only grown since his entirely solid send-off Logan. That film, a solemn, emotional farewell to a wonderful, iconic performance that came to define the superhero cinema of the 2000s and early 2010s, was a widely recognised finale that landed Wolvie’s story in fitting, elegiac fashion. So, naturally, Ryan Reynolds’ impish goblin of a character simply must desecrate its legacy. 

Dredging Hugh Jackman’s beloved superhero back from the dead (and the entirely fitting farewell of Logan), the unlikely Deadpool mega-franchise officially enters the Marvel Cinematic Universe with this cloying, cameo-stuffed, decidedly atonal mishmash entirely unsure of its own identity. In spite of Jackman’s dedication to the bit, this team-up only briefly flickers to life, representing yet another false start for the next era of the Marvel movie.

This is all to say that Deadpool & Wolverine is not a very good film, which is sure to be unsurprising to the non-Marvel fans out there, and all-but-ignored by the powers-that-be that can be assured of a billion dollar gross for their film which, with its low-effort attempts at ‘topical’ jokes likely has a Best Before date shorter than some bottles of milk. It had been a minute since I’d been let down by yet another piece of Marvel ‘content’, and it seems that the culture has moved on so profoundly since Endgame, that it was almost quaint to see the Marvel logo flicker to life once again. It felt, dare I say, old-fashioned. Like the earlier, deeply terrible Deadpool films, Deadpool & Wolverine is desperate to appear cool, clever, above-it-all, all the post-ironic cornerstones that we’ve been assured make quality blockbuster cinema in the 2020s. In this one, Deadpool once again wants to prove himself as a hero, and is beckoned into the labyrinthine Marvel Cinematic Universe system when it is revealed that he alone has been chosen to leave his ‘timeline’, which has been sanctioned for destruction by a rogue wing of the TVA (who are like a bureau that manages time, or something) since the death of their ‘anchor character’, the Wolverine who died in Logan. Deadpool, loath to abandon his friends (including the always welcome Rob Delaney) and ex-girlfriend (an under-utilised Morena Baccarin), goes universe-hopping in the hopes of recruiting a Wolverine to replace the one his timeline lost. It’s all very over-complicated, but also quite silly and unwieldy, and Deadpool’s arrival at the TVA is just the first warning sign that what we are going to witness will be a sloppy, badly-edited mess. 

It’s not that Deadpool & Wolverine is the nadir of the series – other offerings have been sloppy, over-edited and tonally all over the show, after all – but that so much seemingly lies in the balance for the future of Marvel that an unheeded level of pressure lies on the film to be a game-changer. The general affability of Deadpool & Wolverine, particularly in its later stretches, ensures that we keep watching, even if what we’re watching is profoundly forgettable. There’s inherent pleasure in seeing Hugh Jackman committing whole-heartedly to the schtick, as well. He’s been literally teleported in from another film (series, even), and the pathos of the character, fully rendered by Jackman, who hasn’t lost a step, is truly unearned by the film, which is a slackly directed, fawning shambles. It feels wrong to see Jackman stoop to this level, particularly post-Logan, but he holds your attention so capably that there’s undeniable pleasure in seeing him get slashing again. No, Deadpool & Wolverine is not the worst the MCU has to offer, but there’s a resounding feeling of ‘that’s it?’ that lingers as the credits roll (supplemented by behind-the-scenes footage of 20th Century Fox superhero films, the unexpected highlight of the entire film). The endless, nauseating fan-service of the late-era Marvel system is designed around producing sugar-highs, largely through the resurrection of stars who once played Marvel characters. The problem with this method is that once an audience knows that practically anything is possible, that sugar high shorts out incredibly quickly. It was a pleasure to see some of the familiar faces of the 20th Century Fox stable briefly appear (particularly co-star of Logan, Dafne Keen’s X-23, who I’d much rather see a film about), but it’s equally remarkable how quickly that glow fades. 

Deadpool & Wolverine is directed by Shawn Levy, the vision behind bland family vehicles like Cheaper by the Dozen and Night at the Museum, as well as strong contender for worst film of the ‘20s, the contemptible Free Guy. In spite of being the recent recipient of Toronto Film Festival’s inaugural Norman Jewison award, placing him in the company of the man who directed In The Heat of the Night and Moonstruck, his direction has never been anything other than utterly rote, making him the perfect helmsman for this film that features virtually no images of interest, nor storytelling turns that aren’t completely predictable. It’s shocking, though, just how badly Levy handles the film’s tone, that tries to be cheekily nasty, overpoweringly sweet and mournful at different moments, often in the same scene. A minor highlight of the film, in which Deadpool and Wolverine fight for an entire day within the confines of an old Honda minivan, features a raw, furious monologue from Jackman that is the most startling thing in the film, as it is entirely unassisted by the material around it. Sadly, his scene partner is Ryan Reynolds, a once-promising performer who has long-since sunk into self-parody and image control, even before he puts on the lycra mask. Even at its best, Deadpool & Wolverine has no idea what it is meant to be, an uneven position that proves all too fragile to shoulder the expectations of the future of this flailing Cinematic Universe. At the very least, there’s a nice little supporting role for Succession’s Matthew McFadyen, who is always welcome. It’s important to find comfort in the little things, after all.

Deadpool & Wolverine is in cinemas now.

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