DISCLAIMER: This review of Deadpool & Wolverine contains full-on spoilers so if you have not seen the film yet and wish to not be spoiled, we advise you to come back after you have seen the movie. This is the first and final warning!
“I think there is such a thing as superhero fatigue. I think it doesn’t have anything to do with superheroes. It has to do with the kind of stories that get to be told, and if you lose your eye on the ball, which is character.“ – James Gunn, Rolling Stone, April 2023
The last few years have been some of the most interesting ones for superhero and comic book adaptations in Hollywood, especially on the big screen. As we began the 2020s, it has definitely been a challenge for comic book properties in live-action, causing the discussion of whether or not superhero fatigue is a thing. In the case of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has been focusing on The Multiverse Saga that is not only supposed to guide established heroes to fill the void that Iron Man and Captain America left after Avengers: Endgame but also pave a new dawn of heroism with fresh blood joining the franchise. With the leadership at Disney having had big shifts, the priority was initially quantity over quality before flipping it the other way around, and rightfully so.
2023 was a struggling year for Marvel Studios for most of their films for various reasons, from Hollywood strikes that prevented actors and writers from promoting their work to many creative shake-ups that have now affected the larger plan at hand. Outside of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, last year was just not Marvel Studios’ year on the big screen. While they focus on emphasizing quality over quantity, it has taken effect in 2024 as there are more MCU TV shows coming out than there are films. However, even though there is only one MCU movie outing for 2024, it is the one film that has given Marvel Studios a win in a very long time: Deadpool & Wolverine.
While Marvel Studios plans to reboot the X-Men property for the MCU, the Deadpool franchise is the one carrying over from the Marvel-FOX era, nearly six years after Deadpool 2. While Deadpool 2 wasn’t exactly the ideal sequel – to the point where I had forgotten the film even happened – the return of Ryan Reynolds as the Merc with the Mouth was worth the wait. Serving as not being part of the Marvel Studios machine but also the first R-rated film for them has opened a lot of doors for the MCU while also finishing Reynolds’ trilogy.
Directed by Shawn Levy, based on a screenplay by him, Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Zeb Wells, Deadpool & Wolverine chronicles Wade’s exploration of the multiverse after discovering that his world is about to come to an end due to the loss of its anchor being. When the TVA becomes an obstacle in his thorn, Deadpool looks for a Wolverine variant in hopes of saving his world, but that team-up is easier said than done.
Deadpool & Wolverine: The Reuniting Dynamic
Wade didn’t exactly get the best ending in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but if there is one thing to celebrate about that movie, it is the never-ending-chemistry between Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. With the idea of giving us a new Wolverine variant, the doors were wide open for all sorts of possibilities, and the creative team did not disappoint. Despite this being a different Logan with a very tragic background in his world, Jackman quickly made you fall in love with this new iteration. It is as if he never left, but he also came back with something new to the table, which is one of the main drives of Deadpool & Wolverine in general.
Through their banter, wit, and chemistry, Deadpool & Wolverine balanced the amount of comedy, but also actual development between the two of them. In a very different MCU era, this could have become just two hours of Logan and Wade goofing off 100%, with little stakes and risks. For the amount of times they are bickering and fighting each other, there is just as much great bonding and exploration and growth by each other. Reynolds and Jackman are such great actors that it is hard to imagine anyone being against the idea of just seeing a series of films with them together, both in and out of the MCU.
With Deadpool & Wolverine having promised a lot of action, it did not disappoint one bit, and this is a major credit to the amount of dedication put into practical sets and making it feel like an actual cinematic experience and not a video game. While there are a ton of great action moments in this film, nothing is going to beat Logan (while putting on his mask for the FIRST TIME!!!) and Wade taking on the Deadpool Corps in a complete one-shot with no cuts. This felt like watching a comic book come to life, and that is why we want to see these stories on the screen. By also having an R-rating, it was solid to see Wolverine and Deadpool getting to have action sequences that feel authentic to their characters.
Deadpool & Wolverine gave the world the team-up that we all deserved and left the door open for more. Even though they are still living in their universe, it feels safe to say that we will see them sooner rather than later.
Cassandra Nova & Mr. Paradox
Villains in the MCU are a hit or miss for the franchise, and when it comes to The Multiverse Saga, that concept still applies. Luckily, the villains of Deadpool & Wolverine were not a letdown, especially with the leading antagonist.
Emma Corrin makes an absolutely remarkable Cassandra Nova, Charles Xavier’s lost sibling who, for many reasons, represents what Professor X could have become if he faced the fate that his lost twin did. Cassandra has all of the charisma of her brother while also having a twisted sense and view of reality because of the lack of love and family in her life. While Cassandra seems, for a minute there, almost on a path of redemption, Deadpool & Wolverine’s third act does see Corrin’s villainous character give in to the darkness.
However, what makes Cassandra stand out is that the creative team went to great lengths to develop why it was so easy for her to give in at the end. You don’t have to agree with her choices of almost destroying Earth-10005 (and thus other realities too,) but you absolutely understand why Cassandra wanted to, as opposed to other MCU films where one-dimensional villains simply wanted to either rule or destroy the world because of [insert] reasons. Despite her fate at the end, hopefully there will be another Cassandra variant down the line, played by Corrin, as their acting and performance were massively appreciated.
Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Paradox was someone I didn’t know what to expect from, but surprisingly, he became another standout character in Deadpool & Wolverine. With the TVA playing a major factor in this story, the chaotic energy that came with Mr. Paradox was some of the funnier bits of Deadpool & Wolverine. While Corrin had stronger material that added to the dramatic stakes, Macfadyen was at least a solid baddie that would make you crack a smile here and there. Will he ever be back in the MCU? Probably not, but we wouldn’t mind another appearance.
Deadpool & Wolverine, Just Like Spider-Man: No Way Home, Understood The Multiverse Saga Assignment
Many have commented that the multiverse concept is starting to lose its touch, but Deadpool & Wolverine becomes the second MCU movie to prove that wrong while also showing other films in The Multiverse Saga what they should have done. One can argue that Marvel Studios wanted to tap into the multiverse idea partially because of how well it was doing over for DC/WB, specifically with the Arrowverse shows, which were able to lean into legacies but also create new investments through their stories. When a 5-part crossover event manages to use Crisis on Infinite Earths to celebrate DC’s TV and film history for its past, present, and future, it’s hard to imagine Marvel Studios not looking over at the other side, going, “Hey…why don’t we try that?”
However, the fundamental problem with The Multiverse Saga is that some of their stories, especially when relying on realities with characters that fans haven’t gotten a lot of investment in, is that Marvel Studios didn’t turn as much to the past Marvel franchises that came before the MCU. Let’s look at Spider-Man: No Way Home and compare it to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness while also reflecting on how Deadpool & Wolverine leans into the former and not the latter: Tom Holland, who plays Spider-Man, arguably Marvel’s most famous superhero, is part of a legacy where five other films came before his series of movies, almost worth two decades when Spider-Man: No Way Home came out. Having Alfred Molina, Willem Dafoe, and Jamie Fox come back as Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, and Electro, there is a legacy there to tap into, alongside Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s respective Spider-Men. Spider-Man: No Way Home succeeded as not a proper finale to Holland’s trilogy but a celebration of three generations of franchises with three different generations of audiences.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness may have had a cameo from Sir Patrick Stewart’s Professor X and a brief appearance by John Krasinski after the Internet demanded Marvel to cast him as Reed Richards, but they leaned much more into alternative realities for the sake of alternative realities, expecting it to be something that resonates with people. But Doctor Strange is not on Spider-Man’s level where 1) other actors have played him in previous franchises and 2) he has nowhere near the same following as the web-crawler. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is just about how crazy the multiverse can be with very little substance.
Deadpool & Wolverine benefit from the multiverse concept because it has a legacy that it could greatly tap into. As someone who grew up with the FOX-Marvel movies as the millennial that I am, there are more emotional connections to enjoy, whether that is Chris Evans (!) as Johnny Storm, Wesley Snipes as Blade, or Jennifer Garner as Elektra because these Marvel films came at a time where there was no interconnected superhero movie universe. Deadpool & Wolverine is very much a love letter to the FOX-Marvel era, as rocky as the later years were, that played a crucial role in making something like the MCU even become a possibility. Even something like seeing Channing Tatum finally get to be Gambit is for all of us who followed the development hell that was his solo movie that never got to happen.
To take it a step further, everything that Deadpool & Wolverine did right in this regard is what The Flash movie did wrong. The Flash didn’t know what it wanted to be as it felt like a semi-reintroduction of Michael Keaton’s Batman and less like a movie about Barry Allen. It also doesn’t help that the film felt like it was made for the creative team and barely the audience. More people are going to resonate more with someone like Evans’ Human Torch as opposed to Keaton’s Batman, whose version hasn’t been seen since 1992’s Batman Returns.
How many would have actually understood the reference to Nicolas Cage’s Superman appearance for a canceled film that had barely any following in the 1990s when the Internet wasn’t what it was now when Tatum’s Gambit film was constantly in the news? Don’t get me wrong, the accent was ridiculous – even though you can tell he was trying the best he could – but there is more reason to be excited for him to finally get his Gambit moment as opposed to seeing any legacy homage that The Flash was trying to do. In fact, that was the one joke I thought would make its way into Deadpool & Wolverine, but hey…maybe in Deadpool 4?
Cameos are also something that can be a hit or miss, and The Flash showed how to do it wrong as it had the perfect legacy to tap into (a.k.a. Grant Gustin and John Wesley Shipp’s Flashes) as I still don’t know what is worse: the CGI model of Christopher Reeve’s Superman or having a Jay Garrick cameo played by an editor when they literally had Shipp right there. Deadpool & Wolverine don’t fumble the cameo game as they picked players who they knew would get a good response from the audience. It never got to a point where you were exhausted by how many cameos there were.
The Evolution Of Deadpool
James Gunn said in 2023, “If you don’t have a story at the base of it, just watching things bash each other, no matter how clever those bashing moments are, no matter how clever the designs and the VFX are, it just gets fatiguing, and I think that’s very, very real.” Even though Deadpool & Wolverine was already in the works by the time he said this, it felt like this Phase 5 movie agreed with this sentiment very much so because while this is another multiverse story: there is something new to it.
Looking aside from his always-running mouth, I was surprised by the great emotional development of Wade, who is on a journey to find his place in the world. By the time we get to the end, where he understands what Happy is trying to say about the meaning of being an Avenger, you believe it because, in a weird way, Deadpool & Wolverine is a coming-of-age story for Wade, for lack of better terms. Let’s be clear here: Deadpool is still the chaotic mercenary that we all know and love, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have a side that actually wants to do more with his life and for others, in his own hilarious way.
Deadpool & Wolverine Thoughts & Observations:
- Despite Fantastic Four (Earth-121698), Blade (Earth-26320), and Daredevil/Elektra (Earth-701306) having their (apparently confirmed?) Earth-designations, why couldn’t they have been established to have been from Earth-10005 this entire time? If the so-called “Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe” isn’t actually meant to be taken as canon by Marvel Studios, I’m making it my head-canon that all the Fox-Marvel characters (minus 2015’s Fantastic Four because of obvious reasons) are from the same Earth.
- Marvel Studios, you know you have to give us more of Blake Lively as Lady Deadpool after this movie, right?
- The Deadpool & Wolverine soundtrack slaps on every level and is a must-listen-to anytime you can through Spotify.
- Even though they had it “spoiled” through almost any toy/merchandise marketing, bless Marvel Studios for not revealing Jackman in the Wolverine cowl through any of the trailers.
- Dafne Keen is already in the Disney family, so can we just have her as our main Laura/X-23 for the X-Men reboot?
- Someone, please let us know in the comments which Hulk that was supposed to be.
- After the terrible treatment that Henry Cavill was given in 2022 by Warner Bros. with the whole Superman situation, whoever it was that suggested putting in that little jab at them during Cavill’s Wolverine cameo, we stan you.
- Yeah, we get that the Blade reboot is supposed to be still “happening,” but Snipes’ gag about being the only Blade, was perhaps the most timely Marvel Studios joke of all time.
- Even though I’m thrilled they survived, how many out there were also convinced that Deadpool & Wolverine would end with those characters moving over to Earth-616?
VERDICT: Deadpool & Wolverine is the type of film that proves that the superhero movie genre hasn’t and won’t die anytime soon. Even though it makes fun of the multiverse genre, Deadpool & Wolverine uses the multiverse correctly by tapping into a legacy that resonates with you. Comic book adventures are meant to be used for escapism, where you get to both cheer and cry while tapping into these fantastic fictional worlds, and that is exactly what Deadpool & Wolverine delivers.
Deadpool & Wolverine is now playing in theaters.