Deadpool & Wolverine Review

“Welcome to the MCU. You're joining at a bit of a low point.” – Deadpool

Yeah, you’re not wrong there, Deadpool.

To say that the once mighty Marvel Studios have hit the doldrums hard would be an understatement. I’ve mentioned this ad nauseum in past reviews - several times. It’s something that I feel strongly about. With the exception of the two Spider-Man films, the films have fallen short since the epic Avengers: Endgame. And it’s been five years since Endgame. The Columbia/Sony Studios output has been slightly even less satisfying. There have been some near misses where the films, with only a slight nudge in the right direction could’ve been great – but there’s just no excusing complete failures like The Eternals, Giant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, or Marvels. The superhero movie genre deserved better. So did the ticket buying fans.

Who could’ve guessed that the better we so richly were owed would come in the form of the Merc with the Mouth, Deadpool?

When it was announced that Disney had acquired 20th Century Fox who had produced the first two Deadpool movies, and intended to carry on the series, the usual howling outrage from toxic fandom melted down the internet. There is an incredible amount of anti-Disney negativity out there that I just don’t get. I hear it all the time; “Disney have ruined Marvel”, “Disney have ruined Star Wars”, the latest from the basement dwelling outraged manbabies is “Disney are ruining Doctor Who” (uh…no – the BBC did that already. And not for the first time either.)

People were frothing at the mouth that Deadpool would be softened down to the level of a Disney Princess, despite Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige insisting that it wouldn’t happen. Even star Ryan Reynolds insisted it wouldn’t happen. And guess what – it didn’t happen.

This past weekend has been a huge one for Marvel Studios. Their biggest in years. San Diego Comic Con, Hall H on Saturday saw the incredible announcement of more Avengers movies with the limp and lamentable portrayal by Jonathan Majors of Kang the Conqueror as the big bad of the coming story arc being replaced by Doctor Doom, played by Robert Downey Jnr. Bring THAT on – just take my damn money, I’ll book my seat right now. It’ll be a long two years to wait. From the announcements and the coverage I woke up to on Sunday morning (this is being written on Wednesday) I felt this was going to be the reset the Marvel movies sorely needed and it was about time.

I realised on Monday, sitting in my usual spot, carefully tested for the best acoustics, three rows up, centre screen, at Cineworld – I was mistaken. THIS was the reset. It’s happening NOW. If you’re even a casual Marvel movies fan, this is a crucial film to watch.

This is going to be a difficult review for me to write because I seriously enjoyed the hell out of this film, having gone to the screening avoiding all spoilers. I don’t want to spoil any of the surprises for anybody – so I’m not even putting a Spoiler Zone on this one, okay? I’m not going to enter into any specific plot spoilers. (But what I don’t say here – I’ll be discussing with Steve on the next episode of our podcast, Piercing the Veil which is scheduled to be recorded on August 10. Fair enough?)

We’ve been teased for a long time by the notion of a big-screen teaming of Deadpool & Wolverine, both Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are two of the most charismatic film stars in the industry today. Put them together in a film and the sum is more than the equal of the parts. Put them together in a film where they’re both cast in their most famous roles (I’ll just wait for the Les Miserables and Greatest Showman fans to regain their composure) and allow them to play those roles with no restraint – and you have pure cinema gold on a level we very rarely see these days.

Let me say this very slowly and very clearly – Disney have ruined nothing. Manbabies of the world, unclench your butts, untangle your underoos and breathe. If you enjoyed the first two Deadpools, you are going to LOVE this one. If however, you’re of a more sensitive nature and don’t like your super heroes to be sweary, ultra-violent, with a sense of humour and you didn’t enjoy the previous films, for the love of Stan Lee and all that’s holy – stay the hell away, you’ll need counselling...

This is Deadpool as we have seen him previously, pulling no punches and this is Wolverine as I wish we had seen him years ago. And the film’s inclusion of Wolverine/Logan does the Logan movie of 2017 absolutely no disservice. It doesn’t cheapen it or lessen its impact as one of the ultimate high points of super hero movies.

The film actually addresses ALL of my concerns about the Marvel movies of late, and is the course correction I and many others have yearned for. And those concerns are addressed by Deadpool in the usual fourth wall breaking style we’ve seen adopted by Ryan Reynolds in these movies, where he addresses the audience directly. An example is a mocking line to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine mimicking Jackman’s accent; “There's nothing that'll bring me back to life faster than a big bag of Marvel cash.”

The interaction between the characters is just awesome, but also insanely violent. They have a quarrelsome, confrontational relationship which breaks out into the violence we’ve come to expect, on a level that would’ve gotten this film banned forty years ago, but these days gets a 15 certificate. Who’d have thought that genital stabbing with Adamantium claws would be acceptable – and produced by the House of Mouse? The times have indeed changed.

There are SO many cameos, your head will be spinning. Literally, you’ll have no idea what stunning surprise is coming next – and they all add not only to the film, but almost serves the same purpose as I guess The Flash movie did last year, and I enjoyed the hell out that one too. Broadly, they’re quite similar.

High point for me was finally, FINALLY seeing Hugh Jackman in the proper yellow Wolverine gear, I had long given up on this level of comic book accuracy and was kind of dreading an announcement that Wolverine would be recast for a new X-Men series of films.

No way this epic gets less than a 10 rating. No way. And this is certainly going on my top ten list at the end of the year.

Rob Rating = 10