Superhero films didn’t start with Robert Downey Jr. declaring “I am Iron Man” — there were blockbuster hits, huge swing-and-a-miss failures, and pockets of comic-book cinematic universes way before the MCU came along. The history of Marvel at the movies is long, complicated, and a virtual multiverse of copyright ownerships and dodgy licensing deals, all competing against each other and jockeying for position until the One True I.P. God — some call him “Kevin” — had enough divine Disney clout to gather everything under one corporate umbrella. The gentlemen’s agreement between Marvel Studios and Sony regarding Spider-Man has been mutually beneficial for both outfits. More importantly, it’s a boon for fans who were dying to see the Webslinger mix it up with MCU MVPs. Ever since the House of M(ouse) absorbed 20th Century Fox, who got in on the superhero-movie game early, those same die-hards have been salivating over the idea that the Avengers, et al. would trade quips and haymakers with the mutants on the other side intellectual property tracks.
Ryan Reynolds knows this. And Deadpool, the Marvel character he’s played in three films and two different franchises, is happy to tell you, the viewer, that he knows that Ryan Reynolds knows this, because God forbid this snarky fan-favorite leaves the fourth wall unshattered for five seconds. In the comics, the X-Men–adjacent smart-ass and alter ego of professional assassin Wade Wilson was known for being horribly disfigured, handy with weapons, impossible to kill, and even more impossible to shut up. He had an incredible ability to heal quickly, but his real superpower was extreme irreverence — for the good guys, the bad guys, the people writing and drawing his comic-book stories, the entire medium itself. The nickname “the merc with the mouth” was well-earned.
Deadpool was already megapopular among X-philes by the time Reynolds established a revamped screen version with a 2016 solo movie (the less said about the character’s trial run in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the better). It was a perfect fit of self-mocking actor, self-aware comic-book cult figure, and a genre close to verging on self-parody. Audiences were either fluent in superhero movies, fatigued by their ubiquity or some combo of both. The Deadpool films were able to deliver the usual blockbuster rush while also commenting about how predictable and ridiculous these multiplex monoliths can be. They didn’t insult viewers’ intelligence but could still continue to coddle them. Reynolds indulged in his irony-soaked persona that was quickly becoming his brand. The studio had a license to sell T-shirts and print money. It was all over but the crossover. That, and pairing him with another equally beloved antihero.
Yes, Deadpool & Wolverine introduces both of these former outsider I.P.s into the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe, signaling a bold new step towards total superhero-property synergy. It’s still filled with all the ultraviolence, shock-jock humor, and nihilism you’d expect from Reynolds’ sidebar franchise, but now the merc with the mouth can legally name-drop Thor and Kevin Feige in his asides. And it resurrects Hugh Jackman’s Logan, who you may know as the Wolverine, for one final (?) round of what Deadpool refers to as “the fun, the chaos, the residuals.” Always the alpha mutant in the X-Men movies, this scrapper with the retractable claws pushed the envelope of superhero comics in the Eighties and became the poster boy for masculine superhero-movie moodiness in the early 2000s. Jackman retired the character after 2017’s Logan, still the high-water mark for superhero movies that aspire to be more than the sum of their zaps and pows. But thanks to the multiverse, along with what the actor has referred to as unfinished business and what we can assume is a sweet back-end deal, the mutant and the man who played him have returned. You can already hear fanboys shrieking in ecstasy before falling onto their fainting couches.
To wit: Wolverine is still nothing more than a bag of admantium-covered bones, which presents a slight hurdle since Deadpool needs this X-man alive. Once upon a time, Wilson auditioned to get into the Avengers. Never mind which peripheral MCU stalwart interviewed him; he didn’t get the gig. Six years later, Wilson has hung up his alter ego’s costume and sells cars for a living. Then the a bureaucrat from the TVA — that’s the Time Variance Authority, you know, from the Loki TV series — named Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) summons Wade. They’re tying up some loose ends, and because his world’s “anchor being” Logan sacrificed himself, they’re pulling the plug on this particular reality. Enough is enough. “The multiverse does not need a babysitter,” he says. “It needs a mercy killer.”
But hey, if Wilson wants to get back into the Deadpool outfit and insult and/or kill people in “the Sacred Timeline,” a.k.a. Earth-616, a.k.a. the Feigeverse, come on down! He loves the idea of finally getting to pal around with the Avengers, but can’t just leave his friends and loved ones to perish. Armed with a device that allows him to jump from world to world, he sets out to find a Logan — any Logan — who’s still alive and kicking. He finally settles on one that bears a remarkable resemblance to the one we meet at the beginning of X-Men (2000), only more drunk and depressed. This version is apparently the “worst Logan,” but this should keep Deadpool’s timeline from being snuffed out. Except Paradox still plans to proceed in wiping the slate clean, and sends both heroes to “the trash heap” — a no-man’s-land where, judging from the half-buried 20th Century Fox logo in the sand, is where I.P. dreams and failed franchises go to die.
By this point, we’ve already watched Deadpool slaughter folks while dancing to N’Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye” — the kitschy needle-drops are strong in this one — and witnessed Reynolds do his “ain’t I a stinker?!” act ad nauseam. A montage of alt-Wolvies gives you a capsule history of a character whose real-world brand recognition is matched only by Batman and Spider-Man, while references to things like “the John Byrne era” get dropped for the real heads. Deadpool isn’t just a chance for Marvel to make fun of itself or for Reynolds to lob spitballs at an industry he’s very much part of; the character is really the id of superhero movies as a whole, poking relentlessly at clichés and rolling its eyes at dark revisionism that turned antiheroes like Wolverine into adolescent idols. That the merc does all of this in the voice of Van Wilder and within an otherwise typical superhero movie is impressive, but not as impressive as the franchise’s creators think. It’s prefab subversion.
Once Deadpool & Wolverine enters the trash-heap zone, however, it embraces the already-meta aspects of the series to an absurd degree and never looks back. Reynolds, director Shawn Levy and their cowriters Rhett Reese, Zeb Wells, and Paul Wernick have designed this team-up as both an R-rated buddy comedy and a road movie, with the title characters occasionally stopping to slash, stab, shoot and beat the snot out of each other. But this is really just the most elaborate superhero-movie in-joke ever conceived, so dedicated to turning its in-house island of misfit toys into an excuse for footnoted sight gags and surprise cameos — some you know, others we won’t spoil — that it starts to tunnel up its own asshole. (Given how anal-fixated Deadpool is, we assume he’d appreciate the phrasing.) Even Emma Corrin’s resident supervillain exists in relation to previously established world-building. The whole thing depends on a deep-cut knowledge not just of superhero movies, but the culture they have spawned and serviced. You either get crazy excited that a decades-old, killed-in-development project gets a major shoutout here or you don’t get it all.
Other multiverse-based films like Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Flash have taken advantage of the anything-goes mindset by mixing and matching past and present incarnations of characters, timelines, reboots and resets. D&W doubles down on this idea in a way that strips away everything but trivia answers and nostalgia. Given that Levy and Reynolds also made Free Guy (2021), a similarly IP-obsessed comedy that mistook brand recognition for actual creativity, this should not be a surprise. It is, however, a disappointment, and no amount of late-act set pieces or sentimentality around seeing Jackman rock the scowl and claws again can wash away the sensation that you’ve been cheated. The Deadpool movies were once a much-needed counterpoint to all those dead-serious MCU sagas. This one still acts like the foul-mouthed class clown in the back row, but now it’s just white noise dressed in red, yellow and black.
Speaking of sentimentality: There is a post-credits scene, per usual, but while the list of cast and crew rolls, you also get a montage of outtakes from Fox’s superhero output, ranging from the very first X-Men movie to those failed Fantastic Four entries. It’s set to Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” for maximum wistfulness, and after two hours of snark and bloody slapstick and edgelord punch lines about pegging and pedophile scoutmasters, the movie wants you to revel in all the feels. It’s cheap, but also revealing. We’ve already seen one organization try to snuff out a timeline and fail. Watch that long-goodbye eulogy to Fox’s former superhero stable as it gets absorbed into a larger one, and you’ll witness another organization do the same thing and succeed.
Michaela Coel in ‘The Christophers.’Claudette Barius/NEON
