‘Deadpool and Wolverine’ is anything but what we’ve been customed to seeing in the MCU so far, for better and for worse. A not all there plot and more multiverse exposition than anyone would ever care to here slow the movie down, but the humor and most importantly the heart of the film more than make up for the shortcomings along the way.

Going to get it out there now, spoilers the rest of the way so if you don’t want to hear anything, go check the movie out! It’s good fun and hilarious, carried by the performances of Reynolds and Jackman. Deadpool has never shied away from mocking us, the MCU, DCU, and any other comic entity that has existed in the past 25 years. With the Disney acquisition of Fox merging the “universes” of Deadpool and the X-Men with the MCU was the plan, but to get there they needed a vessel, and Deadpool was absolutely the best choice to carry it there.

The film opens with another great opening credit sequence to *NSYNC’s “Bye, Bye, Bye” and that song pretty much sets the tone from the beginning, this movie isn’t a welcome to the MCU, it’s a goodbye to the Fox films that have been made over the past 25 years. After that the movie takes a little bit to fully get going as Succession star Matthew Macfayden plays Mr. Paradox a conniving little shit that explains to Deadpool that his world is going to die since his core character is dead, one of many references to digging up Jackman after his fantastic ending in 2017’s Logan. After a little montage of digging around trying to find his new Wolverine to save his universe, Wade comes across our Wolverine for the film and both are sent to the void to basically fade away and be removed from reality forever.

People that came into this movie expecting to see the MCU built in will leave solely disappointed and the first major cameo sends the message that this is more about the past and respecting the ‘dead’ than moving into a new version of these characters. Chris Evans pops on the screen first with Jackman and Reynolds when they enter the void, but he doesn’t hold a shield to his arm to become Captain America, he says “flame on” and becomes the Human Torch, representing his role as Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four films. The humor with all the cameos are fantastic, especially if you know the context. Channing Tatum’s Gambit is a great dig at the fact that the movie in development hell never even got off the ground, but he did finally get the time to play the character, and have a terrible accent while doing it. Jennifer Garner show up as Elektra and while she does a good job, definitely has the least to do of the superhero cameos. X-23 also returns to inspire Logan to become the Wolverine she knew and saved her life, and while effective doesn’t add much more to the film besides that. My personal favorite cameo and maybe the one that got the biggest pop at my screening was Wesley Snipes as motherfucking BLADE, hilarious on multiple fronts as their have been rumors for years than Snipes and Reynolds are not exactly buddy buddy. Reynolds even makes a dig about it as Blade says he doesn’t like him to which he responds “You never have.”

While the cameos are what you will remember, the action is an endless rush of gore. My favorite fights were the Honda Odyssey 1v1 and the Wolverine and Deadpool fights versus all the other Deadpool variants. The almost videogame arcade angle of the Deadpool Corps fight as Wolverine finally puts on his mask was a very fun moment at the theater. Unfortunately I do think the mask looks a little uncanny, maybe I need to watch it again to see if it was just jarring finally getting to witness it.

The major negatives to me for the film are the villain of Cassandra Nova, who when you remove from the film, doesn’t really impact that much of what’s going on. You could have just had MacFayden’s Paradox pull the strings with the ripper and have another cameo of a villain, even an old MCU villain or a Magneto, or Dr. Doom. It’s not fault on the actor Emma Corrin who does a good job with what they were given, it’s just not a very compelling character that does not offer much at all to the plot progression of the movie. Funny enough the legacy characters from the first two Deadpool films also feel a bit shoe horned in, like Wade and Vanessa being broken up off screen just to get together at the end again, might have just been more effective to have them fight in the beginning about Wade’s purpose or lack thereof, instead of just outright break them up.

No matter what happens next in the MCU for Reynold’s Deadpool and Jackman’s Wolverine, if anything even does, the team behind this film did a great job to honor the legacy that these characters and the other Fox franchises had built. Where I expected this movie to zig it would zag, and even with some qualms around the decisions made with the villain and side characters, a smile was on my face during the whole ride. And if Reynolds is right, maybe we will get Jackman playing Wolverine until he’s 90!

3.5/5

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