I’ve been somewhat of a defender of the MCU movies post-Endgame. I found hope in the sparks of life and weirdness in movies that were more and more at ease embracing the fact that they are based on comic books. Even if the films weren’t good, they were at least visually alive in a sense; or at the very least fun.
The last bit is key. The last bit is what’s missing from Shawn Levy’s abysmal Deadpool & Wolverine. Far from being entertaining or good Deadpool & Wolverine is not a movie or even all that funny. It is instead the MCU doing what it does best, using sentimentality to try and cover the pungent stench of rank cynicism
Deadpool & Wolverine is a mess. A big ugly, boring, mess. No surprise it comes with a script with so many writers that if you add one more name then they have a full infield. More than likely this is merely Marvel being forced to admit instead of assigning the story to one writer they instead farm it out to several and then cobble the results together like Fankenstein’s monster. This is exactly what Deadpool & Wolverine feels like, like a series of ideas, amputated and stitched together to form some kind of freakish self-perpetual self-referential machine.
But nothing works because the arms are where the legs should be and the eyes are placed somewhere in the back. Like everything else with the MCU, the marketing is more important than the actual product. Make no mistake, Deadpool & Wolverine is a product. By itself, this is not the biggest deal. After all the MCU is nothing but one long branding exercise. The problem is that is the cheapest-looking product with the least amount of anything resembling joy.
Levy and his cadre of writers spend so much time trying to have their cake and eat it too, lightly ribbing Disney and Marvel, while also catering to every fan’s hope and desire, but never really do anything interesting. Yes, Hugh Jackman has come back as Wolverine. But the reason he left was because he was getting old and wanted to move on. So when Ryan Renoyld’s Deadpool repeatedly makes the joke that Disney is going to make Jackman play the role until he’s 90 it feels less like a joke and more like a corporation boasting.
Deadpool & Wolverine is the Ready Player One of Marvel movies. There’s no story, just references and nods to rumors, aborted film projects, and a wistful remembrance of a time before everything had to be part of one big stupid universe. Deadpool & Wolverine routinely poke fun at Marvel less as a way of admitting defeat and more as a way to provide cover for how absolutely nothing changes. Deadpool makes a plea, straight to the camera, about how the multiverse should just end. But Deadpool & Wolverine doesn’t hark the ending of a phase, far from it. It’s just another of the very things it purports to be tired of, another leg in the neverending multiverse phase.
Like all the other multiverse stories, it just never stops. Constant references, constant nods to past movies, more, more, more, more, until one begins to fear this is all it is ever going to be. Deadpool & Wolverine has so little story because if it had an actual story then it wouldn’t have time to dazzle the audience with a cameo.
The sad thing is I think Levy is sincere when Deadpool & Wolverine take a breath and mourn over lost possibilities. I think he’s genuinely looking back with fondness. Deadpool & Wolverine tries oh so hard to be a love letter to 20th Century Fox comic book movies. None of it feels genuine. It all feels like everyone trying to put on a brave face.
But none of it lands because there’s SO MUCH that must be referenced that it’s less of a script and more like an online article detailing all the Easter Eggs. Because that’s what this is, not a movie, but a commercial for Easter Eggs for a company Disney swallowed whole.
I can see how Deadpool & Wolverine could be a good idea. On paper, it sounds like a laugh riot. To say nothing of how it befits the character in the comics to a T. A fourth-wall-breaking agent of chaos, Deadpool is a character that doesn’t push boundaries he smashes them. But Levy doesn’t know the lever to push, the walls to break or understand when to go full throttle or when to hold back. It’s a character that requires a deft touch and Levy, as a director, is all thumbs.
The timing is off. Every reveal, every unmasking, every reference lands with all the force of throwing wet spaghetti against the wall. There’s no center to Deadpool & Wolverine. Whenever the film would stop for another in an endless line of cameos, I breathed a heavy sigh. Crap like this was why the MTV Movie Awards were so fun. But it doesn’t make for a very entertaining movie.
I guess you could say, Deadpool & Wolverine is meant to be an Airplane of the MCU. But it would have to be you know…funny.
Deadpool & Wolverine is their first R-rated movie. Presumably to test the waters to see if they could finally admit that, no matter how much they may hem and haw, no one wants to see a PG-13 Blade. In other words, it feels like a proof of concept to the shareholders. “Trust us, MCU fans will see an R-rated movie. It will make money!”
But man is it depressing seeing Jackman give yet another fully realized Wolverine performance in a movie that simply does not care. Jackman is an actor cursed to play one of the most beloved characters in comics history in some of the worst movies. Yet, every time, he’s there, giving it his all. If nothing else Deadpool & Wolverine is a testament to Jackman’s dedication and talent as he continually finds new depth to a character that has been mined to death.
Levy fails to balance the dour morose Wolverine with the Daffy Duck-esque persona of Reynold’s Deadpool. They may share the same scenes but often it feels as if the two are in two separate movies. Jackman’s Wolverine, regardless of how good he is, feels out of place in Deadpool & Wolverine.
Emma Corrin’s Cassandra Nova is a character ripe for scene chewing. But Levy and the mad-libs script seem intent on giving her nothing to chew on. Instead, she’s given dialogue that hints at a better story and a more interesting film, but like so much in this universe, we only get the boring stuff. The VFX rendering of what she does with her hands could have been the stuff of nightmares. Instead, Levy and Richmond’s lens shoot everything with the same flatness as all MCU movies. There’s no inventiveness, no panache, just the camera as a recording device.
Moments such as Wolverine fighting a horde of Deadpools should be laugh riots. Are instead in Levy’s clumsy hands merely amusing. This bodes even worse for Reynolds who seems to be running on fumes in this installment. Wade Wilson, usually so emotionally complex, is here reduced to a tiresome one-note joke machine. Though his bisexuality is still in full swing, with some remarks, being positively daring by MCU standards.
Oh, and the TVA is back, so Loki fans can rejoice. Matthew McFayden plays Mr. Paradox, less of a character and more than a McGuffin. Again, this sounds fun. But it isn’t. On paper, this is exactly what a Deadpool movie should be. But Levy never injects anything other than toothless jabs at the corporate overlords.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Despite the blood and guts, and the joy of seeing certain actors get to talk in their actual accents, and profanity-laden diatribes, Deadpool & Wolverine is a very, safe, safe, SAFE movie.
Levy has made the worst kind of R-rated movie: one made for kids. The other two Deadpool movies were rated R and yes kids could and more than likely did watch them, they dealt with very adult subject matter. Wade and Morena Baccarin’s Vanessa lusted for one another but more importantly, the drama in their relationship was adult problems.
Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine feels like baby’s first R-rated movie. The kind where you giggle because someone said a dirty word or characters cheekily talked about each other’s butts. It wants to feel naughty but nothing in the movie is all that transgressive. Because to do so would require something more than trading on a generation’s nostalgia.
That’s what Deadpool & Wolverine boils down to; nothing more nothing less. A multimillion-dollar YouTube video of all the characters a generation saw when they were kids and never got the MCU money or respect. Ironic, considering during the end credits, there is a collage of behind-the-scenes footage of all those old movies set to, what else Green Day’s “Good Riddance”. Like every other song used, it is too on the nose. There’s a distinct feeling of exhaustion in the sinew of Deadpool & Wolverine. An air of wanting to be done with it but they can’t be because there’s still money on the table.
If I’m being honest, watching the behind-the-scenes footage did more to dredge up memories and emotions than the entirety of Levy’s shareholder-mandated memo to the audience called Deadpool & Wolverine. But it also brewed conflicting feelings because the footage shown is from sets we now knew were deeply toxic, such as Bryan Singer’s X-Men.
The footage is a moment that calls for contemplation, for introspection, even as it pays homage and respect to a time and experience that are divorced from those realities. That one moment felt more honest than anything in Deadpool & Wolverine. Perhaps, because, unlike Levy’s shallow and listless work, it wasn’t about what you didn’t have, or lost, but simply of the past.
Nostalgia is dangerous because it simplifies the past, and makes us yearn for something that never really existed. But that single moment, seeing all those happy faces, being reminded of all those memories of seeing those movies in theaters, the highs and lows, and the hours of conversations with friends afterward in the car. Perhaps it was because the joy in the footage seemed so genuine compared to how manufactured and forced the whole of Deadpool & Wolverine felt.
I dunno, maybe it’s just that damn Green Day song.
Images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
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