Deadpool’s potty-mouthed love letter to Marvel
Spare a kind thought for Deadpool. Scourge of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), outsider who sprays quips and insults like an AR-15 with diarrhea, the “merc with a mouth” who never lets up his meta patter, even when he’s biting the hand that feeds him.
In Deadpool & Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds’ perennial Marvel outsider teams up with the ultimate insider—Hugh Jackman’s beloved and hirsute X-Man. There’s so much meta going on here, you’ll need a constant stream of side-screen graphics and YouTube links to keep up.
A lot has happened since the first Deadpool (2016). Disney has acquired 20th Century Fox, for instance, which means the family-oriented company has cautiously allowed Deadpool’s R-rated tomfoolery to co-exist in the same universe as, say Frozen’s Elsa and squeaky-clean Captain America.
We’ve seen these two—Reynolds and Jackman—paired up before in brief encounters. But things have changed, now that Wolverine is dead and everything, killed off in his own affecting X-Men elegy, James Mangold’s Logan.
That little obstacle doesn’t stop Deadpool from digging up Logan’s adamantium bones in North Dakota and using them to wipe out a cadre of cops from the Time Variance Authority (the TVA explored in the Disney Plus series Loki last year).
Desecration. Sacrilege. Profanity. All these are the happy tools of our foul-mouthed Deadpool, and more, as he figures out a way to bring back Wolverine and fight to save the universe, hopefully land a spot in the Avengers roster, or at least have birthday cake with his friends and stripper ex-girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin).
You see, despite Deadpool/Wade Wilson’s relentless onslaught of postmodern asides and fourth-wall-breaking turbo-fueled wisecracks, he really just wants to be loved and accepted. He’s retired from Deadpooling, working as a used car salesman when the VFA cops come calling. Soon, he’s digging up his old pal’s skeleton, seeking a suitable replacement among Logan’s multiverse versions, to help stitch the universe back together. There’s something inclusive in his quest, even as he man-crushes on every Avenger (and/or Chris Evans character) in sight. He knows where he sits in the MCU pecking order (If not, there’s Jon Favreau as Avengers applicant vetter Happy Hogan, to remind him of his place). His normal life is populated by the willfully eccentric, from his blind, elderly roommate, Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), to the cadre of mutants whom he’s befriended over two installments already. One big, happy, mutated family.
Enter Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Paradox, a button-pusher from the TVA who wants to wipe out past timelines and rule the universe—you know, the way they all do in Marvel movies. It’s a fine chance for Macfadyen, last seen in HBO’s Succession, to sink his acting teeth into an MCU baddie role. He’s challenged in this rule-the-universe poker match by Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), a baldheaded ruler of The Void, where bad TVA criminals are dumped forever.
In between, you’ve got a full-blown love-hate road trip buddy movie fueled by Jackman and Reynolds’ natural rapport and verbal jabs. Oh, and there are plenty of brutal fight scenes, which are all telegraphed directly to the audience in advance by Deadpool, who is both in and outside of this movie. (Seriously, if meta was a superpower, it would be Deadpool’s most effective, aside from his swords, pistols and indestructability.)
The violence levels here are pretty disturbing (Wade apologizes for this, somewhere in his constant stream of audience asides), but it’s somehow mitigated by the two characters’ inability to die. They’re punctured, shot, sliced, and stomped. Like Warner Bros. cartoon characters, they just dust themselves off and start all over again. (No number of dropped anvils or desert plummets could kill off the Coyote, you’ll recall.)
Deadpool has always been a bit envious of Wolverine’s Gold Member status in the MCU, and his beloved following. It plays to the heart of the rivalry that Reynolds and Jackman like to stoke, even in real life, on social media.
And Wolverine? Well, Wolverine’s always been a bit more one-note in his isolation from society and its attachments. He’s guff, but lovable. Logan proved there was always a heart beating somewhere amid those adamantium bones.
Mangold and Jackman were keen not to ruin the legacy of Logan’s “perfect ending,” so Deadpool & Wolverine introduces one of those alternate timeline solutions. Voila! No legacy tampering! (The sequel also brings back Logan’s Daphne Keen as Laura/X-23, and offers a loving tribute to the late Charles Xavier during the final credits sequence.)
It’s all even more Deadpool than usual, steering Marvel fans—through meta-guided hands—through all the backstage gossip ad many possible futures for the MCU. (I actually think that Marvel fans look forward to Deadpool movies because of the behind-the-scenes tea-spilling he does on-camera.) The cameos here are too numerous—and too spoiler!—to mention, but suffice to say it offers small inside peeks into the next possible X-Men cast as well as future incarnations of The Fantastic Four.
Deadpool & Wolverine is a hoot all around, with patter even more elevated—and raunchier—than Deadpool 2. In the end, there’s something a little schmaltzy in its final dive into sentimentality, grizzled puppy hugs and all, after displaying such chaotic energy and fury onscreen. But I take it as part of Reynolds’ natural DNA as a comedic actor (he co-writes all the scripts). Humor is a superpower as well, a weapon to keep an often-ugly and violent world at bay; but it’s also a plea to feel loved and connected in a world that seeks to isolate us all. It’s not surprising that comics find solace in these more Hallmark moments.
