I haven’t done one of these in a while, there’s only been one superhero movie out this year and nobody saw it, so I’ll clearly mark when I start talking spoilers. No matter where you stand with superhero movies, this has been highly anticipated for decades now and we’ve finally arrived. Let’s do it, eh?

Deadpool & Wolverine stars Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin, Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Karan Soni, Leslie Uggams, Lewis Tan, Matthew Macfadyen, Shioli Kutsuna, Brianna Hildebrand, Stefan Kapicic, Ray Park, Kelly Hu, Tyler Mane, Aaron Stanford and Jennifer Garner, plus many more. It was written by Shawn Levy, Ryan Reynolds, Zeb Wells, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. It was directed by Shawn Levy.

How Did We Get Here? –
Well, Hugh Jackman retired as Wolverine and then instantly regretted it because Fox never let him do any Wolverine things. Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy wanted to make a Deadpool movie in the MCU but didn’t know how to crack it.
And so they managed to come together to make this, a movie that is, according to critics, “As terminally online as a Deadpool movie gets. Too inside baseball about an era of superhero movies that is long gone and impenetrable if you’re 18 years old and you’ve never seen a Fox Marvel movie or heard about potential casting.”
These reviews would have seemed disheartening if it surprised me in any way. This movie is not made for those critics, and I don’t see it struggling to reach the mainstream audience beyond the very niche jokes there apparently are, but I say this having not seen the movie.
Also, I am that audience, so if the plots and character arcs are good I couldn’t give a damn if they’re throwing references and characters at me that I’m well familiar with. I do somewhat resent the “terminally online” comment.
If you’re a casual audience member that still hasn’t realized in the last 24-35 years that Marvel and DC are different universes, and some of the Marvel movies used to be made by different studios, you don’t give a shit, and you aren’t going to pay attention now.
You’re going to go in, enjoy Deadpool’s quips and his dynamic with Hugh Jackman, and then go home. If you haven’t figured out the concept of the multiverse yet, which is a fairly simple concept to grasp, Deadpool will probably make very clear jokes about it and spell it out.
Anyway. Let’s do it. I’ve been well excited for this for quite a while now.

Quick Plot Rundown –
A TVA agent named Mr. Paradox decides to escalate the death of Deadpool’s universe. It’s already dying because their Wolverine, the Anchor Being the universe needs to survive, died, and in thousands of years it will disintegrate. The TVA has been told to stop pruning timelines after the events of Loki, but Paradox is essentially a spiteful middle manager that nobody pays attention to and he prefers the old ways and wants to do his job.
For whatever reason, he believes telling Deadpool that this is happening and he can join the MCU will result in a seamless universal transition, and not that this weird pimpley psychopath will go rogue, steal a tempad and try to find a different Wolverine.
Which he does, he does all of that. When Deadpool finds what Paradox considers to be the worst Wolverine, he realizes Paradox is a rogue agent and he can report him to his superiors, but Paradox prunes him and sends him to the Void from Loki.
So Deadpool and sad drunk Wolverine have to fight through the detritus of the old Fox Marvel universe to make their way back to Deadpool’s universe and save everything he loves before Paradox destroys it with this big box called a Time Ripper. You know, standard plot stuff.

General Non-Spoilery Thoughts –
I actually don’t disagree that there are quite a few impenetrable jokes and cameos in this. I need to rewatch it to know what I truly think now that I know what’s coming, but I did enjoy it, I just think they leaned a bit too hard in an unironic sense into just showing the audience things they’ve vaguely said would be cool for years.
When something from the comics relating to Wolverine shows up, particularly in one sequence, Deadpool just says outright what they are. They gave him a lot of dialogue that lines up more with what critics tired of the meta schtick claim his movies are like. But the more I think about it, he is just meant to be a big fanboy in this so I may like it more on a rewatch.
Overall I thought it was solid and fun and stupid like these should be, but I think it lacked some of the great random gags from the first two that had nothing to do with reference comedy, like the Zamboni death, Blind Al trying to build IKEA products, and X-Force dying immediately because of strong winds. It had a touch of Quantumania to it (To be very clear, it’s a much better movie) in that it lost some of its charm by going “Full Marvel”.
Beyond the birthday party scene in the trailers, we barely see the nine people Deadpool wants to save. The villains make a couple big leaps in logic to set up the plot and the conclusion, but if you dig into it too far, you remember the entire plot of the second film was based on a moment that was reversed at the very end and essentially broke the whole continuity of it in the process, so who truly cares?
I did slip up and spoil one big thing for myself the night before I saw it, and I’m very angry that I did. I tried everything I could to gaslight myself into repressing and forgetting to no avail. Anyway. I don’t know if my opinion on this will change, but I had fun.

Characters –
Wade Wilson AKA Deadpool – Ryan Reynolds
In this movie, Deadpool has a midlife crisis and tries to feel adequate and happy and find a purpose. Of course that leads to him and Vanessa breaking up because real men can’t process their feelings, they become distant when they can’t be Avengers and force you to find someone who can validate you and your emotions.
This character arc does not really get a consistent follow-through in the film as a whole, but his whole motivation is stopping Paradox from destroying his universe so he doesn’t lose his nine favorite people and sure why not. Also when we first see him he’s running around with a toupee stapled to his head working with Peter at a car dealership and they should have had more scenes of that, I loved it.
Joke-wise, eh. But I covered that. There is a bit where he tries to run through a giant wall of corn that I really liked.

Logan AKA Wolverine – Hugh Jackman
It did feel a lot like this Logan and his character arc was too much like the Logan from Logan. He’s sad and drinking, his whole team is dead, and one particular character gives him the emotional turning point he needs to be more of a hero again.
But Jackman did a good job making the distinction. The Logan Logan is much older, more jaded, and in constant pain, which is why he drank. He doesn’t feel remorse for the deaths of the X-Men, because that was Patrick Stewart’s fault. This one was off drinking while mutant hunters finished them off, and so he killed so many people the world hates him and mutants even more.
That’s not really a spoiler, by the way. It’s two lines of dialogue that explain why this particular Wolvie is so traumatized. But this one is less of a reluctant hero and more of a crass asshole. He just wants to be drunk, even if he has to drink rubbing alcohol. And we’ve never seen this one be heroic.
It’s very similar beats, still. The dynamic between him and Deadpool is solid, it’s not just the Cable dynamic copy-pasted. Wolverine is tired of his schtick and his unending dialogue, but he’s also disgusted by his willingness to sacrifice seemingly innocent people for the sake of his own self-preservation, and the lengths of his insanity and depravity. I wish they’d leaned into it more or shown less of it in the trailers, but eh.

Mr. Paradox – Matthew Macfadyen
Paradox is maybe my favorite character in this movie. Matthew Macfadyen knew exactly how to play this guy. He’s a coward and a bad guy who uses his job as cover for being a psychopath and killing timelines. He can just get away with genocide because nobody pays attention to him, he’s a weasely middle manager and he’s so sassy.
He throws anyone under the bus to avoid conflict, he makes terrible decisions and recruits Deadpool thinking this insane psycho wouldn’t do something insane and psychopathic. Also because he’s a TVA agent he’s a variant of someone from the main timeline, so I’d like to think this guy is a movie producer because it does feel like he’s an indictment of the weirdos running Fox who don’t know what they’re doing.
Also he just ate a finger sandwich at one point and that’s delightful. I’m obsessed with this man and the way he carries himself. It’s such a perfect addition to this universe. His scenery chewing had a touch of the Richard E. Grant’s to it.

Cassandra Nova – Emma Corrin
Cassandra Nova is the sister of Charles Xavier that tried to kill him in the womb, so he cast her off and she became a weird tumor person. In this the TVA sent her to the Void before her inherent evil and depravity could destroy her universe entirely, so she’s just taken control of this realm of garbage and treated every castaway like a toy or puppet.
She uses her powers by physically getting into someone’s head and putting her hands through you, which is a nice touch. Emma Corrin nailed it. Their performance was unsettling but fun. Usually Cassandra is older and creepier but I think this works too.
I think there are some leaps in logic to get her to the finish line that don’t quite work, but even without them researching the comics (On the director’s advice), I think they did a great job.

Vanessa – Morena Baccarin
She is in the movie for maybe five minutes in total which is a massive bummer because they continue to do nothing with her and Ryan’s excellent chemistry.
So I don’t have much to say about her except she mentions at Deadpool’s birthday party that she’s seeing someone and she’s got a management job of some kind, which I’m sure she enjoys more than being a stripper/hooker.

Peter – Rob Delaney
Ah, Peter. I’m a big Rob Delaney fan, I’m glad his appearance in the last one made him hit it big and now he’s in even more things. He’s very funny, especially in these.
I love the idea that Deadpool’s two best friends are a very plain toast white man who sells cars, and a blind old black woman who loves cocaine.
That’s the specific humor I go to these movies to and I wish there was more. There’s also a hint of a love story between him and a very surprising character I won’t spoil.

Blind Al – Leslie Uggams
Blind Al may be the greatest character in this whole trilogy, if not cinema as a whole. Leslie Uggams is a legend. I stopped working on this review the other day so I could go rewatch American Fiction and remind myself how good she is in that. She’s 81 years old now, and she’s repeatedly said she loves nothing more than going to work and making cocaine jokes with Ryan Reynolds, which I think is delightful. Of the Deadpool side characters, her and Peter get the most play in this, her less-so, and if we do get a fourth one, which we probably will since this is making many moneys, I want way way more of her. Please and thank you.

Score/Soundtrack –
The score was written by Rob Simonsen, and I didn’t notice much of it throughout because we were treated to several big needle drops. The most famous of course was utilized in the main trailers and much of the promotional material. Regardless of quality, this movie is one big love letter to Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” and that cannot go unappreciated. It was a great song for this movie. I loved it.

Cinematography –
The director of photography for this one was George Richmond, and I thought he did an unnoticably fine job. I had no complaints and no great things to say. I imagine the big moments that people will come away saying “Wow, what a shot” were Shawn Levy’s idea, and apparently when they went to get “Like A Prayer” cleared with Madonna she gave them tips on how to stage the scene where that plays. So I guess good job, Madonna? You’ve come a long way from writing that bad Bond song.

It’s big big spoiler time, everybody!

How many Deadpools do we see?

How many Wolverines do we see?

Has the internet won, is this chock full of cameos from everyone who’s ever played an X-Character or been rumored to play an X-Character?

Am I going to discuss any of that below or am I just gonna talk about how attractive Hugh Jackman is?

We’ll see shortly, won’t we?

I mean I’m just writing filler until I can really talk about the cameos they’ve successfully hidden from the moviegoing public, actual plot and quality of movie be damned.

And I’m not even to know whether people still read these reviews or not, because I really do ramble on, don’t I?

See, now I’ve depressed myself enough, let’s continue the review.

Deadpool & Wolverine Spoiler Review
Okay. So. I paused and thought about it a bit, and I let my criticisms sink in. But first the plot. Basically once they get to the Void, they have a big fight and Deadpool convinces Wolverine to help him by saying the TVA can fix his universe where all the X-Men are dead.
He’s lying, which Wolverine finds out later and another big fight happens. They fight some old Fox characters and run into Johnny Storm, played by the great Chris Evans. The three of them get captured and brought to Cassandra Nova’s fortress, a giant Ant-Man skeleton.
Deadpool lies and tells Nova Human Torch said a bunch of terrible things about her, so she turns him into guts and promises to feed the other two to Alioth, the weird CGI monster from Loki. They escape with what looked like a Sentinel rocket boot, and run into a nice unscarred Deadpool, who gives them a car.
When they fight again, they both get tired and pass out and the X-23 from Logan finds them and drives them back to her hideout, where they meet the resistance Johnny Storm belonged to; a C-Team of forgotten characters that Cassandra never bothered to fight because they posed no threat, comprised of Wesley Snipes’s Blade, Jennifer Garner’s Elektra, and Channing Tatum’s Gambit.
The six of them devise a plan to go back, put Juggernaut’s helmet on Cassandra Nova, blocking her mental powers, and force her to send them back. Wolverine wants none of it but X-23 gives him a heart to heart.
They go back, big action happens, and Nova uses a sling ring to send them back, but not before Pyro reveals he’s a double agent for Paradox and she realizes she could use the Time Ripper to destroy all universes but the one she inhabits just out of spite because they couldn’t leave her alone.
So she follows Deadpool and Wolverine to DP’s universe and sends a horde of Deadpools to fight them while she ends everything.
Deadpool uses nice Deadpool as a human shield, and him and Wolverine tear through the Deadpool Corps, only to remember they regenerate, but Peter shows up and distracts them, because all Deadpools love Peter.
So the two go into the subway and Deadpool tries to sacrifice himself and rip out the guts of the machine, stopping Wolverine from getting his heroic ending.
But Wolverine realizes he cares about DP and grabs on to the other end and the two manage to channel the energy and not die while a choir sings Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” and Wolverine’s shirt blasts off. Nova dies, they manage not to, and Paradox is arrested.
This Wolverine has now become the Anchor Being of this universe and the timeline is healing itself, and he wants to go off on his own, but Deadpool convinces him to come live with him (I don’t believe Logan would come to like or tolerate Deadpool enough to live with him, or be okay with his disgusting jokes. I could see respect, but beyond that? No way.) and Blind Al, and at another party, Vanessa and Deadpool seem to reconcile.”
I didn’t love it. I thought it was fun, but as I said, the jokes are fairly straightforward and it doesn’t feel as much a celebration of Wolverine and Fox as it is a rehash of his Logan arc with additional “But wait, here’s the things we never did, we’ll throw them at you.”
It felt too fan servicey and the plot was not thought through, not that plot and continuity matters in a Deadpool movie, but Paradox had to make a very stupid decision to kick things off, Cassandra had to just decide “Oh sure I’ll kill everyone I guess, why not” even though she seemed smarter than that, and the action scenes didn’t do many interesting things with the healing factors or X-23’s team.
I think it’s lovely Hugh and Ryan had so much fun and they got to pay loving homage to these characters they love playing, and that they love working with Shawn Levy, but it does seem like the writer’s strike put a massive damper on the plot that fails to service all the characters at play, and we ended up with a lot of subpar “HEY MAN THAT’S THE THING FROM THE THING” jokes.
I also don’t think Shawn Levy was ever the right choice for this. The plot should be meaner and the interactions between the main two should be bitier and more angry.
Sure, Hugh kills what he’s given, because he can’t stop being an incredible actor and bringing his all to this (I saw a review that said Hugh acts circles around Ryan and Hollywood never should’ve forced Ryan onto audiences as a leading man, he’s one-note. Nah, man. Watch Buried or Mississippi Grind. Fucking incredible.) but it should’ve been more savage.
The best fight scene moment is when Hugh gets on all fours and runs at Ryan like a fucking animal. But yeah, Shawn Levy is too sincere. He lacks the bite for this kind of thing.
He does well with an episode of Stranger Things or a family movie. He made Free Guy, the PG-13 Deadpool movie, and The Adam Project, a boring movie with a very good concept.
When he was announced I said “I don’t know if the Night at the Museum and Cheaper By The Dozen guy is the best choice. And I stand by it, though he seems like an incredibly nice man.

Is this a good sequel?
No and yes. As a movie in general it’s fine and fun. I can see why you’d hate it, I can see why you’d love it. I’m in the middle.
I think it would’ve been way better if they didn’t spend half the plot saying how great Logan is and then did a condensed version of that character arc.
In a perfect world, my version of the movie is thus: Deadpool loves Wolverine, he wants to save his hero, so he uses Cable’s time machine to save him at the end of Logan.
He shoots clone Wolverine and stops our Logan from sacrificing himself but something activates the time machine and the two end up in the far future.
Somehow Wolverine no longer looks super old and he’s fully healed and back to full Wolverine powers and capacity.
He’s furious that Deadpool did this and wants to get back to his daughter, Deadpool wants to get back to Vanessa, but the machine is broken and they’re trapped in the future in the Savage Land, which is a tropical island in Marvel where all the dinosaurs still exist.
They have to fight their way through the island to figure out what’s going on, but also Wolverine wants to kill Deadpool, and eventually they fight a big bad in a volcano lair. That way it’s lower budget, it’s more focused, the fight scenes would be more brutal, Wolverine has something to fight for and he’s not just tired and disaffected again, and it’s not just a bunch of sketches about a dead movie studio and the varying quality of their films.
You still get the suit and everything, because maybe Deadpool brought him one, but we’re not watching all the scenes people have spent years saying “Wouldn’t it be cool if?”
I want to reiterate I didn’t hate the movie. I’m going to rewatch it on Wednesday and I’m excited to. I really enjoyed the two villains and some very weird moments.
I just think, like Quantumania, they got so lost in the possibility of having a bigger budget and being able to do everything that they lost track of the idiosyncrasies of the first two and went way too big without keeping the heart. But still. They killed many people while Madonna played.
Also this not being a great sequel in my eyes is less an indictment of this movie and more a testament to Deadpool, Deadpool 2, and Logan being very very good. Especially Logan. It was a very risky move to have so much of this movie be about directly referencing or showing clips from Logan. I rewatched it the day before and maybe for the first time was really hit hard emotionally by his last words.
“Don’t be what they made you. Oh. So this is what it feels like.” Holy shit, man. I’m about to cry right now. I am much more emotional and mature (Also a bit traumatized) than I was seven years ago, and I love that movie more every time I watch it. Also I also have a beard now so I can relate to him way more.

Are the cameos too much/do they overshadow the movie?
I’ve seen this movie get compared to The Flash. And I get if you haven’t picked up a comic, and you compare these two movies, you could be forgiven for thinking the overwhelming glut of cameos and multiverse chaos makes these feel the same.
Except if you’re a movie critic and your job is to look at these two movies, shame on you for saying such nonsense. You take a basic look at that and realize they’re nothing alike.
The Flash threw like ten CGI people at you right near the end that added nothing to the plot and looked terrible and most of them were dead in real life. The main characters were annoying reflections of the same scumbag that had no chemistry and dragged down the film.
No matter if you’re tired of the self-referential schtick and the way this final product came out or not, this movie is based upon the undeniable chemistry of Ryan Reynolds and Wolverine, and the people from other movies that show up in this are actually relevant to the plot of the film, and they were really physically there.
Sure, they’re both films that cap the end of meandering tangential cinematic universes of varying quality, but Deadpool & Wolverine is a bombastic and gleeful retirement party and The Flash is your Dad’s funeral where you just found out that your Dad had multiple secret families and he was a Neo-Nazi.
And I don’t think they overshadow the film at all. There’s not much beyond those five main ones. The ones that work for Cassandra are fairly inconsequential.
Azazel and Lady Deathstrike get no speaking lines, Sabretooth gets beheaded immediately, I think Toad’s tongue gets fucked up. Pyro gets a lot of play, especially when he takes the flame out of Johnny Storm, which was cool. I accidentally spoiled the Johnny Storm cameo for myself and I’m pissed about it.
There’s just some random guy playing the Juggernaut in Vinnie Jones’s costume because they couldn’t get him, but I kind of loved it was just some guy. I think the two cameos people will love the most are X-23 because Dafne Keen is awesome, and everyone loves Wesley Snipes as Blade.
He says at one point “I’m the only Blade and I’ll always be the only Blade” and Ryan Reynolds looks at the camera, which shocked me that they would make a joke about one of their films that has been in notorious development hell for five years now.
The Gambit thing was funny, and proved a few things.
One, the niche appearance of a man who was supposed to play a character but didn’t probably plays better on character. There is a problem with this movie, but it’s the general structure, and while the cameos ruined nothing, having it not revolve around the death of a movie studio would’ve resulted in a sharper and funnier film in general.
Two, I’m not upset we never got his Gambit movie. Three, the gag of his accent making it hard for him to articulate is pretty funny.
Also there’s a beat where Elektra says Daredevil got killed by Cassandra years ago, and Deadpool says “Sorry for your loss” to which she says “It doesn’t matter”. Get it? Because she hates her ex-husband.
I couldn’t tell if her performance was phoned in because she didn’t want to be there or her character was tired, but I’ve settled on the conclusion that there was never any energy and gravitas to her Elektra to begin with and she slid right back in to “Tired Soccer Mom Elektra” even if I don’t believe for a second that version of the character would survive. She would’ve tripped and impaled herself with her sais years ago.
Also Happy Hogan interviews Deadpool at the beginning in a painfully earnest scene that I think exists because A) It’s easier to get him in than RDJ and he’s been there since the beginning and B) He was Foggy Nelson in the Daredevil movie so it’s another little connection to the Fox movies.
Oh god, I forgot there’s more cameos. Sigh. Blake Lively voices Lady Deadpool, Cowboy Deadpool is Matthew McConaughey, Headpool is Nathan Fillion, and Kidpool is Ryan Reynolds’s son.
Yep. Good. They’re all voice only, I only noticed Blake and Matthew. And the nice unscarred Deadpool with long hair who couldn’t regenerate played by Ryan Reynolds was ridiculous, weird and unlikable, but he had a good joke where he said “I can do the fourth wall too” and just turned to the audience and said “The Proposal” and he held it for like two beats.
I thought that was really funny and really well-timed. Why not?

All the Wolverine bits we finally got
– The main costume, obviously. I liked that he had it on under his clothes when we first see him, that he wears it now because he wasn’t there when his X-Men died and he always acted like an ass, a solo team player, and now he always wears it. Also people are bummed when his sleeves get ripped the shoulder bits go too so it’s not quite comic accurate. Eh.
– He finally gets the mask, during the Deadpool Corps scene, and what I love is it kind of looks ridiculous. It should look ridiculous, and it kind of works, but it’s so weird to finally see it.
– At the very beginning Deadpool digs up Logan’s corpse from Logan and uses it to kill TVA agents, which was fun. Of course he also danced to “Bye Bye Bye” while he did it.
– Before we meet the Logan we spend the movie with, we go through a montage of different Wolverines including:
– An Old Man Logan that looks like Clint Eastwood.
– A one-handed Age of Apocalypse Wolverine.
– A crucified on a giant X Wolverine amidst many skulls.
– A comic accurate he’s pretty short Wolverine with big hair.
– A Wolverine who is in a tank top fixing a motorcycle and oh look it’s Henry Cavill.
– A Wolverine undercover in Madripoor as Patch, dolled up in a white suit and eyepatch. My second favorite.
– A Wolverine in my favorite costume, the brown and tan costume, about to fight the Hulk. My favorite favorite.
– I think this might be the first Wolverine movie where, other than archival footage, Hugh never wears a tank top. I may be wrong, but I think only Cavill gets one. And thank god, quite frankly. He looks good in them, but I was sick of that being his costume.

What do the post-credits scenes set up for the future of Marvel?
They don’t set up anything. There’s just a charming montage of behind the scenes clips of various Fox Marvel movies and then Deadpool shows us that Johnny Storm did in fact say all the horrible things Deadpool told Cassandra Nova he said that got him killed. And good. I’m all for Chris Evans playing an asshole.
We learned more about the future at Comic Con when Marvel revealed Robert Downey Jr is coming back as Doctor Doom for the next few Avengers movies. People don’t love that but I think if they give him the castle and the robots I’ll enjoy it.
It also makes sense for getting people in who stopped with Endgame. I would love it if they got Chris Evans to do evil Captain America and we just got an evil Avengers team.

Overall Rating – 7.5/10(It’s a pretty fun time. The plot was ridiculous and all over the place more than a Deadpool movie should be but it’s a bit of fun and I liked the even more unhinged Wolverine and the sassy villains. Goodish stuff.)
Rudd Rating – 7/10(He didn’t say anything, but even as a giant hollowed-out skeleton, he’s still People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2021. And as The Bear has shown, just showing signed photos or cardboard cutouts of Paul Rudd randomly in a very dramatic episode when you least expect it makes for a joyful delight. So I’m counting this as Rudd rankable.)

Thank you muchly if you bothered to read to the very end of this long rambley review. As a goodbye treat, here’s one final Wolverine variant for you to feast thine eyes upon. Be ever wary of the hairy Nerdverine. You can tell from his furrowed brow and his massive forehead that he means business, and if you cross him he’ll gut you with his butter knives.