Movie Review: Deadpool & Wolverine

The introduction of the multiverse to the Marvel franchise has quickly become a convenient way for the producers to bring back any character they want for the sake of ticket sales, further reducing the sense of any real stakes within it. In Deadpool & Wolverine it is used to revive the latter of those two characters after his tragic demise in the stellar Logan. Luckily, thanks to the sardonic nature of Deadpool as a character and his branch of the MCU as a whole, it is made palatable through winking nods and digs at the act itself. And let’s be honest, as long as the movies are fun, do we really care all that much about the increasingly convoluted machinations used to make it all work?

In this third outing, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) has come to the realization that he will never get to be an Avenger and therefore believes that none of his superheroics will amount to anything meaningful, and so he retires his outfit and gets a job as a car salesman with his friend Peter (Rob Delaney). He actually manages to find a sense of contentment with his new life, surrounded by the friends he made over the previous two films, only to have it interrupted when is taken by agents of the Time Variance Authority and introduced to Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), who tells him that he wants to send him to another universe in which he will be allowed to join the Avengers for an important mission. Unfortunately, he also informs him that due to the death of an “anchor being”, namely Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), his original universe has begun unravelling and will eventually cease to exist. Worse still, Paradox has begun assembling a device that would allow him to speed up the process, ending the universe in mere moments rather than thousands of years. Deadpool refuses to let his loved ones be removed from existence, and so heads out to find another version of Wolverine from a different universe in order to bring him back to his world and stop Paradox before it’s too late. Things obviously don’t go very smoothly, and the pair find themselves banished to “the void”, where they have to take on Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin) in order to escape.

The plot is kind of a convoluted mess if you really think about it, so it’s a good thing we don’t need to. Reynolds is still perfect as Deadpool, with his deadpan comedy sensibilities expertly tailored to the role. Likewise, Jackman’s Wolverine is still so good that it’s impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. Corin is clearly relishing the chance to play evil and is one of the more memorable villains in the MCU, even if her motivations are as undeveloped as usual for the franchise. There are also fun cameos from characters new and old littered throughout as the writers go wild with their multiversal toys.

There’s little here that won’t feel familiar to anyone who’s seen Deadpool & Deadpool 2, or any of the MCU’s previous journeys across the multiverse, which sometimes make this movie feel a little less special than its predecessors. It’s still a blast to watch however, and director Shawn Levy pulls off some truly striking fight sequences, including a surprisingly violent opening credits melee and a side-scrolling, single-take battle through a downtown street memorably set to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer”. Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t perfect, but it’s exactly the shot in the arm that the MCU needed right now and shows that Marvel Studios is still capable of giving fans what they want. Gleefully violent, funny, epic, surprisingly sweet, and tons of fun. What more could you want from a comic book movie? ★★★★