As Deadpool teased multiple times in Deadpool and Wolverine, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is experiencing “a bit of a slump” since the runaway success of Avengers: Endgame. Luckily, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) changes everything by joining the Marvel Universe to make things weird, right? Maybe not, because Deadpool vs. Wolverine is just an R-rated version of a bog-standard modern Marvel movie: it’s fun, the story revolves around the same CGI MacGuffin stuff as always, and the third act is completely confusing and feels It’s like a ton of content was cut that ultimately didn’t have any meaningful plot connection to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s been standard fare for the last five years of the series, and a major letdown for 2024’s only MCU movie.
It’s not that Deadpool and Wolverine are bad. It has several great bloody action scenes, including a massacre set to NSync’s “Bye Bye Bye,” and when it’s funny, it’s really funny. But, like Deadpool 2, Deadpool vs. Wolverine is strangely filled with sincerely emotional scenes that simply don’t keep up with all the silly, fourth-wall-breaking quips we get now The added bonus of an overly complex MCU despite the fact that the story is actually weak and requires too much explanation.
The setting of “Deadpool and Wolverine” is basically the “Deadpool” version of the Loki series. He was pulled out of reality by the Time Lag Authority (people from outside time who keep the timeline normal) and brought to Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen). Paradox tells Deadpool that his home universe is dying because it’s lost its “anchor” Wolverine – a bit of meta-humor about how Logan is the most popular X-Men to date, without Hugh Jackman. The series just couldn’t work, and after merging with Disney, the Marvel Universe included Fox’s Marvel series. Paradox offered to have Deadpool join the Avengers if he could help hasten the destruction of his home universe. However, it was never discussed what exactly Paradox wanted him to do, as Deadpool declined the offer and went his own way by crossing timelines to find a new Wolverine, before the two of them ended up stuck at the end of time for for most of the movie.
This scene known as “The Void” was introduced in the first season of Loki (Deadpool actually referenced the specific episode in which it first appeared, hilariously), and it’s basically Limbo – when That’s where people go when the TVA guys poke them with the time stick. When Loki went there, he met many other Lokis. But Deadpool and Wolverine have just encountered many of the D-class mutant bad guys from the X-Men movies, like Toad, as well as a host of mutant Deadpools, as well as Professor X’s incredibly powerful evil twin sister Cassandra Nova (Emma Colin), who was supposed to die during childbirth. She’s actually pretty cool, especially when she puts her fingers in people’s heads (it makes more sense when you see it).
But it’s all meaningless. The story of “Deadpool and Wolverine” is not very good, which is not necessarily a problem in itself, because this is supposed to be a comedy movie, and the plot naturally comes second. but it is not the truth. This is a Marvel movie through and through, which means too much time is spent explaining stuff to set up the third act that doesn’t actually matter.
Luckily, it does often work from scene to scene—basically any time Deadpool & Wolverine switches into its pin-drop action sequence mode (which is a pretty good part of the movie), it Works great. The “Bye Bye” sequence starts the movie on a perfect high note, and it’s not long before we’re treated to another similar scene – my favorite is probably the scene where Deadpool and Wolverine tear each other apart in an old Honda Odyssey.
But aside from those glossy, good-looking scenes, the production is pretty much standard Marvel assembly-line production. Everything is by the book, standard camera angles, standard editing speed, standard CGI environment. But that’s what you get when you hire a filmmaker like Shawn Levy, who’s done a great job making movies with “Cheap by the Dozen,” “Date Night” and “Night at the Museum” The film received an audience rating of 6/10 from IMDb users. Levy has never been a filmmaker who elevates his material, and “Deadpool and Wolverine” doesn’t change that.
Some of these are helped by the plethora of cameos – I won’t spoil them, but the highlight is an early Fox/Marvel movie character who met a particularly heinous end at the hands of Cassandra. But those cameos were quickly overshadowed by Cassandra, who was essentially an R-rated version of the evil Wanda from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness . Corrin is creepy in the role, even though the character’s storyline doesn’t happen at all in the third act.
Unfortunately, these cameos don’t really do much. There are a lot of random characters in the Fox Marvel movie, but not many that matter to the two leads. They contribute to Deadpool & Wolverine‘s ultimate downfall: its complete inability to adjust its tone. The movie keeps jumping between Deadpool making stupid jokes and Wolverine thinking very sincerely about every mistake he’s ever made in his life, which is hard to process – by the end of the movie, that tonal whiplash has Made me numb to any feeling.
The point of all this is that we’re not really going anywhere. Deadpool vs. Wolverine won’t change the Marvel Universe or affect any other ongoing stories, and the Marvel Universe’s actual presence in the movie is minimal. That’s the MCU today, in a nutshell: giving the impression that something is happening, but not actually doing anything. Sure, some of the jokes are pretty funny and some of the action is pretty good, but Deadpool and Wolverine is the worst Deadpool movie.
