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Deadpool and Wolverine Movie Review

Deadpool and Wolverine is a 2024 superhero comedy film directed by Shawn Levy and starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. It’s a weakly plotted, but hilarious movie.

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“Welcome to the MCU.

You’re joining at a bit of a low point“

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Deadpool is offered a place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by the Time Variance Authority, but instead recruits a variant of Wolverine to save his universe from extinction. This movie comes at a time when the MCU and the superhero genre are very much in trouble. The fatigue from this genre is definitely real, which is evident as this is the only MCU movie released this year. Thankfully, it’s a strong one despite its obvious shortcomings.

I am a big fan of this franchise and I had so much fun watching all three of these movies. The first one was an unexpected and fresh delight while the second one was even funnier. This third one is by far the funniest movie in the trilogy, but it also has the weakest plot, so I would say the three are pretty much of a similar quality.

I am so glad that I watched this one in the theater with an audience of enthusiasts and fanboys. Everybody was applauding and laughing and having a great time. And it really is one of the funniest movies that I’ve seen in quite a while. Ryan Reynolds is a comedic genius. He not only performed, but wrote most of his jokes and the other writers and director Shawn Levy accompanied him in that task very successfully. This is his best and richest performance in the role to date.

He was humanized through his relationship with Wolverine and he got some moving moments in his arc, but the emphasis on his humor throughout is what made him such an entertaining character. Reynolds’ delivery of lines is top-notch and his timing is excellent. Deadpool’s numerous quips and remarks never ceased to amuse me and most of them genuinely made me laugh or at least chuckle. The constant barrage of jokes made this movie riveting and when it was over I thought it went by so quickly.

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The humor is varied. There are obviously those meta jokes that this character is famous for, but this time around they went even more extreme with those references, both making fun of and honoring the Fox X-Men franchise, Marvel and the superhero genre at large. Breaking the fourth wall scenes worked once again and I loved to see them making fun of various genre conventions and clichés. The inside baseball industry jokes were also terrific for those who know the behind the scenes story. But the majority of jokes are centered on gay anal sex. Although these jokes won’t be for everybody of course, I like these immature jokes, so they worked for me. The movie was obviously made for the adult men with the mind of a nasty boy, which made it so endearing in a way.

I did really like what they did with Wolverine. ‘Logan’ was perfect, so obviously they were going to ruin his ending no matter what they did, but Hugh Jackman is so electric and perfect in this role that I didn’t mind watching him flex his muscles again, and very literally. That gag about his ripped body was hilarious. His arc is the dramatic and more tragic part of this otherwise light movie, but that contrast was necessary to make the film more tonally balanced. The interactions between the two characters were so delightfully over-the-top and fun and the actors had great chemistry together. The homoerotic overtones were particularly amusing here.

As I’ve already stated above, this movie has a poor plot. Yes, once again they went to the multiverse trope, which was especially frustrating as this franchise should be dismantling those clichés and not embracing them. I really did not care for the villain of this piece. Emma Corrin was fine in the role, but Cassandra Nova is such an overpowered antagonist that obviously she could only be destroyed in a very special and convoluted way, which is exactly what eventually transpired. The whole mind game narrative felt super clichéd and boring to me.

The MCU movies by now have become totally devoid of any meaning, purpose or consequence. Everybody can just die and return to life, so nothing ever sticks around or matters for longer than a movie. It’s frustrating that they’re not taking any of it seriously. So yes, the plot here was messy, illogical and tiresome. But that didn’t prevent me from enjoying it as much as I did because these movies are comedies first and foremost with the superhero stuff fading into the background.

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Matthew Macfadyen was reliably good in his role and it was nice seeing him again after ‘Succession’ ended. Deadpool and Wolverine also has a plethora of fun supporting players, Peter is very amusing, Blind Al is as funny as always and that ugly yet cute dog was hilarious. I did not care, though, for those cameos. Chris Evans was okay, but the Fox characters were unnecessary to the story and it was hypocritical of Disney to buy Fox and effectively end it and then go to honor them. The action sequences were mostly well executed, but I preferred the dialogue over action, and thankfully the movie mostly favored it too. The fights between the two protagonists were the best action scenes of the bunch. The overall look to the movie was uninspired and uninteresting, but the soundtrack was excellent and so much fun.