[Rating: Minor Rock Fist Down]
Now in Theaters
You ever go nuts as a kid at the soda-dispensing station, and instead of getting just one flavor, you went down the line to get a short blast of everything? One or two seconds each at Coke, Dr. Pepper, Sprite, Orange Fanta, and Root Beer all together because why the hell not: all of them are great, so all of them mixed up must be awesome, right?
Wrong. No sane child ever did this and came away thinking it was a good idea, and that’s saying something because children are, by and large, punishingly stupid and devoid of taste. Kind of fun and worth trying at least once? Sure. But was it a worthwhile beverage and/or satisfying in the long-run? Not in the slightest. And that’s what audiences can expect with Deadpool & Wolverine, which is kinda fun for a little while, but is little more than a bunch of short bursts of sugary flavor that never come together in a meaningful way.
None of this is very surprising when the ‘Written By’ title card appears, revealing a total of five hands behind this convoluted mess of a story. Employing a mix of multiverse magic with buddy road trip sensibilities, the script carves a messy ditch of a narrative out of what scraps remain from two entirely decent Deadpool installments and a sprinkling of Fox properties. Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is six years removed from his last outing as a non-super superhero, working in a used car lot with former X-Force buddy, Peter (Rob Delaney), while licking the wounds from his breakup with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). This is when the Time Variance Authority (TVA) shows up at his door, and with the universe about to end and Wade looking for a chance to prove himself, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) appears and becomes the key to this redemption.
Wade and Wolverine then meet, fight, bicker, fight some more, encounter friends, then some enemies, and then some friends who might also be or become enemies (and vice versa). Where it goes from here and who specifically the pair run into on their journey might ruin the fun of anyone looking to relish what turns out to be the true heart of the movie: cameos and call-backs. There are no spoilers of this sort above or below, but many of these are fun, and some are even funny, yet none sustain or endure in a way that makes the larger effort worth the 128 minutes it takes to work through it all.
If the first Deadpool movie was a superhero-shrouded romcom, and the second a coming-of-age story about the importance of real human connections, then this third installment serves as little more than a cinematic adapter piece for one studio absorbing the IP of another. And while the multiverse is a handy tool for just such a combo maneuver, it also cheapens the impact of any previous character growth (and death). This in turn robs the audience of the emotional buy-in that brought them to the third chapter of a crossover movie event with no less than four dozen reference points and half as many alternate realities to contend with.
Jackman does about as well as anybody in the movie, channeling the tortured grief that elevated his turn in Logan (though this isn’t that universe’s version of him) into a character with real pathos and complexity. Reynolds is likewise capable in this regard, as seen in Deadpool 1 & 2, yet whether it’s the joke-a-minute quota he’s sticking to or his relegation behind the mask for most of the film, the actor doesn’t seem to be digging very deep this time around. To be fair, Reynolds doesn’t have a lot of time to explore the character, as he generously clears out plenty of screentime to let Jackman and the film’s big bad, [REDACTED/SPOILERS], cook, yet it is a missing component the movie can’t overcome.
Even so, it’s not all bad! The appearance of [REDACTED/SPOILERS] when Wade and Wolverine get to [REDACTED/SPOILERS] is pretty fun, especially after the three of them encounter [REDACTED/SPOILERS], and later on when [REDACTED/SPOILERS], [REDACTED/SPOILERS], [REDACTED/SPOILERS], and [REDACTED/SPOILERS] make their appearance. Now, that might seem like a lot of story-security as a way to avoid spoilers, but again: that’s pretty much all Deadpool & Wolverine is or aspires to be.
A movie designed to give annoying friends a reason to elbow their uninterested partner 58 times in two hours, Deadpool & Wolverine succeeds in bridging the gap between Fox and Marvel with more than its fair share of chuckles…and that’s about it. Fans of the Wolverine character as played by Hugh Jackman should have fun with this, yet Deadpool has surprisingly little to do or say in his own movie, and the broader effort suffers because of it. Visually flat and uninspired, the look of the film matches what lies at the heart of it, providing empty calories to the masses without any of the precision just one flavor might have provided in lieu of the all-at-once approach.
“Obvious Child” is the debut novel of Warren Cantrell, a film and music critic based out of Seattle, Washington. Mr. Cantrell has covered the Sundance and Seattle International Film Festivals, and provides regular dispatches for Scene-Stealers and The Playlist. Warren holds a B.A. and M.A. in History, and his hobbies include bourbon drinking, novel writing, and full-contact kickboxing.
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