G’day 3.5 reader mates.
Time to throw a review on the barbie.
“Welcome to the MCU. You’ve come at a bad time.”
Such is Deadpool’s greeting to Wolverine and not a bad welcome to anyone who is just getting into the Marvel Cinematic Universe these days. What was once a great cinematic achievement i.e. Hollywood figuring out how to finagle multiple highly paid actors, writers and directors to get them to all tell stories that weaved their way into an over-arching narrative, it has since fizzled out into complete drek.
And it’s not the MCU alone. Movies in general are suffering. 3.5 readers, did you even notice that I didn’t even go to the movies for most of the month of June? Had this bad boy not come out, I probably would have skipped the popcorn for the entire month, which would have been great for my waistline, but I digress.
The good news is that this film is the best the MCU has offered in awhile and it fully makes fun of the fact that the last several installments have sucked really hard. I have to hand it to Disney for poking fun at themselves.
It also serves as a love letter to the early days of Marvel movies, those first entries in the late 90s and early 2000s, brought to us through Fox/Marvel collabs. If I name them then I will give away the many fun cameos so you’ll just have to go and watch yourself. If you were sentient during the Clinton/Bush years then you can already guess. It’s unfortunate these films often get panned when in reality, they were the canaries in the coal mine, the films that lighted the way that plotted the course toward the eventual MCU we came to know and love.
The plot? The merc with the mouth is back yet again and once again, he’s broken up with girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). So depressed is he after being turned down for a job with the Avengers that he hangs up his swords and goes to work selling used cars for a living. Sad as that sounds, he still eeks out a life with his friends, the regulars from the previous films who stop by but sadly don’t have much of a role in this one. Come to think of it, I’m going to criticize this movie because Deadpool’s friends like Dopinder, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Weasel and so on really made all the jokes come alive. Weasel isn’t even in this one.
But for the uninitiated, way back on the dewy slopes of 2009, Ryan Reynolds starred in a critically panned, total flop of a Wolverine movie that sucked really hard. The intention was that RR’s side character, Wade Wilson, would be developed into Deadpool in a standalone movie but the film sucked so bad that the idea of a Deadpool film was shelved for nearly a decade. In the Deadpool films that came later, Deadpool makes fun of that movie often, going so far as to make jokes about Hugh Jackman’s aussie accent and so on.
So the collab we’ve long waited for is finally here and it is a fun buddy cop type movie.
The bad news? It mostly focuses on the TVA and I freaking hate the TVA. To the film’s credit, even Deadpool hates the TVA, pointing out that you really needed to watch a specific episode of Loki to understand any of this shit. Marvel has gone really off the deep end when it comes to multi-versal theory, time travel and timelines and its all very silly and confusing, such that I don’t even attempt to try to understand any of it.
The overall problem? Wolverine is so important to our universe that because he died in 2018’s Logan, our universe is now disintegrating. Thus, it’s up to Deadpool to travel the many universes and find a suitable Wolverine to return to our timeline and help him save the day from the big bad and repair our timeline from certain doom.
POSITIVES: It’s a lot of fun. It’s the best Marvel has made in a while. It’s intent is to entertain whereas so many Marvel movies these days seem highly agenda driven. The fun trip down memory lane to characters from the early days of Marvel movies is great and done well.
NEGATIVES: I didn’t laugh as much at this one. There were a few good laughs but I recall watching Deadpool 1 and 2 and being in absolute gutbusting, tears in my eyes hysterics the entire time. That wasn’t the case for me, though I noticed many in the theater did, so maybe I’m just getting old and not getting the humor. The film did drag butts into seats, which is rare these days. My theater even had a guy in a Wolverine suit taking pics with customers which was fun.
Speaking of the Wolvy suit, Jackman wears the infamous yellow suit for the first time and its a nice touch. Deadpool, who breaks the 4th wall throughout, occasionally busting on Wolverine’s actor, dumps on Jackman for being too much of a priss to have not worn a bright yellow cartoon suit for the past 20 years.
This is Deadpool’s first foray into the Avengers universe. To the best of my nerd knowledge, Deadpool and Wolverine were classified as X-Men and were therefore owned by Fox and as such, were not allowed to go romping about with Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk and other properties that went to Disney when the House of Mouse bought Marvel.
However, Disney has since bought Fox and now the X-Men and the Avengers can be BFFS on screen as they were in the comics. Problem is, those X-Men movies came out 20 some odd years ago and all those actors are getting long in the tooth. Hell, even some of the Avengers actors are getting up there. It might be time to reboot the whole enchilada, but Marvel seems determined to just keep the whole storyline going forever and just make old characters young through time travel, multi-verse theory and so on.
Personally, I don’t like seeing a movie with this much swearing and naughty jokes being released under the Disney name. I think Walt Disney’s head would be spinning in its cryo chamber. The Disney name really should mean wholesome family entertainment such that a rated R movie and Disney should never mix.
Does that mean Deadpool has to never be on screen again? I don’t know the logistics, but I wonder why he couldn’t have been released under the Fox brand or barring that, create a new brand for naughty comic book movies. It’s all a shell game, I suppose, if its all owned by Disney anyway but even so, I just don’t think a movie where bad guys get Wolverine claws shoved up their butts and worked like a puppet to semi-comedic effect should be released under the Disney brand.
Is this Disney’s first R rated movie? I don’t know enough of movie history but I think it has to be. If you know, let me know.
One last criticism. 2018’s Logan was so good that it was nominated for an Oscar. It was a sad but somber end, a fitting hero’s end to a long journey. A very long one indeed as Jackman holds the record for playing the same superhero in the most number of films for the longest period of time.
But I guess none of that matters now thanks to multi-verse theory and timeline travel because whatever serious consequences happen in one film, they can just be undone in another film. I’ll hand it to the film for making fun of this. It begins with Deadpool digging up Wolvy’s adamantium metal skeleton from the Logan movie and doing an impression of Jackman’s voice while making his skull talk. “Disney gave me a bunch of money to come back, mate!”
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. There’s a clip at the end that shows Jackman and some of the other actors/actresses in some of the early Fox/Marvel movies and they look so young. I was young then too. Amazing how time flies. This movie is gross and silly and like most Marvel movies as of late, relies way too much on time travel and multi-verse nonsense. But it is a good time so if you like this sort of thing, then go see it.
Bookshelf Battle 