'Deadpool & Wolverine' Review: Is This Marvel at Maximum Effort?
This is a rant, but it's also a call to use our democratic power of consumption to shape culture.
Garrett Kincaid | Aug 1, 2024
I got mugged by the Merc with the Mouth and Pulverine. They stole twenty bucks and a full two hours and seven minutes of my time (yes, we stayed for the end-credit scene, which was the only great scene of the entire movie),1 and the same goes for the 6 million AMC patrons who contributed to the movie's $211 MM box office debut.
The first Deadpool was incredible. I remember seeing it as an MCU-enamored teenager. It had extremely good writing and a compelling plot, complete with subtext, clever comedy, genuine creative ambition, a subversive angle, and a genre-challenging tone. (I own that film — because it's great — and watched it immediately after getting home from the theater, to make sure my tongue hadn't gone numb. After that rewatch, I can confirm that the problem is not my taste but, indeed, this movie.) Deadpool (2016) is a real work of art. It was the first rated-R superhero movie, and it no doubt blazed a trail for titles like Logan and The Boys, which are both wildly successful and well-regarded. But Deadpool & Wolverine is barely art, if at all. Its purpose is not aesthetic or narrative or dramatic or comedic but purely capitalistic.
This robbery of my time and money hit me extra hard because I've avoided it lately. I've been vigilant and discerning with where I put my movie-going funds, and every film I've seen in theaters this year has been terrific: Oppenheimer and Barbie, Poor Things, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Inside Out 2. Even Anyone But You was very enjoyable.2 But this time, I wasn't vigilant. I didn't watch any trailers or read any reviews or articles. I spent my time and money on this movie because I respect the talents that are Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, and I am a huge fan of Deadpool (2016), The Wolverine, and Logan. So, I thought D&W was a safe bet. I did not expect it to be the multiversal cluster-fuck, inbred lovechild of No Way Home and Shang-Chi, cash-grab-and-a-half that it was. But now I know, and from now on, I'll be more vigilant. The next time a movie spends $100 MM on marketing before opening weekend, I'll keep my wallet in my goddamn pocket.
That's right, the $211 MM box office debut only covered the production budget of $200 MM. The marketing budget was another $100 MM, which they will also recoup. You know, with $300 MM you could fully fund at least 20 films from A24. You could produce Ex Machina, Uncut Gems, Lady Bird, Moonlight, Hereditary, and Everything Everywhere All at Once, and you would have won 11 total Academy Awards, including two Oscars for Best Picture. Oh, and after making those six films, you'd still have $244.5 MM left to use for marketing. Holy shit!
Deadpool & Wolverine was not made to last or to make an impact. It was made for the weekend of July 26th, 2024. It is literally already irrelevant (I'm too late in publishing this essay, because I saw it on the Tuesday after opening weekend). That $100 MM marketing budget was flushed into every media outlet (traditional and independent) that they could book before the box office debut (plus many man hours from Reynolds and Jackman). All that pre-release marketing came from everywhere, all at once, so that they could flood theaters with hopeful Marvel fans and abnormally acquiescing Swifty girlfriends (excited by the rumors of Blake Lively's cameo, of course!), to grab cash and cover their asses, knowing that no one was going to recommend this movie their friends come August 2nd.
My biggest gripe with the whole thing is not about the marketing machine behind it or that Disney can get butts in seats. That's all kosher to me; it's the free market, baby. I take issue with the fact that they put all of their energy toward that — maximum effort on everything but plot, character, dialogue, and themes. This movie has no story. And there was seemingly no attempt at story.
Now, before you go and discount your humble reviewer as hyperbolic and inflammatory, I've written up a synopsis for you so that you can decide for yourself.3 And if you don't want to read a 600-word play-by-play, you can trust me on the following: we are given no reason to care about these characters (other than the fact that they are played by Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman); there is no clear internal struggle for either character, or at least not one that makes any of their choices feel important; the humor is almost exclusively self-referential and fourth-wall-breaking; there's no clear villain until the very end; and there are no stakes.
Let's pause on that point for a minute: no stakes. In any story, you need to know what the characters want to accomplish and what obstacles they face. At no point in D&W could I have answered both of those questions: (1) What do they want? and (2) What's in their way? (At times, I knew the answer to one but not the other, feeling like a victim of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.) There were no internal stakes, because of the unclear intensions/obstacles. And there were no external stakes for one very important fact: these characters are both invulnerable; they cannot die and immediately heal all their wounds. It means that all the fight scenes are merely spectacle and do not serve plot or character. D&W can get stabbed in the head and balls with no consequences, which has the very predictable effect of desensitizing you to ball-stabbing.
You could argue that everything is at stake. An infinite number of timelines are at risk, after all. In reply, I opine: when the stakes become infinite, there become no stakes at all. (Oh no, the Temporal Stability of the Sacred Timeline dropped all the way to 1%! I thought for a moment that our heroes might not save the day. I thought, now that he is cannon, Marvel might let Deadpool destroy every Earth and send all the characters we love to The Void so that Disney can parody Mad Max for the remaining 87 years of the MCU's lifespan.) Since literally everything imaginable is doomed, you know that everything’s actually safe, that they’ll save the day. And since there are no clear internal conflicts, there is no reason to root for the characters to succeed or change.
Usually actors melt away into their characters. In Deadpool & Wolverine, it's the opposite. This movie abuses the fifth-wall-break. Fourth-wall breaks we all know and love, when used tactfully and sparingly: the character looking into the camera to playfully address the audience. In fourth-wall breaks, there's another wall that remains unbroken: the wall separating the character from the actor. But in D&W, there are many instances where this wall is also broken. At one point, Nicepool — played by a mask-less, long-haired, Legolas-looking Ryan Reynolds — taunts, "I can gently tap the fourth wall, too," before turning to the camera and proceeding to shatter both the fourth wall and the fifth wall with this line: "The Proposal.” In that moment, there is no character there — not Deadpool or Nicepool; it's just Ryan Reynolds playing on his cultural cachet.4
The experience of watching this movie was not that at all. It was more similar in every way to scrolling through short-form videos than it was to watching a feature film: full of celebrities and violence, and interrupted by ads. (There is a seven-minute fight scene that takes place inside a Honda Odyssey, showcasing the van's heartiness and reliability.) The whole movie is a montage — alternating between computer-generated action sequences and marketing-motivated cameos, with product placements sprinkled in hitting you over the head about every 20 minutes. The dialogue only serves to incite the fights, acknowledge the cameos, and deliver self-referential commentary.
This movie made me ask a question that I've never had to consider — an ontological one: What is a movie without a story? And I dare say, it ceases to be a movie.
This absence of story is not due to any flaws of D&W's creative team. Many of the same actors and writers worked on the original Deadpool, which beat out La La Land for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy) at the 2017 Golden Globes. The only difference between that film and this movie is that the first Deadpool had to be (aesthetically, narratively, dramatically, comedically) Good to make money, whereas this one just had to pay for a duet appearance on Hot Ones and leak Blake Lively's cameo on TikTok. In other words, it didn't need a story to make money; it just needed money to make money. This cinematic venture is, by nature, capitalistic. And I can't blame the writers and actors for cashing in.
The conception of this movie was Disney's acquisition of Fox, and it’s birth was helped along by a $100 MM epidural. From alpha to omega, this thing has been about money, not story. So, let's not deny that or dance around it. Let's feel free to call it what it is: a product, not art. Or, if that's too harsh for you, call it whatever word you would use to describe the content of your Reels or Shorts or TikTok feeds. Call it whatever you would call "a series of disorienting clips designed to allure your attention and persuade your future spending," because this movie is exactly that.
Now, here's something truly concerning: the media is denying and dancing around it. Search "Deadpool & Wolverine review," and you'll find scores of timid takes on this thing. I guess they're hoping to get thrown a chunk of the marketing budget if they keep their opinions ambiguous and their tones semi-reverent. Or maybe they had been bribed already.
Of the reviews released before the box office debut, I only found one overtly negative headline, by NPR: "'Deadpool & Wolverine' Is a Self-Cannibalizing Slog." Maybe that's because NPR already has enough money, and hopefully it's because they feel an obligation to journalistic integrity and objectivity. Here's an honest account of D&W's degenerate self-referentiality (emphasis mine):
"When Disney bought Fox a few years ago, Deadpool, along with other mutant characters from the X-Men series, officially joined the franchise juggernaut known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That puts the new movie in an almost interesting bind. It tries to poke fun at its tortured corporate parentage; one of the first things Deadpool says is 'Marvel’s so stupid.' But now the movie also has to fit into the narrative parameters of the MCU. It tries to have it both ways: brand extension disguised as a satire of brand extension."5 – Justin Chang, NPR
Even in that review, though, as in many others, the negative comments are buried in the middle of paragraphs and sandwiched by compliments. It's an odd phenomenon.6 Here's a sneaky line from The Guardian's review, "Marvel’s Achingly Meta New Sequel Is Going to Be Huge," in which you can just barely glimpse the author’s true feelings about the movie:
"[A] film can be obnoxious and simultaneously very funny, and Deadpool & Wolverine is frequently hilarious. But it’s also slapdash, repetitive and shoddy looking [sic],[7] with an overreliance on meme-derived gags and achingly meta comic fan in-jokes. It’s going to be huge." – Wendy Ide, The Guardian
"Achingly meta" is a great way to put it. The characters (the actors?) spend the film commenting on how self-referential their commentary is. What would you call that? Post-postmodern? Meta-postmodern? Whatever it is, it's not straight, clean, endearing, redeeming, or even clever. D&W is sparsely hilarious, only for the few jokes that are not cameo-, studio-, IP-, or Ryan Reynolds–related.
The only reason these movies get made is because they make money. If we stopped giving them money for this shit, they'd stop putting shit on silver screens. That's the democratic power we have as consumers. So, let's wield that power wisely. Do we just want to be spoon-fed spectacle and nostalgia and familiarity-porn? ("Ooo Ooo, Ah Ah — I've seen her on TV before," we collectively grunt in sold-out theaters.) Instead, let’s vote with our time, money, and attention for media that's aesthetically, narratively, dramatically, comedically better than this, and thereby add to the richness of our culture.
If you too saw Deadpool & Wolverine and now, like me, have a chalky film of cynicism and despair coating your eye-holes, here are some recommendations to quench your mind’s thirst for non-gimmicky art:
- Deadpool prime for a genuine yet irreverent, subversive, not-beholden-to-any-studio, anti-hero movie
- Christopher Nolan's Dark Night trilogy for a compelling internal conflict of a superhero
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off for stylish and narrative-driving fourth-wall breaks
- Logan for a grounded drama that also pays homage to a beloved comic-book character
- The Prestige, The Greatest Showman, or Les Miserables to remind you of Hugh Jackman's talent
- And Everything Everywhere All at Once for the correct way to use the multiverse as a plot device.
Of course, this is all a matter of taste. Maybe it'd be better to call these big-budget, sans-story spectacles their own kind of art, rather than "not art." Regardless, I've decided it's a kind of art that doesn't deserve my time or money.
Springboard
A carefully crafted question to help you dive inwards:
Weaning myself off the teat of algorithmic feeds
On his day off, Cameron reclaims his life and takes a stand.
Footnotes
- The hype and lust around Steve Rogers / Captain America throughout the first act played perfectly into the reveal of Chris Evans as the Human Torch (from the other Fox superhero property: The Fantastic Four). You assume it’s Cap, but then wonder, How could any version of Chris Rogers be sent to The Void? Isn't he too noble and important for that? And then you hear, "Flame on!". It was pretty genius. Then, the end-credit scene was this flawless call-back to one of the funnier moments in the meat of the story. It was actually worth the wait. ↑
- And Sydney Sweeney's Hot Ones episode was way more interesting and engaging and impressive than Reynolds and Jackman's (said the heterosexual male). ↑
- We find our mouthy, red-suited friend six feet in the ground, trying to exhume Logan so that Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) can cash in on a long-awaited franchise crossover with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). (This is not my opinion but actual summary, because that's the confession Marvel makes within the first two minutes of the movie.) But the Logan from that timeline — the 21st Century Fox Timeline — is irreparably dead. And since Logan was the "Temporal Anchor" on that Earth, his death has caused the 21st Century Fox Timeline (also Deadpool's native timeline) to decay. Then, the Time Variance Authority (TVA) conveniently offers to rescue Deadpool from his doomed timeline in return for helping them save the Sacred Timeline (the MCU Timeline, belonging to our beloved Avengers). The threat to the Sacred Timeline, however, is completely unclear. And for literally no reason at all, Deadpool is convinced that he needs Wolverine's help to solve this phantom problem, so he scours the multiverse in search of a variant of Logan who doesn't immediately try to kill him. Deadpool's motivation is that he wants to matter to the world and impress his girl. Wolverine's motivation is that he wants to feel handsome in his suit. And with these noble intentions, the TVA guy very abruptly casts them into The Void — a purgatory outside all timelines for those deemed useless or harmful to their worlds. The Void is a Whack-a-Mole game of cameos, and home to not one but two unstoppable villains: Charles Xavier's bald twin sister, and a big bad smoke monster that can make you actually dead (non-existent). This middle bit is punctuated by three main fight scenes, two of which are between the titular characters, who are both invulnerable. Then they eventually storm the castle of The Void with their cast of cameos and subdue Ms. Xavier. The bald mind-groper wants to retain power in The Void, so she decides she wants to eliminate all timelines, even though she already has ultimate power in The Void and even though the events of the timelines affect her in no way at all. But how will Deadpool and Wolverine escape The Void and return to the Sacred Timeline to stop the evil TVA guy (the third villain)? It turns out that a variant of Dr. Strange was killed in The Void, and the bald gal took his magic portal ring. (Kind of odd that Strange wouldn't use the ring himself to escape The Void and return to his timeline, but let's not ask questions.) Once in The Sacred Timeline, the mind-groper takes control of the reality-eraser-machine, donning two gloves — one channelling matter and the other anti-matter (still following?), and she uses the machine to start deconstructing the MCU Timeline. At this point, D&W finally team up to fight 100 Deadpool variants who invade the Sacred Timeline from The Void. And just in time, Deadpool and Wolverine reach the power source of the reality-eraser-machine, hold hands, and sacrifice themselves to save not just the world but all conceivable worlds (a siamese-twin-Marvel Jesus–moment). The mind-groper gets so close to winning, too; the "Temporal Stability" read-out went all the way down to 1%! So, our heroes sacrifice themselves to save an infinite number of universes, and then it turns out that they're just fine — all the death-energy did was tear off Huge Jacked-man's shirt. And we get to marvel at his pecs just before the credits roll. ↑
- This is actor-over-character feel is further evidenced by the nostalgic home-video tape that rolls during the credits, featuring behind-the-scenes clips of Reynolds and Jackman filming the X-Men and Deadpool movies. It's sentimental in the way you would feel about the same coming from a film-school thesis group celebrating the end of the end of senior year, to say a heartfelt "It's been a pleasure" to their pals. It confirms the fact that this whole endeavor was just two friends who wanted to have fun in superhero costumes and make a bunch of money together. ↑
- Anti-Marvel jokes don't really land when they're coming from Marvel. They're not funny but spooky. It feels like I'm being subtly manipulated, as if they think they can win over my sympathy by acknowledging that every movie since Endgame has been garbage. ↑
- I mean, what the hell is this from IGN? The language here is so coded that calling the film a "well-sustained cinematic fart" is somehow praise: "It doesn’t matter if you haven’t enjoyed the MCU since Avengers: Endgame pushed the stakes of the franchise off a cliff, or if you’re cautiously optimistic about the rest of the Multiverse Saga — come for Deadpool and Wolverine’s blockbuster chemistry, but stay for the frankness with which they comment on the past, present, and future of Marvel Studios. And it’s a good thing that they do. The MCU has been bloated and unfocused for years now, and it’s about time someone let the air out and had some fun with it. In that way, Deadpool & Wolverine is a perfectly timed and well-sustained cinematic fart, released with confidence and comfort in the space it creates for future nourishment. It’s not going to single-handedly save the MCU from the larger bout of indigestion it’s suffering through, but it’s a refreshing mea culpa that demonstrates that Marvel can still let 'er rip loud and proud when it really counts." ↑
- Don't you find it ironic that The Guardian, as a part of its house style, omits the Oxford Comma? (I would also opt to hyphenate shoddy looking, to be clear that it’s one adjective and that shoddy isn’t its own item in the list.) ↑