I Just Saw

I just saw Deadpool & Wolverine and it was good. The Deadpool movies are my favourites of the Marvel cinematic stable because I’m not too invested in the larger overarching stories of these films and Deadpool provides a less baggage-laden movie-going experience, mixing self-aware humour, cartoonish ultraviolence, and large-scale set pieces.

That isn’t to say that they’re completely uninfected by the large helpings of treacle that presumably come across as high drama to invested franchise fans. I’d always be happy personally to turn off these movies once the Big Bad has been defeated and the heroes go on their victory lap/exposition wrap-up.

But they’re films where I’m solidly entertained for a not gargantuan amount of time (this one is 2 hours and 7 minutes, while Deadpool 2 was 119 minutes and the original Deadpool a comparatively trim 108). They’re like watching superhero films from the ‘90s or early ‘00s when it wasn’t assumed that everyone in the audience was a fanboy/girl and there needed to be some compelling reason to watch beyond brand loyalty.

Funnily enough, although it’s the longest and in its way might be the most bloated, bombastic, and least solidly plotted, this is probably my favourite of the three Deadpool films. I didn’t really care about the story in a dramatic sense and found it at times hard to understand to the degree that it just felt like tropes (British villain, wounded hero with a past, etc.) hammered together, then larded with jargon (what’s a “Time Ripper”? What does “TVA” stand for again? I kept thinking that it was a TV channel).

I found myself asking silly questions like “Where does Channing Tatum’s character keep getting brand label booze in the Void?”, a Mad Max-esque apocalyptic tundra where troublesome super-people are abandoned. Is someone from the multiverse shopping for him at liquor stores and then transporting the purchases?

At any rate, Ryan Reynolds returns as the merc with the mouth who in this instalment must dig up (literally, in the prologue’s case) Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and travels to various universes to do so, bringing back the “worst” one, a shambling drunk who did something shameful enough to provide a secret that will be revealed.

Wolverine was the “anchor being” of Deadpool’s universe, meaning that upon his death that strand of reality or “timeline” started to deteriorate and now corrupt officials from the “sacred” timeline are looking to yakety-yak yak, we’d be here all day if I tried to summarise this stuff. Details are there in comic book films like this, but they’re not really important unless you’re the type of person who commits to understanding them, like the soap opera fan who can recall who’s been married to/had affairs with/cheated on whom.

What I liked were the characters and their dialogue, which are funny and whimsical as they move through comic book landscapes that are often eye-popping in their effects and choreography. The film is also kind of a musical in how it scores its various bloody fight scenes with ‘80s and ‘90s pop ballads, including *NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” and Madonna’s “Like a Prayer”. The film essentially distils what worked about its predecessors – self-aware humour, dirty jokes, violence, gore – and cranks the dial until it snaps off.

Rating: 3/4