A Marvel Studios’ Theatrical Release
The team-up of the century is finally happening! Marvel Studios’ DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE is Rated R for “Raunchy Fun” and is everything the fans have been hoping for as the MCU retools and resets!
Suddenly it all comes into focus! With the blockbuster opening weekend of Marvel Studios’ DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, the special sauce that has been eluding the superhero cinematic universe might have been to turn the reigns over to the infamous Merc with a Mouth! The third installment in the Deadpool franchise finally inducting him into the MCU, and its star, Ryan Reynolds, is reunited in the indelible red and black skin-tight suit with longtime onscreen BFF, Hugh Jackman. Jackman is reprising his role as the rough-and-tumble Wolverine after putting the character “to rest” in the highly acclaimed Logan.
Overall, mixed reviews couldn’t keep fans away from bringing the latest Marvel Studios offering a winning $211M domestic opening weekend box office, the biggest for an R-rated film. Considering that recent MCU releases had been missing their mark and falling short of audience appreciation, the studio head, Kevin Feige, had suggested a pullback on overall releases, including Original Series set in the cinematic universe. Had the superhero bubble finally burst? That’s a question certainly for ages, but after this ultimate Marvel team-up, superheroes are on the upswing, especially if they are talking, gun-toting, sword-slashing, and annihilistic, facing equally sadistic baddies.
D&W is a superhero exploitation film if there ever was one. It takes mostly discarded bits and pieces of the genre, many of which were largely discarded (post Disney purchase of Fox), collects them, and brings them into play in an environment where conventional rules don’t apply — where anything and everything goes, all in the service of satisfying the audience’s most basic “fanboy” desires. From a story and screenplay that has put the film’s star, Ryan Reynolds, as a topline and directed by Shawn Levy, who has a history working with both Reynolds and Jackman, the film’s narrative is classic Deadpool but also serves to inspire cohesion between the previous cinematic legacy and the one it inspired.
Don’t Trifle with the Timeline.
Following up on its next phase, Marvel decided it might be fun to toil in the multiverse and introduced or rather re-introduced entirely alternate lines of story-telling that gave them the option to revisit previous iterations of its cinematic counterparts, as in the case with Spider-Man: No Way Home. That feature film successfully brought together former web-slingers Toby Maguire, and Andrew Garfield, alongside the current MCU Peter Parker - Tom Holland. Meanwhile, Tom Hiddleston’s God of Mischief, Loki, an ardent foe of the Mighty Avengers, finds himself out of time following the events of Avengers: Endgame.
With Marvel Studios looking to repopulate its cinematic universe, reacquiring the intellectual properties that inhabited the “alternate timeline” at Fox, including the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and both the Deadpool and Wolverine spin-offs, many of those properties are amid a reboot or are acclimating to life inside the multiverse (see Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness). Not one to go out quietly, Reynolds had a plan to interject himself into the MCU, and borrowing a key, time-altering device from an adversary in Deadpool 2, his alter-ego has been manipulating the timeline ever since to keep the love of his life, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) alive.
Naturally, this has put a target on Deadpool’s back, and the TVA (The Time Variance Authority introduced in the Loki Original Series) has come to collect. Deadpool’s timeline is deteriorating! He assumes it must be due to his tampering with the timeline. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), the TVA agent overseeing the issue, offers Deadpool an opportunity to flee his existence’s upending and join the MCU prime timeline. Still, the offer is not extended to anyone, including his close friends. They will all cease to exist because the “anchor being” in Deadpool’s timeline has died, and that being is none other than Wolverine.
Seizing the opportunity to make things right, Deadpool steals one of the TVA’s portal-opening devices and hunts the multiverse for an appropriate alternative, Logan (Jackman), to replace the one who died in his timeline. Evitably, he lands on a Wolverine that will serve his purposes, but this version of Wolverine is the last survivor of a tragedy that left him the last X-Man standing, and not the most popular hero either. Paradox has the pair banished to The Void, also nether-space between timelines and alternate earths, where undesirable variates are exiled. It’s a desolate place inhabited by many familiar faces (from previous FOX films), and one particularly nasty new villain.
The Redemption Tour
The Void is controlled by the most sadistic Marvel villain ever introduced. Emma Corrin devilishly portrays Cassandra Nova, the twin sister of the X-Men’s founder, Prof. Charles Xavier, sent into the void to live out her entire existence, where she lords over mutants in a desolate frontier. Nova is an ideal adversary for our heroes, who are determined to return to whatever remains of their reality before Paradox eradicates it. Nova’s diabolical will over her subjects in The Void has kept her sated, but when she learns that Paradox has devised a machine that can erase all realities, she decides to use it and erase all of the multiverse.
In D&W, it’s hard to discuss many of the film’s outstanding plot points for fear of revealing any spoilers. You don’t want to be the reviewer who gives up the cow for the farm. Suffice it to say, every bit of stunt casting and cameo has its moment and will undoubtedly make any Marvel fan happy, especially anyone who has been around since the FOX era. The plot moves with keen, effortless skill from one point to the other, sandwiched throughout with fight sequences that are both spectacular and quite gnarly to behold. Reynolds and Jackman make a great team and lead a perfectly balanced cast, witty bantering.
Is D&W a perfect movie? It’s a “perfect” summer blockbuster, especially if you’ve been hankering for a superhero epic; serve it with deluxe popcorn and soda. This installment in the MCU (yes, it’s part of the timeline that we all have to keep an eye on) has all the significance of consequence that hasn’t resonated since perhaps Avengers: Endgame. It’s no surprise that Kevin Feige suggested it was the most important MCU flick since the conclusion of “The Infinity Saga.” Most of all, it's just great fun and entertaining.
Be warned: it is over-the-top violent and extreme, with the most creative kills this side of a horror slasher, for sure, and with some pretty randy jokes that are sure to upset some radical right-wing conservative who didn’t know what they were getting into. The performances, especially from the film’s two stars and everyone joining the circle to play, are perfectly playful and comically cast. The course language and meta-humor add to the overall enthusiasm you suspect helped make this film a romp behind the scenes. Deadpool & Wolverine is fan service at its best and in the least a rousing return to the MCU we all cherish.
Get your #FanzEyeView of Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine here:
Marvel Studios’ DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE | starring Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and directed by Shawn Levy | is now playing in theaters.
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