Note: This review of Deadpool & Wolverine, like all reviews on Hypertext, is free from spoilers. We will only discuss what is shown in the teaser and the first trailer (the second trailer contains spoilers).
As arguably the biggest superhero movie of the year, and the capstone to a trilogy of Deadpool movies that are beloved even by non-comic fans, Deadpool & Wolverine has some huge shoes to fill.
Aside from being at a pivotal point inside of its own franchise, it also arrives at a weird time in superhero films as a whole with the MCU less of a juggernaut compared to just a few short years ago, and parent company Disney now owning Fox and its movie characters, including this version of Deadpool.
The situation is all very messy, overly verbose and a bit obnoxious, much like Deadpool himself. That doesn’t even factor in the other titular character for this movie as Hugh Jackman returns as Wolverine despite the fact that he hung up the claws after Logan in 2017.
So let’s just answer the questions everyone wants to know: is this movie any good?
Yes, it’s great, actually. Where does Deadpool & Wolverine sit inside of the Deadpool trilogy? From our side, it’s the best of the trilogy by far and it’s not even close. Despite fond memories and nostalgia, Deadpool (2016) was a very limited adventure and Deadpool 2 (2018) was a bit of a mess.
As the (mostly spoiler free) teaser and trailer allude to, Deadpool has to save his universe from multiverse shenanigans involving the TVA, as seen in the Loki series. You don’t need to have watched Loki, however, as everything is explained in this movie. To save the people he cares about Deadpool has to enlist the help of a Wolverine and that’s followed by around two hours of rated R violence, also rated R language and enough fourth wall breaks that the roof has become structurally unsound.
The story here is decent enough but there’s nothing to write home about. The bulk of the writing effort went into dialogue instead of story and, yes there’s a lot of improv comedy, but the real trick of Deadpool & Wolverine is how earnest it is. The central theme of this entire movie is that you can be a joke, you can be a bit of a failure, as long as you do the right thing in the end.
You get this sense in the teaser and the trailer and we were impressed by just how much this theme is woven into the entire movie. This theme is even taken to a meta level in a way we can’t say here because it would be a spoiler, but it does justice to characters that many see as a joke by giving them a way to participate in this larger story of making your life matter for those you care about.
Not quite the expected central pillar to build a Deadpool movie on, now is it? But Deadpool is a superhero at the end of the day so redemption in the face of adversity shouldn’t be the most surprising idea. The real surprise is the quality of writing to pull that off, even when a lot of dialogue has 500 percent too many F bombs and may end in a punchline that doesn’t land.
Many jokes in Deadpool & Wolverine do land, however, and that’s by way of being genuinely funny and not relying on a reference or meta humour. The percentage of hits to misses for these jokes depends, of course, on your own sense of humour, but this movie was more hits than misses for us.
We don’t want to say that Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool is still the same unchanged Deadpool we’ve seen in the previous two movies, especially as trying to be the hero was a theme in those past two films too, but if you have seen those movies you know what to expect. Less of a sure thing was Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine.
While we’ve seen his Logan for 24 years now (feel your bones turn to dust as we remind you that X-Men released in 2000), we’ve never seen him in this setting. Yes the Logan movie in 2017 was also rate R, but it used its violence and swearing as a way to increase the dire tone and hopelessness of the setting, not as a joke or set piece.
Jackman has made the movie to the Deadpool style of movie with little friction. Who would have though that the character best known for having six huge knives in his body would work well in another violent movie? But it’s not just the violence, the tragic backstory of this Wolverine again works into the central theme of this movie and the writers did a great job with that integration. We think many people will be a tad shocked by how solemn and straightlaced the writing is for Jackman and how well he pulls it off.
Speaking of other characters will again veer into spoilers but we will say that the writing for lesser characters varies in quality. The “British bad guy” shows in the trailer – played by Matthew Macfadyen, for example – is great and again shows how a character can be over the top without being annoying. On the other end of the scale is some smaller characters who have less to offer the story and us the viewers, and they’re mostly grating while on screen.
With CGI a sore spot in recent hears for superhero flicks, we’re glad to report that the effects in Deadpool & Wolverine are rather great all around. There are some scenes that look a bit rubbery or very clear that it’s just a green screen, but this is the best of the Deadpool trilogy and better than many modern comic movies. The spottiest aspects were full body replacements for both Deadpool and Wolverine, especially in scenes where they seemingly weren’t needed.
The action choreography was similarly impressive even when your two main characters are essentially immortal and cannot die. Our complaint is that, with two main characters, more good guy characters joining on later, and endless bad guy goons, the fight scenes turn into visual clutter real fast. It maybe would have been a better idea to have shorter fight scenes with less characters, instead of the prolonged scenes with everyone involved.
Against the backdrop of much of the action is a weird sound track featuring a lot of pop songs from years prior. Some are played as normal while others get the “slowed down and emotional” treatment that has become a meme for movie trailers. No matter the changes to the songs, they mostly work inside the context of the movie and many tracks got the audience pumped for the action on the screen.
With the credits rolled, and the one after credits scene watched, we left Deadpool & Wolverine very happy with what we saw. Everything around the movie has created rough environment to launch a project like this and the fan expectations for this one may be way too high for any movie to satisfy. Despite a lot of dude jokes and reliance on profanity as a punchline, the writing was saccharine and carefully considered for the story it attempted to tell. The action, acting and music was all solid and it’s difficult not to recommend this one with a smile on our faces.
We can, however, see non-superhero fans struggling to latch onto this one and we can definitely understand how the other side of the fence – the existing fans – may feel like they’re being pandered to. Even with this in mind it’s hard not to like this movie and it’s almost a forgone conclusion that many people were going to see this movie regardless of what this review or what any review says. The great news is that those true believers will be rewarded with a great time for their money.
FINAL SCORE: 8 OUT OF 10.
