‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ review: a sarky, time-skipping superhero send-up

Have Marvel shot themselves in the foot? With superhero movies now hopelessly tangled up in their own time-traveling multiverses, anything is possible and everything is slightly meaningless. While that’s bad news for ever taking anything in the MCU seriously again, it’s great news if you want to rip the shit out of it instead. Who cares if Deadpool isn’t in the same cinematic universe as the X-Men! So what if Wolverine is dead! If Marvel have shot themselves in the foot, Deadpool & Wolverine is here to shoot it again, waggle a finger in the hole, rip the foot off at the knee, and then beat us all over the head with what’s left.

“If you’re wondering how we’re going to do this without desecrating the memory of Logan, we’re not” says Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) in the prologue – referencing Wolverine’s stately 2017 farewell before digging up his corpse and using his bones to disembowel an army of thugs in an NSYNC musical murder montage.

The thugs are from the Time Variance Authority (see Loki), and their appearance in Deadpool’s world makes just as much sense as it has to. All that really matters is that Deadpool and Wolverine are now in the same universe (because time), and Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are in the same film. At least, that’s about as much respect as the scriptwriters should have given the plot – falling slightly too often into their own trap as they try and crowbar a bit of logic and reason into all the chaos.

But what fantastic chaos. Wolverine and Deadpool are both invulnerable, which gives director Shawn Levy (Night At The Museum, Free Guy) licence to rip them apart like blood-soaked rag dolls as they bicker and beat each other through a desert wasteland ruled by Emma Corrin’s (The Crown) evil magical despot. And when they’re not shooting and stabbing each other, they’re doing it to a thousand other CG bullet sponges – the film dripping with some of the most creative and gory superhero set pieces not in The Boys.

Disney’s buyout of Fox, Marvel’s dwindling returns and Hugh Jackman’s divorce are also in the crosshairs, with Reynolds firing 20 quips a minute and landing most with a heavy wink to the camera. It’s hilarious, but it also relies a bit too heavily on the kind of knowing fan service that’s slowly eating the MCU from the inside out. “Time to get the special sock out, nerds” says Reynolds before one big cameo reveal – the first of many surprises that have been kept hidden so they can land like punchlines (as long as you’ve been paying attention to everything Marvel has made for the last 20-plus years).

Despite the A-list distractions (no spoilers here), Deadpool & Wolverine is really all about Reynolds and Jackman. In fact, it’s really all about Reynolds – with Jackman doing a heroic job of playing the surly straight man trying to keep up with Reynolds’ sweary killer clown. The first two Deadpool films were funny and violent and original, but this one shows Marvel’s most gloriously inappropriate superhero at his very best and worst.

Where does the MCU go from here? With an endless loop of multiverse MacGuffins to fall back on, it can probably keep going as if none of this has happened. But if the superhero era really is finally starting to wind down, Deadpool & Wolverine will always be remembered as the film that started dancing on the grave first – to a Madonna song…