Warning: Full spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine follow
There was always a cruel, but admittedly hilarious, moment in an old British darts-based gameshow, Bullseye, when host Jim Bowen would commiserate the losing contestants by revealing a luxury speedboat or car and gleefully exclaiming “Here’s what you could’ve won!” Halfway through Deadpool & Wolverine, Channing Tatum makes his long-anticipated arrival as deadly card-dealer Gambit. Much like the speedboat that Mr. and Mrs. Wrigglesworth from Bingley would never sail in, he circles the stage in a whirl of underwhelming flashing lights before being whisked away offscreen, leaving no lasting impact and never to be seen again.
Kitschy gameshows had their place in the 80s, just as the MCU had its place in the 2010s. But Deadpool & Wolverine (as well as projects like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) suggest all that’s left now of that once towering cinematic empire is a series of misdirections, hollow reveals, and manufactured emotions that forget what made it the cultural epicentre it once was.
It wasn't always like this. The double gut punch of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame earned the right to toy with our emotions. I had tingles running down my spine when Black Panther emerged from a sparkling portal, grinned from ear to ear when Captain America picked up Thor’s hammer, and felt the corner of my eyes get a little damp when Tony breathed his last. Yes, the MCU was always a corporate monolith birthed with the intention of repeatedly breaking that billion-dollar box office barrier, but there always felt like there was a heart there – hell, they even went as far as literally proving Tony Stark had one. It was once a carefully crafted saga of plotlines melded with rich character development that culminated in a cinematic event of which the like was previously unseen.
I have no doubts that both Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman have a great love for the characters they've portrayed for many years now, but sadly the time has not been spent in Deadpool & Wolverine to warrant the emotional response it's aiming to achieve. In fact, it actively dulls the impact of a farewell near-perfectly executed for one of its heroes years prior.
The closing moments of James Mangold's Logan are among the best in any superhero movie. Jackman's hardened mutant is given a tender, human ending as he finally bids farewell to immortality. Deadpool & Wolverine makes a conscious effort to dig up this corpse (literally) and parade it around Weekend at Bernie's-style, only to eventually give him a much less impactful farewell as he and X-23 are reunited around a family dinner table - saline tears replaced by saccharine smiles. It’s a result of the exact sort of multiversal storytelling that Mangold himself has condemned, and now, a gamble Kevin Feige and co. seem insistent on taking again with Robert Downey Jr.’s reintroduction to the MCU as Doctor Doom. Let’s hope this is a carefully crafted comeback that packs a punch worthy of the casting, rather than another cheap ploy to cause fans to cheer in a convention hall.
As you can guess by now, I'm not a huge fan of Deadpool & Wolverine. For long portions, I sat dead-eyed as joke after joke at both Fox's and Disney's expense were fired towards them. The attempt, I presume, is for Wade Wilson to give a big middle finger to his corporate overlords, the very people giving the sign-off on the script as they chuckle to each other and give knowing nudges in the ribs to one another. “They really got us there!” they snigger as yet another gag is made about Marvel’s inability to craft a good multiverse story, itself contained in another poorly conceived one.
These jokes wouldn’t feel anywhere near as cheap had they not been so hypocritical. The third act is muddled, to say the least, throwing around multiversal lingo and tropes in an attempt to elicit both thrills and heightened stakes. The actual filmmaking on display is bland, and far from the stylistic heights we’d been treated to previously in the MCU through the eyes of filmmakers like Ryan Coogler and his striking depiction of Wakanda. Instead, this time around we’re stuck in a dull, empty, Mad Max-like desert, an office building transplanted straight from Loki, and a single city street where much of the last half an hour takes place.
The film’s cameo-ridden nadir occurs on that very street when a horde of Deadpool lookalikes is dispatched within a scene that poorly apes Oldboy’s iconic hallway brawl. It's meant to be the film’s big moment, but instead of delivering memorable combat, the camera skirts around it, much more preoccupied with showing you every blink-and-you'll-miss-it character rather than a stunning slice. It's Deadpool and Wolverine’s problem in a nutshell; a movie shaped like a WWE Royal Rumble full of surprise entrances, but without the thrilling choreographed action or engaging plotlines in between.
It ultimately makes for a muddled tone. This is a story that’s 60% exposition which frequently pokes fun at the MCU’s tropes and recent stumbles without offering any solutions of its own. Reynolds can still quip with the best of them and liberally breaks the fourth wall, in one moment pointing out that Disney has failed to tell a successful multiverse story – a punchline that’s a little unkind to Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Deadpool & Wolverine tells a weaker story than Peter Parker’s most recent outing and certainly has an ending that can’t hold a candle to either Tom Holland and Zendaya’s melancholic farewell or Andrew Garfield’s moment of redemption. It made sense for Garfield to make a return in No Way Home. He gave us a fantastic portrayal of a character who never got the ending, or film, that he deserved. No Way Home gave him closure and it gave the audience satisfaction, a luxury once afforded to Jackman’s Logan, too.
Joking about the fact you can’t make a good multiverse story isn’t a satisfactory way to ask for forgiveness, especially when little effort is made to make an exciting one here. Sony has successfully told tales in the subgenre in both Spider-Verse films, managing to marry a heartfelt story with truly groundbreaking animation and masterful direction. Those films aren’t afraid to flood the screen with cameos or fulfill fan dream casting, either. But such treats feel exactly like that – treats, not the driving force behind the movie as it so often feels in Deadpool & Wolverine.
I know I'm swimming against a strong tide here; as my screening of Deadpool & Wolverine ended, someone behind me genuinely shouted “the MCU is back!”. I’m glad they had a good time. The film is already breaking box-office records, and to its credit, some jokes do land. The crowd around me certainly laughed a good amount more than I did, though. I just couldn't shake the feeling that we’re the ones ultimately being laughed at as we gobble up cynical cameos and half-promised fan casting. It's a concept not unfamiliar to Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy, whose Free Guy – released only three years ago – was another Reynolds vehicle with a love for “IPs” whose great magic trick was whipping out a lightsaber, Cap’s shield, and Fortnite pickaxe with the expectation you'd applaud the references.
The duo has followed it up here with the “character cameo as punchlines” mantra that also plagued Multiverse of Madness. In all honesty, these aren’t really characters at all, but actors such as Jennifer Garner and Wesley Snipes cosplaying their past, only to serve close-to-zero significance to the plot. Little did we know at the time that the Steve Rogers “I understood that reference” meme would signal the future philosophy of the MCU. A self-fulfilling prophecy of the most creatively impoverished kind.
In one last throw of the dice, Green Day's “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” accompanies the movie's end credits. To the side of the scrolling names, old behind-the-scenes clips from Fox Marvel movies past play out, offering glimpses of each actor playing their character over the years. The song is clearly meant to instill one of its titular sentiments, but the reality doesn't lie within the brackets. You get the sense that the film thinks it has achieved a genuine sense of heightened emotion and bid a worthy fond farewell to the Fox era. In truth, it doesn’t really offer any sort of resolution – ironic in a film so desperate to give Deadpool one in the larger universe.
It’s something the Multiverse Saga has suffered for years now as the MCU treads water trying to find a direction to commit to. That compass has been swirling around for too long at this point, and although situations have arisen outside of Disney’s control – COVID and Jonathan Major’s legal issues included – it remains unclear how the solid foundations that once structured the Infinity Saga will be rebuilt. Deadpool & Wolverine aims to pull on heartstrings, but it just left me feeling uncomfortably numb.
Perhaps it was always going to be this way. Perhaps I expected too much. Perhaps I simply shouldn’t care this much. The problem is, I do.
Simon Cardy didn't need to see Robert Downey Jr. in the MCU again, but will give him a chance. Follow him on Twitter at @CardySimon.
