Deadpool & Wolverine - A Mostly Empty and Nothing Nostalgic WankFest

A team up film between two iconic comic book characters is more of an excuse for Disney to celebrate their merger with Fox and leaves the substance of the film mostly empty.

Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in Deadpool & Wolverine (Disney/Marvel Studios)

Warning: This will contain spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine. So click away if you don’t want anything ruined for you.

Deadpool’s (Ryan Reynolds) world is about to collapse because of a disfunction within the multiverse. So he needs the help from a Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) from a different world than his in order to save the multiverse.

Alright, I’m going to cut to the chase with this one. I think Deadpool and Wolverine is not good. It’s one of the most terrible, most emotionally draining, and most nothing films I’ve seen in sometime, both in terms of blockbusters and in general.

Now before I continue, I want to talk to all the people who are going around and attacking people who don’t liking this film by saying “Oh you just have an anti-MCU basis” and “You just hate fun movies” and “You should not like movies if you hate this film”, and are probably going to attack me for not liking this film. I want to say that if you like this film, and if you had a fun time with it, and if you think this is the greatest film of all time, that is awesome. I’m so happy for you and I don’t want to take that from you, especially when compared to other haters of this film who attack others who like it. Trust me, I’m not one of those people who say “Oh, you liked this movie? Well F you then.” Because much like any form of art, film is subjective, and anyone can like or dislike any film they want, as long they’re not being assholes to those who disagrees with them.

Plus if you think if I had a “anti-MCU basis” and “I hate fun movies” and such, I’ll have you know that I absolutely adore the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy so much that I even view them beyond MCU films and just view them as amazing space operas that so happen to take place in the Marvel universe with thought, care, creativity, and genuine heart behind them (hell Vol 2 in particular is one of my favorite films of all time, like Love is Red core material if you ask me). Plus I also really enjoyed stuff like Iron Man 1 & 3, the first two Captain America films, the two Black Panther films, the TV series Loki, hell I even had fun with films like Thor: Ragnarok and Multiverse of Madness (the latter of which is mostly because of Sam Raimi) and of course Netflix’s Daredevil is the best thing to come out of the MCU and it’s genuinely one of my top 10 (if not top 5) favorite TV shows of all time. It’s that good.

So I don’t hate the MCU most of the time, even if I think most of their stuff is average at best. And while related to today’s subject, I also found enjoyment out of the first two Deadpool films (especially the second one, which I thought was really good overall), and really appreciate and enjoyed the charm and sincerity that came from them thanks to their great job on keeping small and self contain, mostly solid enough humor, and of course Ryan Reynolds’s passion and love for the character that he just nailed the personality of Deadpool to a tea, along with the cast of fun supporting characters he can bounced off pretty well against his more vulgar like humor.

I wanted to make sure I got that out of the way, because its important to understand my negative feelings towards Deadpool & Wolverine and don’t think me as another pretentious looser who hates fun and Marvel films and all that jazz. Because this is coming from someone who believe how this film took a nice and enjoyable small scale series of films like the first two Deadpool films and sucked it into a void that showcases many of the worst trends that has plagued so many superhero/blockbusters today. Even making it the worst film from 2024 that I watched so far (key word is that I watched, because there are probably worse films from this year that I haven’t watched, but out of the ones I’ve watched, this is the worst one).

Now before I start trashing this film into pieces, I want to be fair and discuss the things I do like about this film. Because there are some things that kept me from giving my lowest rating ever (“Big F for You”) and I got some enjoyment out of it, and make it not as bad as something like The Flash, or Thor: Love Thunder, or Ant-Man 3, or even 2016’s Suicide Squad. So let’s talk about positives shall we?

The obvious positive is that Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman do a really good job as the tile characters respectively. Even when the script isn’t supporting their performances as much as it should, they still got the mannerisms and personalties of their characters pretty well after all these years (especially with Jackman as Wolverine) and you can buy into their chemistry in some aspects, and I would love it more if they’re in a better movie of sorts. Also Emma Corrin does a pretty good job with Cassadra Nova and how they tried to make the character feel somewhat threatening even if the character itself is weak on paper, and honestly, my favorite performance in this was Matthew Macfadyen (aka Tom Wambsgans), as he brings such a crazy and over the top energy into his performance that most of the times I’ve laughed came from him and the mannerisms he brings into his role that made me enjoyed his role the best out of anyone in the cast.

Speaking of laughs, while the humor in this didn’t really do much for me 90% of the time, I will admit there are some jokes that got a good chuckle out of me and reminded about the stupid yet sincere humor presented in the first two Deadpool films. But the best joke in this is when Nicepool (also played by Reynolds) pulled off his own 4th wall break joke and said The Proposal and Deadpool responded with “What the fuck was that? Bitch, that’s what you think I do?” and that got a very good laugh out of me with the timing, the delivery of Ryan Reynolds, all of it. If only the rest of the jokes made me laugh as hard as that one.

I also thought the action was for the most part fine. Not as strong as the action in the first two, but some of the action sequences are fine for what they’re worth. The standouts being the opening scene and the fight with the million of Deadpools in the third act where its creativity and uniqueness really shine through with the way they’re shot, edited, and framed to get the grasp of the action at large. I like Dogpool (tho to be fair, I’m a dog person, so I’m kinda bias). She was cute, and the running joke with Deadpool wanting to keep her is pretty funny too. Oh, and one last positive I want to mention (and it’s honestly my favorite part of the film) is there’s a little tribute to the Fox era of Marvel films set to Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Green Day during the mid credits and it’s a really nice tribute to 20+ years of superhero films and the hard work the cast and crew put into those films is nothing I can give except respect for them. It’s honestly a better tribute/love letter to the Fox era of Marvel than what the actual film did.

Okay, now that we’ve gotten the positives out of the way, let’s discuss why I hate this film so much. Honestly I don’t know where to start, because sorting out my problems will be just as messy as the film itself.

I guess I start discussing my problems by tracing back to the first two Deadpool films. See while I don’t think they’re the greatest films in cinema history (even tho I think the second film is good), I found enjoyment out of them not only in the sense where they’re fun mockeries of the many familiar tropes that have (and still currently) dominated the superhero genre, but also in the sense where it has a small and self contained like world and has its cast of fun and entertaining characters to make it feel pleasant and believable for what they’re going for. Not just with the titular title character himself, but also characters like Colossus, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Dopinder, Blind Al, Domino (aka the best character in this series), Peter, just to name a few that play off pretty well based on their personalties and styles of humor, and ultimately make them feel like nice little breathers in between the more bigger and more ambiguous blockbusters we’ve been getting (hell, I think they’re better than a lot of the bigger blockbusters out there). Well Deadpool & Wolverine decided to take that nice little nature of those first two films, and mostly strip their charm and personality out of them in order to replace them with a bland MCU Nostalgic Wankfest for the Fox area of superhero films with the multiverse coat of paint on them, and to me it ultimately makes the uniqueness of Deadpool in a film into another lifeless IP for Disney to milk for days on end.

This is very apparent with the very opening action scene with Deadpool fighting the TVA with Logan’s dead corpse with the song Bye Bye Bye by NSYNC playing in the background. Now granted, the scene itself is pretty fun and creative in terms of its camera work and the framing of the action itself, plus the use of Bye Bye Bye is a nice nod to this scene in X2 where the song is playing on the radio and the characters aren’t assumed by it before shutting it off, however this scene shows off one of my major problems with this film in terms of its approach to meta humor. See the first two Deadpool films right away set up how they’re kinda parodies of superhero films based on the opening credits between having funny starting names in the opening credits (like “God’s Perfect Idiot”) in the first one to going full on James Bond parody in the second one with even Celine Dion performing a song called Ashes (which is an actual banger of a song). Which adds to the parody and satirical approach the films were going to exploit, along with matching Deadpool’s 4th wall break nature from the comics pretty well. But the opening credits of this film don’t have those funny parody like style credits and instead just showed the opening credits with the actors and crew members names as they are with no funny riff towards the people making it. This to me show how Disney/MCU have gotten so much of their hands over how much the creatives behind Deadpool & Wolverine and told them that there’s a limit on how much they can make fun of the studio, but don’t be too much to where it can be mean, and that weakness an otherwise pretty fun scene where the credits of a Deadpool film can’t make funny remarks to people making it. Like “Directed by the guy who worked with God’s perfect idiot 3 times” would have been pretty funny and would have fit into the spirit of Deadpool fairly well.

Speaking of humor, most of the jokes and meta-ness of this entry don’t really land. I mentioned that some of the jokes and moments did got a good laugh out of me like with The Proposal joke, and most of Tom Wambsgans’s goofy energy, but for the most part, the humor in Deadpool & Wolverine is very unfunny. A lot of the jokes lean towards basic and pretty annoying jokes about the woke mob, cancel culture, how Disney owns Deadpool now, how dated the characters and the universe are in the void (which I’ll get to later) and a strange amount of sexist and homophobic jokes that I don’t found all that funny. Largely because of the timing of the jokes and the way they’re film felt more like a bad SNL skit where the actors just stand around and say the joke in mostly empty spaces and delivering them in annoying and unfunny ways, despite the actors best efforts to make it some what funny. Resulting into the humor becoming more of jokes that come off as more dated as time goes on.

Plus I found this film to be hypocritical of itself. Like it’s aware of the state of the MCU is not at a mostly not good state with the most projects being nostalgia bait, have no idea of where its going, the multiverse is getting stale, all that jazz (hell, even Deadpool himself said “Welcome to the MCU by the way. You’re joining in a bit of a low point”), and yet it does the exact same thing as the films it criticized. Because it’s very nostalgia basis towards the Fox era of superhero films, they don’t really do much with the multiverse concept outside of shoving cameos in it, it’s visually unpleasant for the most part (which I know the void is supposed to be this visually unpleasant place, but they could have made a bit visually interesting especially when it dares to compare itself to Mad Max and the wasteland in those last two films look more visually appealing than this), and it ultimately celebrated itself that Deadpool and the rest of the X-Men are now apart of the MCU after the Disney/Fox merger that is really bad for monopolies and cost thousands of people to lose their jobs. Like I seriously hate how it wants to be different from any other bad MCU film, yet it’s like another bad MCU film, and it doesn’t matter if wants to wink at you and say “See, we’re not like those OTHER guys. We’re rated R", it’s still soulless and empty and filled with so many of the worst trends that’s has been hurting the MCU (and most of blockbuster cinema) in todays day of age.

I think it’s a good time to mention that the Disney/Fox merger and incorporating Deadpool and the X-Men stems into perhaps the biggest problem with Deadpool & Wolverine. Instead of having a Deadpool & Wolverine film that feels more small scale yet is still cheeky and fun that kept the same spirit, fun, and enthusiastic tone like the first two Deadpool films, it’s now a generic MCU film where there’s tons of cameos from the Fox era of superhero films, it’s big in scale, it’s got a nothing visual palette both in terms of cinematography and VFX, a generic villain, and a “we got to save the world” type of story that tried to throw into much into one basket that it wants to be a buddy action comedy with Deadpool and Wolverine in it but it also wants to appeal to Disney’s need for the MCU to have a big hit after having a mostly rough few years post Endgame. Resulting into having no real strong emotional reaction (at least for me) when it comes to its story, characters, themes, and filmmaking at large.

Now granted, the first two Deadpool films aren’t exactly the strongest in terms of story, character, themes, and filmmaking level (hell, I wouldn’t even put them into the same level as something like Spider-Man 2 or The Batman), but even in those films they have a solid enough ground with those elements that made me invested into their world and the ridiculousness they have to offer with their humor, action, winks to the camera and charm that felt pretty true to who Deadpool is as a character. Whatever that being the growing romance of Wade and Venessa in the first film, or Wade’s interactions with Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead and how he rejects the X-men code in order to fight what’s right even if it means he hass to fight dirty, or even showing Wade’s more empathic and compensate side towards helping Russel escaping the abusive asylum he’s stuck in (which is also part of Wade’s own abuse as a child that was explored in the comics), or even when the action mixtures a lot of creative juice in terms of the editing and filmmaking techniques to make them fun to watch and shows the practicality of the characters really well with grit, blood, and over the top violence, that’s where the two films really shine and ultimately care about what’s going on an emotional level (hell, I even cried at the end of Deadpool 2) and in my opinion, we don’t really value them as much and only view them as the films that just mock superhero tropes and nothing more.

Can you guess how Deadpool & Wolverine handles all of that? With little f-in thought or care. Instead, they throw 95% of the supporting characters into the garbage (except for Peter, who I like Peter, and should have been in the series the whole time instead of disgusting T.J. Miller) in favor of mostly underwhelming cameos, provide mostly stale and poorly edited action sequences, a bland visual style with little to no life or color behind it, a generic save the world story that does nothing new, and honestly its biggest crime, making Deadpool and Wolverine as characters so f-in boring.

Really. How do you do that? How in the living hell do you make Deadpool and Wolverine, two of the coolest characters Marvel has ever created in the comics, and two characters who have proved to make their on screen interpretations very interesting both in terms of the way their respective actors portray them and the way the best of their films show compelling arcs for their characters journey in Deadpool 2 and Logan respectively, boring? I don’t know how, but this film did it. Anyway, despite the best efforts from Reynolds and Jackman in making their respective characters remotely interesting to watch (especially during the scene when Wolverine goes on a rant saying how much he thinks Deadpool is a pathetic and sad and empty looser, which was great btw), I never really cared about them as characters and their chemistry don’t really shine as brightly as it think it does. A huge reason is the fact their individual characters don’t have much compelling arcs and personalities to get me invested in them and the journey they embarked in the film.

The film sets up on how they’re both similar in the sense that they’re both broken screw ups who have dealt with personal problems in their lives that cause them into the paths they’re at now (with Deadpool feeling he doesn’t belong in his world after being rejected by The Avengers and X-Men respectively, and Wolverine feeling guilty about leaving the X-Men before they were killed off one by one, thus leading a life of alcoholism and depression) and once they meet up, they start to not only care for each other, but also discover they have found purpose in their world no matter how bad their pasts were. That sounds like a good (hell even great) idea on paper, but the problem lies into the execution. Not only are Deadpool’s and Wolverine’s arcs felt like the cliff notes version of the arcs they have gone in Deadpool 2 and Logan respectively with little enough changes to make it interesting, but because of how it mergers with the end of the world storyline and the cameo wankfest to taking more center stage whenever the film dares to explores their relationship in a meaningful way and ultimately making their relationship feel toothless and un-engaging that I don’t think the film earned their growing bond and concern for each other because this movie doesn’t want to take time to explore its central characters on a deeper level other than on the “deep and emotional level” that Disney approves and tricks audience that it’s deep and complex, where it really isn’t. Resulting their chemistry and arcs feel like a worse version of The Nice Guys, which is a smart, brilliant, funny, and amazing comedy that should have gotten the money this film is receiving.

Not to mention that the stakes are nonexistent. Like yeah the multiverse is collapsing and Deadpool’s world is danger, but we’re only told that’s happening and never shows it. So there’s no sense of real danger or personal stakes behind it because this film does a poor job of making those stakes feel real and personal to the characters that we get invested in the direction of where the story goes and the growth of the characters as people as the stakes raised. How am I supposed to be invested into Deadpool and Wolverine protecting the multiverse if we never see how it’s collapsing and it affects their individual world? GOD, this film is so stupid, and not the good kind of stupid, like the bad kind of stupid.

Sigh. Okay, I guess it’s time to talk about the cameos in this. Granted while these cameos don’t feel as evilly cynical as the ones in The Flash, the cameos in Deadpool & Wolverine still feel hollow and kinda distasteful in terms in how they’re used in it. I mean you got Chris Evans’s Johnny Storm, Jennifer Garner’s Elektra, Wesley Snipes’s Blade, Channing Tatum’s Gambit, Dafne Keen’s Laura/X-23, just to name a few of the amount of cameos in this wankfest (no I won’t stop referring this as wankfest, because that’s what this film is). Now I’ve seen a lot of people saying that the cameos are supposed to be a “love letter to the Fox era of Superhero films” and they shine a light on how they will never be forgotten by those who grew up with them. Which is fine and I can see the good intentions behind it, but to me they come off as Disney/the MCU saying “Hey. Sorry we bought Fox and tried to erase those films and iconic portrayals of the characters you liked. So here they are in this Deadpool and Wolverine film. You’re welcome. Now they will be gone forever after this movie, bye.” and to me is where the disrespectful part really shines through when taking from that lens. Not to mention they don’t really serve anything in this film or than to ether look cool, say lines that the actors said 20 years ago (which I don’t blame any of the actors for, as they’re definitely trying their best with what they’re given with), or just being there to be motivational coaches for our main characters to get their shit together. Like all of it makes me wonder why they’re even in this film at all?

I mean I’m not even a fan of Spider-Man: No Way Home (I thought it was mid at best), but at least the nostalgia pandering do tied into the core themes of what it means to be Spider-Man and the burdens/responsibility of being a hero and I felt some dramatic weight behind it all, especially when Tobey and Andrew showed up in the third act and let their characters shine in meaningful ways. Plus it has the presence of Willem Dafoe, and you can never go wrong with that. The nostalgic bait in Deadpool & Wolverine feels like the studio not being interested in telling a self contained Deadpool and Wolverine buddy film and more interested in how to incorporated them in the larger MCU and its obsession with nostalgic pandering and cameos that it’s fear to let go off otherwise no one will go see their movies. I doubt that it was the true intention they had with them, and I doubt it’s the same for those who view it as a love letter, but to me, it’s how the cameos and nostalgia pandering adds to the message to Hollywood that the only thing you can do with the multiverse is to pander to nostalgic 20-30 years old with things they like and not caring for a fun and engaging story, compelling characters, and creative filmmaking in the process (both Spider-Verse films and Everything Everywhere All At Once looks down that notion). I mean there’s a lot I want to say why I don’t like this film, but I don’t want to say anything more about it, so I might as well wrap it up with this.

Remember when Drake and Kendrick Lamar had that big beef this past summer and Kendrick simply destroyed Drake by calling him a pdf file and a predator in his one two punch of Meet the Grahams and Not Like Us, and then Drake tried to respond to them with The Heart Part 6 and it’s embracing to see Drake trying to do that after his career being destroyed to no redemption in sight? Well Deadpool & Wolverine is The Heart Part 6 to Deadpool 2’s and Logan’s Meet the Grahams and Not Like Us. Such an embarrassing, boring, lazy, horrible, empty, annoying, borderline nothing nostalgic wankfest that (while having its moments) felt less like a true spiritual successor to both Logan and the first two Deadpool films in terms of scale, heart, love, and care in terms of what makes a film good and more of a studio celebrate a merger that caused the jobs of thousands of people, with little flair in terms of what makes a film remotely good at the bare f-in minimum! Resulting into making a film that’s hypocritical of its own nature by trying to criticized the state when this film is being released and it’s just as bad as the film its criticizing in terms of distasteful and nothing cameos, bland and mostly artless visual style, mostly unfunny humor, and making its two lead characters so boring and flat that’s not even funny.

Plus to make things worse, this came out the same weekend the announcement of Robert Downey Jr. is going to play Dr. Doom in the new Avengers film (great actor, but the casting screams “guy who peaked at high school” levels of desperate) directed by The Russo Brothers (who I assume are nice people, but they really did peaked at their Community directed episodes and that’s a fact) dropped. Proving that the MCU will forever be stuck in their nostalgic wankfest and have no idea on how they will be saved with anything creative anymore and thus makes me, someone who used to be a big MCU fan, not want to check out any more of their projects going forward (tho I am curious to check out Daredevil Born Again and I am pretty interested in Fantastic Four). And again, all of this is coming from someone who had a fun time with the first two Deadpool films, especially the second one which I think is great and has everything this film doesn’t have.

Now I know this review will have me killed and I’ll be hanged on a cross till I die by those who liked or even loved this film. So like I said at the beginning of this review: If you liked this film and you had a fun time with it, and you think it’s the best film ever, that’s awesome. I’m jealous for you all. I’m happy you got to have the type of fun that I sadly didn’t get out with this film 90% of the time. But if you want to say that I hate fun films and I’m some looser who is sad and angry and depressed all the time, than I’m sorry, but that’s not true.

Because I just so happened to love a little fun blockbuster that just so happened to come out the week before Deadpool & Wolverine, and it’s called Twisters. I did a review for it on this newsletter, but I absolutely love this film and I’m kinda obsessed with it. Not only in the sense where it’s fun and entertaining to watch, but it’s also incredibly well made, it got action that’s suspenseful and exciting, it’s gorgeous to look at, it has stakes, it has a story that’s clear and focused, and it surprisingly had a strong emotional and thematic core about rediscovering your roots and facing your fears after witnessing the failure of your past with characters that I give a shit about and care/root for as their arcs go in meaningful and impactful ways that were payed off and were earned by the time the film concluded (especially with Kate’s and Tyler’s arcs). All of which I can’t simply apply to most of Deadpool & Wolverine, and it’s another film that I wished made the money that D&W is making. Ugh, this is why we can’t have nice things.

Anyway, I think this review broke me. I’m done. I’m going to watch Twisters again, and I will watch X-Men 97 at some point, because I heard it’s good. Okay, bye.

Final Rating: 3/10 - Absolute Garbage

If you want more of my taste in films and want proof that i don’t hate fun movies, feel free to follow my Letterboxd account.