Deadpool & Wolverine 2024

It’s been yet another long absence from this site as it’s been over a year since my review of the Flash, and in that time I’ve only made it out to theaters once to see Barbie a month later and now a year later I’ve made it back into the theater to watch a Marvel version of the Flash with Deadpool and Wolverine, only this one was done much better. I loved the first two Deadpool movies and the majority of Wolverine’s movie appearances so I had high hopes for this one. The rumor mill was spreading pretty rapidly though two cameo rumors that I had read about ended up being false, one character reportedly not returning showed up and another reported cameo was a no show. But I absolutely loved all the characters they chose to bring back as someone that was highly familiar with all of these movies and rumors and I will be talking about the majority of them so if you’d like to be kept spoiler free, here’s your warning.

Deadpool has always been pretty meta in his first two movies, he references Hugh Jackman, his appearance in Green Lantern, and he kills his first incarnation of Deadpool from the X-Men Origins movie. But this movie really takes the meta level to the limit as he is more or less tasked with saving his universe, aka the 20th Century Fox Marvel Universe which is dying because the anchor being has died. Aka Hugh Jackman retired from playing Wolverine after he died in Logan. With the level of meta humor throughout the movie, the line between the characters talking about their worlds and the characters talking about their movie franchises is practically nonexistent. Right at the beginning, the TVA from Loki is brought in to help explain the ability to travel between multiverses and while apparently Loki season 2 has done away with regular timeline pruning, one of the two big villains in this movie Paradox is trying to make a name for himself by more or less bringing pruning back.

Deadpool gives up his chance to be integrated into the MCU at the cost of the rest of the members of his movie franchise and decides to bring in another Wolverine variant to replace the anchor being of his universe. Unfortunately he chooses the drunken, depressed Wolverine who got all the rest of the X-Men killed. The majority of the film takes place in the void where Deadpool and Wolverine form an uneasy alliance in between several fight scenes, and run across a wide variety of Marvel characters from various past Fox movies as represented by the first relic they come across was the ruined 20th Century Fox logo half buried in the sand.

There has to be some space here given to all the cameos as they are plentiful and the vast majority were a surprise. The big one in the trailer was the return of Taylor Mane’s Sabertooth from the first X-Men movie though he almost immediately gets beheaded in favor of Pyro who plays the double dealing henchman role and plays it quite well. Toad is another almost completely background villain cameo, but the various hero cameos get a larger but still fairly brief amount of screentime. There’s the initial fake out with Chris Evans who appears to be a version of Captain America until he shouts “Flame on!” and is revealed to be his incarnation from the two Fantastic Four movies. And later on, they meet up with the resistance of sorts consisting of Wesley Snipes’ Blade whose appearance does outdo Hugh Jackman’s longest career as a superhero by two years. He has a great couple of jokes including his best line from the Blade movies and a dig at the troubled MCU Blade production. There’s also Jennifer Garner’s Elektra, Daphne Keane’s X-23, and a surprise appearance by Channing Tatum’s Gambit that might confuse some people. His version of Gambit was in development for over a decade until it was finally axed by Disney in 2019. It was interesting to see what he could have brought to the table, but as presented in this movie the cajun accent was a little too thick even as a frequent Deadpool punchline, the costume was a little too garish, but if some tweaks and adjustments had been made, it could have possibly turned into a slightly above mediocre movie.

The other main villain of the movie was one not re-used from an earlier Fox movie, but instead a new appearance of a comic book character Cassandra Nova, the twin sister of Charles Xavier who may have died in the womb in several timelines or something along those lines. Those details weren’t clear though she is very powerful and very villainous and a good contrast between the weaselly but bureaucratic Paradox. She also has the power to see into people’s minds but only when she telekinetically puts her hands literally into the heads of those she’s reading in a very creepy but effective way. This does get to one of the better moments where we really get to the emotional arc of this Wolverine variant and the internal pain he’s going through for the slight emotional core that helps balance out the wacky cameos. Deadpool does also have his own emotional core centered around his small group of friends including the estranged Vanessa, but that’s not very strongly developed in this movie. Instead this movie focuses on the jokes of Deadpool and relies on the connections made by watching the previous movies.

This movie isn’t for everyone. The meta level of storytelling is geared for someone like me who has seen all of these superhero movies that were referenced through cameos and someone who follows the news to know about things like the Cavillrine which I actually didn’t remember being a rumor. I was less familiar with the various Wolverine variants in the beginning of the movie, but I knew enough to know that they were pulled from various comic book versions including the comics accurate 5 foot 3 Wolverine that looked ridiculous on screen. Without that knowledge, the movie is still enjoyable if you can connect with the humor. The violence is on par with the previous two Deadpool movies though the various fights between Deadpool and Wolverine can be time fillers for some as they are essentially always going to end in a stalemate so there’s little tension. But it can still be viewed as something more akin to sibling rivalry only with more blood. This movie was very much up my alley and I absolutely loved every minute of it. I hope Deadpool isn’t finished with the MCU though he should be used sparingly as the entire multiverse angle as a main story is getting a little overly played out at this point. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.