Whether on Team Cinema or Team Marvel-Fucking-Rocks-Suck-It-Scorsese-You-Boomer, there's no denying the impact the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had on the industry. A cultural juggernaut that defiantly made its mark on film history, diehard fans have an emotional tie to the MCU that can't, and shouldn't, be ignored. For many, the MCU defined their childhoods; and for some, the MCU is what made them film fans in the first place.
Although Marvel dominated the box office and film discourse for over a decade, public goodwill is fickle and even the most patient of fans have been ready to call time of death, awaiting the inevitable Iron Man remake/reboot to come and restart the universe. But instead of (or before) the second coming of RDJ, Disney's Marvel is throwing a Hail Mary in the form of Deadpool, a.k.a. Wade Wilson, the Merc with a Mouth — or, as he proclaims this time around, Marvel Jesus.
Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman have a long history together, dating back to 2009's X-Men: Origins where Reynolds made his first appearance as Deadpool, to much derision. After Jackman seemingly hung up his claws following the superlative-inducing Logan in 2017, it didn't appear to be in the cards that the two would meet again cinematically — that is, until Marvel decided to go down this multi-verse path and Disney purchased 21st Century Fox.
In the characters' reunion piece, Deadpool & Wolverine participates in the Time Variance Authority nonsense set up in Loki in order to resurrect Jackman's Wolverine and justify Deadpool's need to find a Wolverine. In short: Deadpool's current timeline is in the process of being destroyed and he needs Wolverine's help to save it, but because the events of Logan exist in Deadpool's world, they have to go to another timeline to find a Wolverine — and in that timeline, Wolverine did an oopsies and let his world down.
Deadpool & Wolverine prevails as a bit of a movie marvel: it's a film filled with so many quips, fourth-wall breaking, meta references, Easter eggs and cameos — a lot of cameos — that it tricks us into having a good time in lieu of delivering a proper story. Sure, there's a couple British baddies and a lite mission at play, but the execution is so lacklustre it's clear those plot points were added in only to explain the movie's existence and its connection to the MCU — and, honestly, I'm not mad about it.
For as downtrodden Marvel has been the last few years, a movie like Deadpool & Wolverine feels entirely necessary for the brand. Reynolds and the film's four other writers (including director Shawn Levy) inject the film with the same rated-R gratuitous violence and toilet humour of the first two Deadpool films with a few winks and nods towards Disney's traditionally wholesome image. Nothing in Deadpool & Wolverine can be described as new, fresh, or even old-but-taken-to-a-new-extreme; however, that's not the point of the film. Deadpool & Wolverine exists solely to entertain. It's a vehicle for audiences to have fun at the cinema and delight in the many moments of fan service. (Unfortunately, this does mean that social media channels will be inundated with in-theatre reaction videos for the next week or so.)
Unexpectedly, though, Deadpool & Wolverine carries with it a tender sentimentality, particularly for the Fox-era superhero movies. It's easy to point toward Iron Man as the beginnings of Marvel's reign, but history requires us to backtrack eight years to 2000's X-Men. The success of that film and that ensemble planted the seed in studios that a non-Batman or -Superman superhero movie could succeed, and at the forefront of it was Jackman's Wolverine.
Reynolds, perhaps better than most, understands the challenges of hitting the mark in a superhero movie and the weight placed on Jackman's shoulders. Amid all the dick jokes and zeitgeisty dialogue, Deadpool & Wolverine pays homage, throughout the film and in a genuinely touching mid-credit montage, to the successes and failures that brought the genre to its eventual endgame.
It'd be reaching to say that Deadpool & Wolverine has saved Marvel; surely, Disney won't allow the entire MCU to become decidedly family-unfriendly. But the film certainly sends a much-needed jolt into the studio, the franchise and its fans. Given how inept Marvel has been these last few years, Deadpool & Wolverine isn't the film they deserve, but it's the one the fans need right now.
Truly, Deadpool & Wolverine is what Marvel fans' wet dreams are made of: inside baseball superhero banter, applause-break-eliciting callbacks, and a reverence for the genre that they continue to carry with them to this day.