Deadpool and Wolverine

Deadpool and Wolverine has been a highly anticipated film for nerds everywhere for quite some time now. I myself was extremely excited to see this movie. The first two Deadpool movies are hilarious but they are also narratively good stories with strong emotional cores. So imagine my surprise when I finally saw Deadpool and Wolverine and it was not good. Sorry nerds I know this might get me kicked out of the club but the film was underwhelming at best and disappointing at realistic.

Let’s start with the good; Gambit. Gambit was the highlight of the film and not just because he is my favorite of the X-Men. Channing Tatum was an inspired choice and he truly did an incredible job. I could have watched another 30-45 minutes of Gambit.

Then we have Elektra and Blade, properties I think we all forgot that Fox was in charge of. It was great to see them again, Westley really hasn’t aged and Jennifer Garner still looked super hot as Elektra. Really seeing all of the “original” superheroes come back and reprise their roles was great. I fell in love with Chris Evans as Johnny Storm so it was incredible to see him as the loveable doof he is. Say what you want about the OG Fantastic Four movies, but no film has ever been cast better.

And of course Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. The man is wonderful and I do like how they wrote him into this version of the story without interrupting the beautiful send off to the character in Logan.

Bringing back Laura was a great decision, especially as a catalyst for this universe's Logan. That is however where the emotional ties of this film ended.

Vanessa was fridged in the second Deadpool movie and then he brought her back to life only for her to be regulated to the role of ex-girlfriend with no real significance in the story or in Wade’s life. Considering that they had incredible chemistry and a great relationship this was a truly horrible writing decision. There was really no reason for it and continuing to fridge characters in 2024 is not only sexist, disgusting and inexcusable but it's embarrassing.

Then we have the fact that the narrative of this film was built around cameos. There was no actual story. If you take away cameos you should still have a thoughtful, well developed throughline. This does not exist in Deadpool and Wolverine. The film is simply an “actors you really loved but will never see again in these roles” delivery system and that is really only made terrible by the fact that the first two Deadpool films were really great.

This fact is made worse by the truly questionable pacing. Act 1 was really not true to who they built up Deadpool as. They really had to gut the character to give the illusion that there were emotional stakes to this story. But the only person who had any emotional grounding was Logan and it was vague at best. Also the little backstory he told to Laura…be so for real there are not enough humans on this earth to take on Jean Grey let alone the rest of the X-Men…you didn’t even try. Also he just wasn’t at the mansion? Terrible, truly bad storytelling. Could have been a villain that they also met in the void, could have been a training accident and he got some of the younger students killed, I could shit out better ideas then what made it into the movie.

Now I don’t know if the piss poor writing was because now it's a Disney Deadpool film, or if it's because Ryan Reynolds is a fucking scab who continued to film through the strike (therefore completely undercutting his ability to improv or change the script in any way) or if they just gave up, but as a film Deadpool and Wolverine falls flat on it's face. If you are only here for a fan service, nerd jerk off then it's great, super fun. But if you are looking for the quality that the first two films had, you will be disappointed. The soundtrack continues to be good and the fact that Ryan cast both his wife and daughter in the film is super adorable, but it was not his best work.