By Seth Lukas Hynes
Deadpool and Wolverine
Starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman
Rated MA15+
3.5/5
In Deadpool and Wolverine, the mutant mercenary Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), aka Deadpool, must team up with the disgraced Logan (Hugh Jackman), aka Wolverine, to save his universe from deletion by the Time Variance Authority.
Jackman slips back into the fierce Logan/Wolverine role as if he’d never left, and Reynolds remains a death-dealing good-hearted goofball as Wade/Deadpool. Wade and Logan have great
adversarial chemistry, and share a moving arc of making a difference and learning to be a hero again.
Emma Corrin plays the villain Cassandra Nova with gleeful sadism, the bloody action is thrilling and well-shot, and the film is full of fun fan-service cameos.
Unfortunately, despite the multiverse-ending stakes, the plot proceeds with a serious lack of urgency, including a very slow middle and a rushed finale.
I normally like foppish villains such as Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman or John Travolta as Terl in Battlefield Earth (shut up; he’s fun), but Matthew Macfayden feels forced as TVA agent Mr Paradox.
From the comics to the films, Wade has always been an irreverent fourth-wall-breaking character, and the metatextual gags in the first two films are a fun garnish of self-commentary and self-deprecation over solid superhero drama.
In this third film, the corporate merging of Fox and Disney is writ so large across the narrative, with the Void as a metaphorical (yet also literal) dumping-ground for cancelled or rebooted franchises, that it’s hard to draw any real tension from the plot (see also The Wonder and Asteroid City, if you don’t mind me beating those dead horses).
Despite the poor pacing and taking the fourth-wall-breaking too far, Deadpool and Wolverine is a highly-entertaining superhero film that will delight fans of the title characters, and is playing in most Victorian cinemas.
