Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

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Hello reader. Yes, you. The one engaging with a pointless review for a third installment of a metanarrative on a franchise that has been going on for the better part of two decades. Like seriously, if you didn’t know what you were getting into at this point, I think you and Patrick Star have been bunking together for a little too long. To be honest, if you haven’t been present for comic book blockbusters over the past twenty years, most of the film will be practically indecipherable. You probably don’t need a review to tell you what to expect in the third film in a “fourth-wall breaking, every other line’s a sex joke” franchise.

But what I will say is the only real surprise Deadpool & Wolverine has for its audience is the fact that everything that shouldn’t and hasn’t worked in past Marvel movies miraculously does here.

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Ryan Reynolds and his brand of painfully self-aware irony-poisoned comedy is back as the Merc with a Mouth Deadpool. Now, with Disney plus co-star Hugh Jackman returning as Wolverine. I know what you’re thinking: “Are we really dragging the corpse of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine back from the dead after his pitch-perfect swansong exit in 2017’s Logan?” The answer is yes, as the movie literally opens with Deadpool mercilessly and provocatively dispatching goons with his decaying adamantium corpse to the tune of N*SYNC’s “Bye, Bye, Bye” with some truly cringeworthy dance choreography from our lead. This is not a serious movie. But it is precisely moments like this where the self-referential humor meets competent direction that highlight this film’s best features.

Once again, this third film is able to capitalize on the character’s best quality with scathing self-referential jokes covering topics from interstudio politics to actors’ previous roles and even their real-life personal drama. What allows these tropes to still feel fresh after a third helping is, surprisingly, the film’s sincerity, a feature which many other cameo-filled big-budget Marvel films have severely lacked in the past few years. Don’t worry though, Deadpool mocks this, too. The plot’s “Island of Misfit Toys” premise acts as an excellent vehicle to do a proper send-off to some of Fox’s less successful superhero movies. Whereas most cameos would be relegated to a scene or a quick reference, Deadpool & Wolverine actually cares about treating these misplaced characters with dignity, giving them fun moments and mini story arcs of their own.

My only complaint would be that it is so consumed by the context of its place within a larger zeitgeist of superhero movies that the entire film might be dated within just a few years. A prime example during my showing had one of the most popular cameo characters (no spoilers) utters a famous quip from his original movie. Understanding the reference, I laughed loudly, but in an otherwise silent theater. Mind you, this was the same audience that laughed at every other sex joke Ryan Renolds shamelessly threw at them for two hours. I fear as we get further away from this cultural moment, more and more of these callbacks and jokes will be lost to time, diminishing the film’s best moments.

Despite all this, Deadpool & Wolverine just has too many funny moments and ideas to be passed over as another generic Marvel movie past its prime. With scenes like the duel protagonists’ epic showdown inside a Honda Odyssey (which is as bloody and hilarious as you’d expect), I can’t in good conscience not recommend this strangely good time. But make sure you catch it quickly in theaters before half the references lose all meaning, and all you are left with is a 40-year-old man’s Reddit one-liners and painful attempts at Gen Z slang.