JP Nunez
Other than Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, my most anticipated movie of 2024 was Deadpool & Wolverine. I’m a huge fan of comic book films, so the prospect of finally seeing these two legendary anti-heroes team up—and in the MCU, no less—was enough to make my mouth water. Like most fans, I’ve been waiting for this duo to appear on screen together for way too long, so when the day came for me to see the movie, I found myself bursting with excitement from the minute I woke up.
Deadpool & Wolverine was directed by Shawn Levy, and it stars Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin, and Matthew Macfadyen. In the film, Deadpool learns that his entire universe is about to be destroyed, so he heads out to enlist the help of the most famous X-Men character of all, Wolverine.
But there’s a problem. As we saw in the 2017 movie Logan, Wolverine is dead, so Wade has to travel the multiverse looking for another variant of the legendary hero. Unfortunately, he ends up with a Wolverine who let his world down when it mattered most, but Deadpool will take what he can get. After initially clashing, the two characters team up to save Wade’s reality, and along the way, they encounter some forgotten warriors from Marvel’s past.
I’m not going to bury the lead. I absolutely loved Deadpool & Wolverine, and if you’ve enjoyed the Deadpool franchise so far, I think you’ll love this latest installment too. When the film was first announced, a lot of fans were concerned Disney would tone down the Merc with a Mouth’s distinctive R-rated stylings, but I can assure you that he’s just as family-unfriendly as ever.
This movie is chock-full of the vulgar and irreverent fourth-wall-breaking humor that helped make Deadpool’s first two cinematic outings such a success, and when fights break out, director Shawn Levy doesn’t skimp on the blood, decapitations, and severed limbs. The guy gives us everything that makes this character so different from the rest of the superhero genre, but the film doesn’t rely exclusively on gore, F-bombs, and sex jokes.
Deadpool & Wolverine also has a genuinely touching emotional core, and it deals with weighty themes like redemption, sacrifice, and love. For instance, as you might’ve guessed from my plot synopsis, Wolverine gets a great redemption arc, and when Logan finally reveals how he let his world down, Hugh Jackman makes you feel every ounce of the character’s soul-crushing pain and regret.
Along similar lines, this story also does a great job of balancing its universe-wide threat with the personal stakes we got in the first two Deadpool movies. While Wade has to save his entire reality, he only embarks on that mission to save the people closest to him, and when he explains his motivation, the love this guy has for his friends is almost palpable.
On top of all that, the dynamic between the film’s two titular characters is out of this world. If you thought Deadpool and Cable made a great duo in Deadpool 2, wait till you see Deadpool and Wolverine on screen together. The mismatch between Wade’s nonstop verbal onslaught and Logan’s rough, almost despairing apathy is comedic gold, and when these heroes fight, their chemistry gets even better.
Since both characters have almost instantaneous healing factors, they hold nothing back, and that makes for some of the best, most violent fights we’ve ever seen in the comic book genre. They’re just an utter joy to behold, so Deadpool & Wolverine is pretty much everything fans could’ve wanted from this long-awaited pairing.
Last but not least, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say a bit about the cameos in Deadpool & Wolverine. As a multiversal adventure, this film features a number of familiar faces from previous Marvel movies, and if you’re a longtime fan of the genre, you’re going to have a blast with them. They make the film a love letter to people who’ve been watching these movies for the past two and a half decades, and while I obviously won’t tell you exactly who shows up, I can give you some general thoughts on the cameos as a whole.
For starters, I know some people were a bit worried this film would just be a revolving door of mindless “member berries,” but I can assure you it’s not. Granted, we do get a montage of Deadpool traveling through the multiverse and briefly encountering some unexpected characters, but the main cameos play an important role in the story.
What’s more, I was genuinely surprised by who showed up as well as by who didn’t. Some heroes I was convinced would be there weren’t, and I was pleasantly shocked to see some fan favorites I never thought I’d see again. There are also a few unexpected variants that hardcore fans of these movies are going to love, so do everything in your power to avoid spoilers. It’ll make the experience much more rewarding.
All that being said, I have to acknowledge that Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t quite perfect. Sure, I loved about 99% of it, but there was one thing that bothered me a bit: the CGI is surprisingly shoddy in a few shots. To be fair, it’s not as bad as, say, some scenes in The Flash, but there are two moments when it’s bad enough to be genuinely distracting.
The first time comes when Deadpool meets a hilarious variant of a longtime fan-favorite character, and the second is during an otherwise amazing fight scene. It’s a oner that’s obviously inspired by the famous hallway fight in Oldboy, and other than the weak CGI, it’s hands down the best action scene in the entire film. It gives Wolverine a chance to show how utterly savage he can be, and it’s a real shame that the carnage doesn’t look nearly as realistic as it should.
But at the end of the day, that’s little more than a glorified nitpick. Yes, bad visual effects are always a bummer, but everything else about Deadpool & Wolverine is so good I can’t complain too much. This movie tells a genuinely touching story with hilarious humor, great characters, and awesomely violent action, so despite some weak CGI, it’s still one of the best films I’ve seen all year.
Deadpool & Wolverine is playing in theaters right now.
