Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.
Last year the one and only MCU film I watched is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which was a pretty good and emotional film to concluding to our unlikely guardians, along with James Gunn moving on to becoming the co-CEO of DC Studio and, as im writing this, he’s currently working on his own DC cinematic universe New 52 style to starting with Superman, but I digress. After GotG3, MCU was already went downhill from flop after flop from Ant-Man’s 3rd movie in QuatumnMania to a worthless teaming up with different variation of Marvels. At this point, between this and DCEU’s dying, 2023 was a pretty bad year that its pretty much a Superhero films fatigue (except for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, its pretty good.), leaving not only DC going full on New 52 (which is a reboot style) and MCU feels like its about to die. That is until when there’s after years of won’t they won’t they, we have our old mercenary back on the big screen.
“Deadpool and Wolverine” is a 2024 MCU superhero film that was written/directed by Shawn Levy, produced by the repeat MCU producer Kevin Feige, and co-written by Ryan Reynolds Deadpool (Okay??), Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and Zeb Wells.
Deadpool: Sorry kiddo, even though he looks like me if im a walking cancer, unlike that little life person with a parasite--
Anthony (me): Its Venom, thank you very much.
Deadpool: Heh, whatever you say, I like to be credited to be involved with the project. And im sure this will be the biggest superhero R-Rated film I’ve ever involved with me and my bub Wolverine Your welcome, Canada. *zips away*
Okay…? Anyway, following the success of Deadpool 2 (which I considered as an improvement after the first one), the then 20th Century Fox (before replacing “Fox” as “Studio” for lame reasons) were open minded to have yet another Deadpool movie, which, I will admit, since I love Deadpool, I wanted to see more, which they confirmed it at November of 2016 (even though it was two years before Deadpool 2 was released). However, the project was on hold for couple reasons;
1: The acquisition of 21st Century Fox was started on December 2017 for full purchase of entertainment assets of many companies like the aforementioned 20th Century Fox, Fox Television, Fox News and many more, along with many movies and shows. This resulted in to a bidding war between Walt Disney Company and Comcast for who’s going to buying the major company, the bidding went on for two years until Disney is the winner at March 2019 with $71.3 Billion. At first, the project of Deadpool was in hesitation that its gonna be toning down to PG-13 when Deadpool (along with X-Men universe) are going into MCU, but Disney decided to respecting the project to keeping it R-Rated, even though this was before MCU are accepted to dropping one F Bomb in Guardians of the Galaxy 3. This resulted into a changing story in the original plan, since MCU is now focusing on Multiverse, Levy and Deadpool saw it as an opportunity to be part of it, and in a big surprise (aside the rumors of who’s replacing Wolverine’s role like Daniel Radcliff), Hugh Jackman, even though he was meant to retiring his role of Wolverine, was changing his heart to coming back his iconic role after his death in “Logan”. I guess I could say, his death will be retconned for… Multiverse reason. Aw well.
2: While they’re start filming in August of 2022, we’re hoping that this will be Deadpool’s and MCU’s biggest film, as Deadpool said. But it will be stopped again, this time, due to the Hollywood Labor Strike in 2023, when both union groups, the writers (WGA) and actors (SAG-AFTRA) went in protest for saving their business for the sake of better pay, safe working conditions and staying low those AI generates, but it was thankfully only lasted for 6 months. Despite we still have a problem with companies like Sony wanting to using AI for future projects, but that’s a long different stories. Despite the delay that it was originally planned to be released on 2023, they pushed it on late July of 2024.
So, with all that said, will both Deadpool and Wolverine have a great experience in MCU, or is it the journey is so bad they’ll go back to their home universe?
Well, lets find out.
The Story
Since this is MCU, you think that they’ll giving us yet another simple but also complex story? Well, yes, but for R-Rated movie, its definitely insane, sure it may not be as perfect, but its fun.
It all started at 2018 where Deadpool travels from his home universe (Earth-10005) to MCU’s universe (Earth-616), despite of Sacred Timeline (even though im not familiar of that, but il let you MCU fans can explained to me what happened if I missed any parts of MCU), our familiar Wade Wilson (aka Deadpool) came to the Avengers HQ to asking Happy Hogan to be part of the Avengers, but sadly, it was rejected. And so, 6 years later, Wade decides to retiring his mercenary role to working as a used-car salesman after broke up from Vanessa Carlysle. However, when he’s celebrating his Birthday, the party is interrupted from TVA (Time Variance Authority) that they kidnap our hero (despite his effort to killing the TVA soldiers). Upon arriving in TVA from kidnap, Mr. Paradox explains Deadpool’s home universe’s timeline is starting to deteriorating due to the death of the important figure of his universe, Logan Howlett (aka Wolverine), as we saw his tragic death in “Logan” (my apology for SPOILER if anyone haven’t seen Logan). So Deadpool decides to snatching Tempad (which like multiverse traveling device) to picking which Logan, until he picked up our Logan with his classic yellow and blue outfit. However, despite brought Logan in (which happens to be the worst version of Wolverine), Deadpool realizes Mr. Paradox believes he has no knowledge about the superiors (or so what we think), resulting tossing both Deadpool and Wolverine into trash. And by trash, I mean The Void. Its up to Deadpool and Wolverine to find the way to escaping Void to saving Wade’s home universe, while also facing against Cassandra Nova, who’s Charles Xavier’s long lost sister.
While its yet another simple MCU story with complex elements with continuity in MCU’s timeline (mainly taking place in Multiverse era, even if im gonna miss the Infinity era), But instead of fighting against bad guys for any wills, here, its all about saving the universe before the threat and the time is running out, which is a nice story, for a typical multiverse story. However, one plot element that have its downside is the universe has its important figure to keep the universe safe, in particular, Wolverine from X-Men to Logan, who’s considered as the anchor being, but without the important being, that could cause the end of the universe, which begs to my question, what about the other people in this universe, isn’t one of them like Deadpool or Laura (aka X-23) are meant to taking Logan’s torch? Which it makes no sense that there’s a remaining people in the universe can protect it instead of an important figure with saying “without the important one” your universe is on a verge of deterioration, I mean, Deadpool deserves better to be the new important figure (or as Deadpool calling himself “Marvel Jesus”) instead of treated as an afterthought. Despite the problem of the plot element, what makes this movie to be fun (along with emotional heart moment) is the chemistry between two unlikely buddies between Deadpool and Wolverine, they share some fun actions and even the humors (but more on characters later), they always arguing from Deadpool’s talking too much or even Wolverine aren’t familiar about Wade’s home universe whenever it didn’t going on their way, along with foul mouthing all together, which I can’t help but both surprised and laughing. Speaking of the latter, what better way to not forget the humor, and I gotta say, this quite possibly the funniest MCU movie and funniest Deadpool movie yet, the movie has a lot of humorous moments from pop culture references (with good execution how its done for Deadpool), a 4th walls breaking (either from flipping out in front of camera in TVA scene or a reminder for Fox is bought by Disney if anyone didn’t know, true story as I said at the start) the aforementioned chemistry between our two heroes to even some fight scenes, one of which is when both Wade and Logan are beating each others up in Honda Odyssey, while the car’s radio played “You're the One That I Want“ from Grease, even though its out of place, but it makes it fun.
While the plot element about the important figure part is the weakest part of the story, but at least the main story, the chemistry and the humors are both pretty good from the get-go.
The Presentation
The film’s budget is $200M, and is just like any big budget MCU film with simple fun action and nice costumes? Well, this is probably the first MCU’s R-Rated film and it looks pretty good and also has nostalgia feel what they gave us.
For starter, the filming location was done both indoor (either in the building somewhere or in sound stage) or outdoor. They pretty much filmed in England from outdoor like London and Norfolk to indoor like Pinewood Studios at Buckinghamshire. Although it wasn’t just filming in England, but they also filmed in Canada, specifically Vancouver much like what they did in Deadpool 2 (I guess filming in Vancouver is always the place for cutting costs). And I will say, the sets and the filming locations are pretty good and probably creative what they came out for the settings. One location that I like is The Void, where you can see so many stuff were dumped out has some familiar Easter Eggs, ranging from 20th Century Fox logo (due to changing to Studio instead of Fox, thanks a lot, Disney), a CN Tower (a believe) Helicarriers from The Avengers (Seriously, since when we need the aerial version of Aircraft Carrier, that thing looks pretty cool). Despite the junks in the Void, it looks beautiful for a mix of desert, the field to the forest, even if the Void would cause the end of time.
Speaking of design, another part that I also like, are the costumes in the movie. While Deadpool looks pretty much like what we all know either in two previous movies or even in the comics, but still done a nice and faithful design. Though without the mask, he’s still looking good while disfigured in makeup. Though the weird part about his unmask is when Wade Wilson retires, he’s wearing a wig with staples, I guess he wants to make a new look for clearing out from his mercenary (though he’ll always coming back as you-know-who) but also pretending he doesn’t have a terminal cancer (even if he still has TC, but he has healing factor), but that’s just me. But easily the best costume will have to be Wolverine, gone from a generic black outfit in the X-Men movies (Yeah, im sorry to say, X-Men movie fans, but im probably a not a fan of those, I mean, where’s the colors?), giving him a signature yellow and blue costume that its based combination on comic (Astonishing X-Men) and the show X-Men: TAS (Between this movie and the successor show X-Men 97’, 2024 is a big year for X-Men, eh?). Sure, we can see some other have either follow faithful from the comic, or even references from other movies, again, a lot of Easter Eggs, especially with the cameos (more on that later, but considered my SPOILER WARNING, but brief). One last part that I like to mention is the movie also has a pet star Dogpool, who’s played by “Peggy”, a crossbreed dog called “Pugese” who’s famously for her ugly appearance, which at first, I though the long tongue part is part of CG, but this is how she lives with it, as a dog mixed between Pug and Chinese Crested Dog.
As for the action scenes with either practical or CG, they’re pretty fun to watch, but again, because this is R-Rated movie, there’s always gotta be bloody fight with either gun shots, slashing and brutal ways, or even some are shocking like the constant nut shots from either hands or even blades. However, it wasn’t as brutally gory compare to two previous films, with all those stabs, decapitations to even head blown off of blood and chunks out. Sure, the effects of the movie are pretty cool to see from practical like Wolverine claws (You’re taking notes, X-Men Origin: Wolverine?) and some others. Sure, some could also done with CG, either from the gory kills to even one with Cassandra Nova’s giving her hand in a head (No sexual pun attended tho) effect (Yeah, the CG effect can be either okay to mediocre, these days).
While some effects can be flawed, but they’re pretty good with the actions, some effects, the settings and even the suits.
The Characters
While its nice to see our old friends back and my god, the characters are all over with cameos, despite some returns are minor due to the focus on our unlikely main heroes.
Lets starts with my favorite return of our mercenary, Deadpool, aka Wade Wilson (reprised by Ryan Reynolds DEADPOOL), if you already know about Deadpool, good for you, but If you haven’t heard, here’s my brief origin on him. He’s a Canadian born human (at first) before having a terminal cancer, which lead him to the experiment that he ended turning into a mutant with his skin became hideous, but thanks for becoming a mutant, he has a healing factor (Wolverine style), wearing black and red suit for killing bad guys on his way. This time, he’s in danger of his universe is a brinks at the end thanks to his original Wolverine’s death that he’ll teaming up with different universe version of Wolverine. According to Rhett Reese, he said that while Deadpool is going to have a chemistry to Logan, but he described him in the third installment as “Fish-out-of-Water” character, outside is probably sums up for him since he’s introduced in MCU for his first dealing with multiverse, cause after all, this is Deadpool’s first journey in MCU after Disney bought the major corp who owns X-Men movies and Fantastic 4 (And yes, im possibly looking forward for it next year). As always, I enjoy Deadpool since two previous for his chaotic humor, his actions and a fun performance from Ryan Reynolds.
Deadpool: Hehe, thanks, I enjoy my experience with MC-F(bleep)in’-U, especially for my performances. Back to you, little Canadian!
Anthony (me): Um… Thanks…
Anyway, our next title protagonist is Wolverine, aka Logan Howlett (reprised by surprisingly Hugh Jackman), who, as we’re all familiar with him, a man who’s born with adamantium skeleton (infused that is) with claws out of his hands, a healing factor and berserk. But this time, we have the alternative universe one when Deadpool was looking for, after Logan is left alone as a former member of X-Men (Talk about a mean lone wolf for not having friends...), making him acting like the mix between the animated Wolverine and Bryan Singer’s Wolverine, with extra dose of foul mouthing, a lot foul compare to Deadpool. This is what makes it fun in this movie, whereas Deadpool plays like a Good Cop to saving his universe, while Wolverine has probably too much testosterone in his Bad Cop role. Even though back then, it was unlikely to see him coming back as his iconic role to end with Logan, but since MCU is currently focuses on multiverse, its quite surprising to bringing Jackman back in the movie, but he definitely did a great work of his alternative role of Logan, especially with a chemistry between our two heroes.
Though the last talk about, and the main villain in this pic, is Cassandra Nova (played by Emma Corrin) a long lost sister from Charles Xavier with mind-reading ability, but unlike Charles, she’s unfortunately villainous to making people stuck in The Void and her hope to taking the plan of the end of time. The best way to describing her is if you mixing Professor X in her spoiled behavior with mischief, unpredictable and dangerous with her mind manipulation with her unique acting ability as Gene Wilder. I find her fairly descent, even if she can be over the top for her sabotage and her delivery, but il give a credit to Emma’s performance, which I heard she really wants to playing the villain in this movie, so good for her.
As for the rest in the movie, there aren’t as much to say for either plot developments or even a fun cameos (just considered a SPOILER WARNING, but won’t tell how they appeared), there’ our fellow X-Men members like Colossus (reprised by Stefan Kapcic), Negasonic Teenage Warhead (reprised by Brianna Hildebrand) and her girlfriend Yukio (played by Shioli Kutsuna), there’s Blind Al (reprised by Leslie Uggams) who’s Deadpool’s roommate and Dopinder (reprised by Karan Soni) who’s Deadpool’s Indian chauffeur in his taxi cab.
Sure, we do have a couple of MCU characters in a movie like our old friend Happy Hogan (played by my favorite filmmaker Jon Favreau) and Mr. Paradox (played by Matthew Macfayden), the secondary villain and agent of TVA. Sure, they also introduced the alternative Deadpool (aside Dogpool), there’s Nicepool (also played by DEADPOOL) and eventually, Ladypool (voiced by Blake Lively, who’s Reynolds’s wife, but the actress behind Ladypool’s outfit is uncredited).
But of course, this movie has so many cameos that we’re familiar with, there’s Laura, aka X-23 (reprised by Dafne Keen) from Logan (who I assuming she’s gonna be the new Wolverine based on similar mutant abilities, I wonder if MCU gives her a chance), Elektra Natchios (played by Jennifer Garner, not the MCU one who’s Elodie Yung) who’s a trained and deadly martial arts from 2003 Daredevil and her own movie in 2005 (the less talk about the latter, the better…), Blade (played by Wesley Snipes) who’s a badass and deadly Dhampir who kills vampires for revenge, Gambit (played by Channing Tatum) who’s kinetic card user of X-Men that there was planned to having Gambit movie in part of X-Men Origins, but didn’t happening when X-Men Origins Wolverine was a complete embarrassment that left into cancellation, Human Torch (played by Chris Evans, aka Captain America back in MCU’s Infinity saga) who’s a cocky man with fire form from radiation back in Fantastic 4 in 2005 and Rise of the Silver Surfer in 2007. But of course, aside Ladypool, they also have more celeb cameos like Cowboypool (voiced by Matthew “alright alright alright” McConaughey), Headpool (voiced by Nathan Fillion, aka The Detachable Kid) and the one and only alternative Wolverine is played by Henry Cavill, aka Superman in Snyderverse (no offense to Jackman though), sounds like he’ll possibly coming in as the MCU version of Wolverine, despite that I heard a rumor when Cavill likes to coming back as Superman in the future.
Even though there are SO MANY characters in cameos, at least they’re pretty good and fun to watch, its a one big fat Nostalgia fest, eh?
And now for my Final Opinion of this film
Overall, Deadpool and Wolverine is, while it may not be the perfect Deadpool movie, but it is a one heck of a fun movie.
While the story is just an average saving the universe til the end of time and some plot hole bothering me, but its a fun one with fun acting, bloody actions, its funny, the presentation looks good, the costumes are good to follow and inspired and the characters, along with the cameos, are enjoyable, especially for the welcome returns.
Like I said, while its not as greater than Deadpool 2, but this is definitely a Must-Watch film for both Deadpool fans and some MCU fans. Sure, im pretty much burnt out on MCU films, but this one is that I enjoyed and recommend to watch. Sure, there are some are considered pretty bad, but I disagree (if they taking it too personally), I think its a pretty good MCU that maybe, just maybe, the multiverse saga could be good? But then again, I enjoyed the Infinity saga, but multiverse, could’ve gone better in my point.
For my rating, im gonna giving this one an 8/10.
So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.
Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.
