Director Shawn Levy combines fast-paced action with hilarious banter, showcasing the chemistry between Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Deadpool plus Wolverine equals lots of chemistry and wild if also sometimes tiresome, superhero action performed to the music of many pop favorites (with notable exceptions), right? The answer is yes for the most part, although there is a limit to the number of times I like seeing someone thrown through a wall, and I could have done without Madonna. Deadpool is his amusingly motor-mouthed self trying to resuscitate Wolverine in opening scenes in spite of his definitive death in “Logan” in 2017. Courtesy of a funny screenplay by the film’s director Shawn Levy (TV’s “Stranger Things”), “Deadpool” scribe Rhett Reese, Ryan Reynolds, Zeb Wells (“Thor: Love and Thunder”) and Paul Wernick (“Zombieland”), Reynolds’ Deadpool mouths some funny put-downs of his new master (“Marvel is sooo stupid”) and reminds us that the X-Men and Deadpool were once products of the legendary, now defunct studio 20th Century Fox (new owner Disney killed the name).
After a superhero’s version of a Bond opening, complete with a super-gory (the film is R-rated) production number played to the tune of the NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye,” get ready for a lot more golden oldies. “Deadpool & Wolverine” is a virtual jukebox musical about a couple of mismatched, middle-aged superheroes who constantly bicker and banter as they strive to save not just the world but the universe and each other. Deadpool resorts to the multiverse to find a “new” Wolverine. Get set for a montage of Wolvies, including one played by an actor from a different franchise. Speaking of which, Wolverine encounters Mr. Paradox (a terrific Matthew Macfadyen, enunciating perhaps in his own accent). Paradox runs the Time Variance Authority (TVA) and has a tendency to pop a blood vessel.
In a standout sequence, Deadpool is interviewed by Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan, the one-time chauffeur of Iron Man’s Tony Stark, for possible entry into the Avengers. Deadpool and Wolverine soon find themselves in the “Mad Max-y” wilderness known as “the Void,” where you will see a giant 20th Century Fox logo eerily resembling the Statue of Liberty at the end of “Planet of the Apes.” The Void is like a gigantic Marvel junkyard with hints of Salvador Dali and Rod Serling. In one of many “meta moments,” Deadpool rattles off the words “miss, miss miss” in regard to recent Marvel films, riffing on the Multiverse (ouch, ouch, ouch). The Void is where the film’s super-villain Cassandra Nova, the mutant twin sister of Dr. Charles Xavier aka Professor X, no less, makes their entrance, and the fact that this person turns out to be the beautiful, head-shaved, wafer-thin, bony-shouldered Emma Corrin (TV’s “The Crown”) meets with mixed results. It may be my imagination, but I think Corrin sprinkled some crazy dust from boyfriend Rami Malek’s “No Time to Die” villain Lyutsifer Safin on Nova.
Nova’s most distinctive superpower is to insert her fingers bloodlessly into someone’s brain and “read” their thoughts and memories. Throughout it all, Deadpool quips about everything from Jackman’s success in “Music Man” revivals and his recent divorce to the age of an actor who played a beloved Marvel superhero in a famously failed early 20th Century Fox entry. Reynolds even has something to say about wife Blake Lively. Was that really Huey Lewis & the News? Did we really need a musical plug for “The Greatest Showman?” What, no Taylor Swift?
A running gag involving a funny-looking pooch named Mary Poppins with a long, wet, protruding tongue may be a bit too much. Then, they top that pooch-pandering by breaking out John Farrar’s “You’re the One That I Want” from the beloved-by-some 1978 musical “Grease.” That the song might be sung to Wolverine by Deadpool without irony is also one of the film’s running jokes. “Deadpool & Wolverine” almost naturally traffics in gay jokes and reminds us what a genius the American literary scholar Leslie Fiedler (“Come Back to the Raft, Ag’in, Huck Honey”) was.
Many of the film’s surprise cameos are already known to the public. But I’ll keep quiet. I wish Morena Baccarin, Deadpool’s original love interest, had more to do. Leslie Uggams returns as foul-mouthed cokehead Blind Al. At 2 hours and 7 minutes, the film is almost brisk, although the third inevitably act drags. But, like the kiss of a prince, “D&W” should rouse MCU from its slumber.
‘Deadpool & Wolverine’
Rating: R for strong, bloody violence and language, as well as gore and sexual references.
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Corrin, Matthew Macfadyen
Director: Shawn Levy
Writer: Shawn Levy, Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Zeb Wells, Paul Wernick
Running time: 127 minutes
Where to Watch: In theaters July 26
Grade: B+
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