128 min | R | July 26, 2024 | Marvel Studios/Disney
Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman team up for the MCU’s first R-rated film. It is a buddy comedy disguised as a superhero movie disguised as a eulogy for the Fox Marvel universe. The cameos are insane.
Wade Wilson is retired. Deadpool is done. Then the Time Variance Authority informs him that his timeline is dying because its anchor being, Wolverine, is dead. Wade needs to find a replacement Wolverine from across the multiverse. He finds the worst one. A Logan who failed everyone he ever loved and drinks to forget it. They are thrown into the Void, a wasteland where pruned timelines go to die. They must work together to save Wade’s world. They hate each other. That is the film’s engine and it runs perfectly.
Ryan Reynolds plays Deadpool with the same fourth-wall-breaking irreverence but adds a desperation that gives the comedy weight. He is a man who wants to matter and knows he does not. Hugh Jackman plays this Wolverine with a rage and self-loathing that is different from the Logan he played for twenty-four years. The chemistry between them is the real special effect. They fight each other with genuine brutality. They insult each other with genuine wit. Emma Corrin plays Cassandra Nova with theatrical villainy. Matthew Macfadyen plays the TVA bureaucrat with delicious smarm. The cameos are numerous and best left unspoiled.
Shawn Levy directs his first Marvel film with an emphasis on practical action and character comedy. The fight choreography is bloody and creative. The R rating is used for violence and language in ways that feel essential rather than gratuitous. The Void setting gives the film a visual playground that Levy fills with references and Easter eggs without letting them overwhelm the story. The needle drops are aggressive and effective.
The film is fan service elevated to art form. Every callback and cameo serves the emotional story of two men who think they are failures trying to prove they are not. The Fox Marvel universe gets the funeral it deserves. The MCU gets the shot of adrenaline it desperately needs. Reynolds and Jackman make it look effortless. It is not. Making a film this referential and this emotional simultaneously is a high-wire act. They do not fall.