Over the last five years, Disney released several films that were weirdly — and perhaps unintentionally — subversive. Tim Burton’s “Dumbo,” which came out just nine days after the studio finalized its purchase of 20th Century Fox, is a movie about how the worst thing an artist can do is sell out to the corporate owners of an amusement park. Burton would know.
Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn’s “Wish” celebrated the studio’s 100th anniversary by telling a tale about how hoarding intellectual property is the most evil thing anyone can do. The only way to atone for that sin: for the rulers of a magic kingdom to give all their IP back to its original creators.
So one might think that “Deadpool & Wolverine” — a crossover between the old 20th Century Fox “X-Men” universe and its former competitor, the Marvel Cinematic Universe — might be another thinly veiled critique of Disney’s corporate studio system. After all, this is Deadpool we’re talking about. He’s the superhero whose greatest asset isn’t his comically overpowered healing factor, but his ability to break the fourth wall and crack wise about his own film and franchise.
But now that Deadpool is owned by Disney, his whole attitude has changed. Don’t worry, he’s still an ultraviolent mass murderer with a middle school sense of humor and a heart of tarnished gold — but now, he’s also a total sell-out. Unlike “Deadpool” and “Deadpool 2,” where his snide commentary poked fun at his films’ hackneyed, cynical populism, in “Deadpool & Wolverine” he celebrates it. He has nothing to say about the fact that he’s been purchased by Marvel other than that it’s all he’s ever wanted. He acts like an entrepreneur whose biggest dream was to sell their business, not to run it.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” begins with Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) flunking his interview to become an Avenger. He gets so despondent that he hangs up his tights and gets a job selling cars with his best friend, Peter (Rob Delaney), which he’s quite bad at.
But when the Time Variance Authority (previously seen in Disney+ series “Loki”) knocks at his door, Deadpool is recruited to join the MCU proper. The catch is that nobody else from his universe is coming with him. Everyone he knows and loves is going to get deleted, because when Logan died (translation: when Hugh Jackman left), his whole universe (franchise) started to fall apart.
Deadpool may be a slaughterer of thousands, but he’s loyal to his friends, so to save them, he travels the multiverse to find another Logan to take the old one’s place. Eventually he settles on the only Logan who doesn’t try to kill him, who happens to be the worst Logan in the entire multiverse. This one got a lot of people killed for reasons which, frankly, aren’t quite as bad as this film makes them out to be. The whole “worst Logan” thing kinda falls apart when we learn his backstory.
Anyway: Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), the TVA agent responsible for overseeing the death of Deadpool’s universe, banishes the two of them to The Void, where inconvenient franchise characters go to wander aimlessly around cheap-looking sets. Most of the rest of the film takes place in generic “Mad Max” scrap heaps, generic wastelands and generic forests.
Oh yes, and inside the fabulous Honda Odyssey, which Deadpool briefly reads to filth before taking it all back and declaring that “the Honda Odyssey f–ks hard.” Presumably there’s a deleted scene of Deadpool cashing his check.
The majority of “Deadpool & Wolverine” is a glorified “Red Notice” with Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman sniping at each other and tearing one another to shreds. Neither of them can die, so they have carte blanche to mutilate themselves like a “Simpsons” “Itchy & Scratchy” cartoon.
They’re running from the villainous Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin) and into a series of superhero movie cameos which are often funny, but mostly arbitrary. With one notable exception, these roles could all have been filled by any character and played by any actor, as if they were first-come, first-serve to any celebrity who was able to clear a hole in their schedule.
Shawn Levy directs “Deadpool & Wolverine” by tying it loosely together with clothespins and gaffer’s tape. There are good moments here — some truly funny jokes and nifty bits of violence — but they’re all connected by corporate synergy, not character, plot or any theme beyond how cool the MCU is for finally making an R-rated movie.
The film peaks early, with an opening action sequence that is in such blasphemously bad taste that it seems like maybe, just maybe, this movie will go somewhere daring. But we quickly learn that “Deadpool & Wolverine” is only allowed to be offensive, subversive or self-deprecating in service of its studio’s image. It’s only as rebellious as it’s allowed to be, which means it’s not rebellious at all.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” isn’t so much a movie as it is a corporate merger with stabbings and wiener jokes. A shameless piece of self-congratulation, fueled by self-cannibalism, as the studio which built its identity on superhero crossovers finally abandons the pretense of trying to justify them dramatically.
Even the film’s attempt at a heart, the redemption of Logan, falls flat because this is just a brand-new Logan we’ve never met before, a carbon copy of the one we care about. They’re using our nostalgia for an old character to get away with hand-waving our investment in a new one.
Shawn Levy’s film is a tragic confession that the MCU isn’t leaning on its multiverse to drive stories, it’s leaning on its multiverse to exploit intellectual property with as little creative effort as possible. Whatever superficial entertainment this film offers comes at the cost of revealing that the emperor, and in this case the whole empire, has no clothes — and that’s not an impressive sight.
