Deadpool & Wolverine

Release Date: July 26, 2024

Watch Date: August 24, 2024

“Deadpool’s peaceful existence comes crashing down when the Time Variance Authority recruits him to help safeguard the multiverse. He soon unites with this would-be pal, Wolverine, to complete the mission and save his world from an existential threat.”

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   (This is just a PSA, but Bob is probably going to tell me later on that this review was short and maybe I should have added more, but like I always tell him when a movie is the right level of good, or bad, there’s just not a lot for me to say. This movie is the right level of good, so let’s see what I can do.)

   I know this is out of order, I do. But! It was my mother’s birthday. And what she wants, and is willing to take me to for free, on her birthday, she gets. And, let’s be honest, it was more my father’s birthday present – his is about a week later – because my dad does not go to see movies in theatres. He has a strong prejudice against entering a theatre in the daylight and leaving it in the dark. It is actually one of the reasons I’ve always said I’m not a huge fan of seeing movies in theatres, oh I might have stolen that from my dad. Actually, on reflection, I use that as an excuse for not wanting to go sit with a bunch of strangers and share an experience for two hours because of my extreme social anxiety – and he probably does to. But the one super hero he is willing to pay theatre prices for? Deadpool.

   Oof, that got a little too therapeutic at the end, moving on.

   This movie, as Bob so succinctly put it as we were walking out of the theatre, is a love letter. Not to the X-Men. Not to the MCU. It is a love letter to 20th Century Fox and the admirable effort they put in to making Marvel movies long, long, before Disney ever even tried. The OG Fantastic Four, Elektra, Blade, the Fantastic Four reboot, the many, many X-Men. That wasn’t Disney. And, as you can tell from our previous reviews this past month, and the year before that, they weren’t all bad. They were fun. They were dark. But they were fun. While the credits role a farewell to those films play, with bloopers and interviews from Jackman and Reynolds first time playing each of their characters. It’s heartfelt, and it’s sweet. And it’s all owned by Disney now so that era is dead.

   This is Deadpool and Wolverine’s farewell tour. It’s two best friends making a movie with each other, while also having the license to tie in to the MCU multiverse in as many ways as they want. And they do that. Unabashedly and excitedly. It’s a good thing I’d watched a few episodes of the Loki show, a few years ago, which I was not expecting to have to say after a Deadpool movie, or I’d have had no idea what was going on. But they give Wolverine a costume, and Deadpool gets a few upgrades, and they play around with different iterations of characters and it’s just…fun. And they got as many of their friends as they could to come and join in on the fun. Because why not? It feels like the entire shoot must have been a party, and the film comes out feeling like that too. This thing was made with love, and you can tell.

   If you don’t like the first two Deadpool movies, you’re not going to like this one. But otherwise the humor is the same, the fourth wall breaking is the same, the action is the same. None of that is bad mind you. Reynolds figured out how to do it, and he’s going to do it perfectly. It’s a fun ride from start to end and one that perfectly completes the trilogy.

   Be like my dad, go to the theater for this one.