Blood, Swearing and Call Backs

Depending on who you ask, Deadpool and Wolverine is either a glorious, long-awaited team up of two pop culture icons dripping in the best kind of fan service and stuffed with funny gags and uproariously OTT fight sequences or it's a vapid husk of a movie, trading solely on things that have come before mixed with dick jokes that's looking to make a quick buck by pleasing people who care more about the colour of costumes than substance. It's fairly easy to make an argument either way.

There is no doubt the film is absolutely stuffed with references to, and appearances from, all things superhero. Well, Fox superhero anyway. Deadpool and Wolverine is much more love letter to the now defunct Fox iterations of X-men (and many others that would be a crime to spoil) movies than it is attempt to slot Deadpool into the MCU proper. The cameos, or rather appearances (director Shawn Levy says they are too integral to be called cameos) do seem to be there in the spirit of genuine fun rather than lazy internet bait. They are often funny and work on multiple levels, giving something to everyone from the casual popcorn movie goer to those up on all the behind the scenes studio machinations. The hit rate of the jokes is also pretty high, sure plenty of the humour is lowest common denominator but funny is funny. The fights are pleasingly visceral too, taking advantage of the fact the regenerating heroes are essentially unkillable to mete out cartoon levels of slapstick violence. This is particularly amusing when juxtaposed against things we know from the much more child friendly MCU. Like when, barely a few minutes into the film, a bunch of TVA agents (the guys for Disney+ show Loki) are dismembered by a Logan's corpse wielding Deadpool.

Entertaining call backs and laughs are a check then but be aware, that is pretty much all that there is here. The story of Deadpool trying to recruit a new Wolverine for his universe exists solely to move the heroes from one encounter with side characters to another. There are two sort of antagonists in the form of Mr Paradox (Mathew Macfadyen) and Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), both are entertaining enough when they get screen time but neither will live long in the memory. A slight plot isn't necessarily a problem for a movie like this but while it's all wink, wink nudge, nudge don't take the story too seriously everyone involved seems to want the audience to take the titular characters REALLY seriously. Ryan Reynolds is great at being a glib douche who we know cares deep down and Hugh Jackman is fantastic at playing a huge, jacked man saddled with world weary angst but the characters don't have anywhere to go. We know Deadpool cares about his inner circle and we know Wolverine will hero up when the time comes so sections where the pace slows to give us "emotional" moments fall flat and the character arcs that are meant to prop up the flimsy story aren't really there. The roster (and probably budget) is stuffed to breaking point but it would have been nice if they could have found some room for Cable and Domino from Deadpool 2 to return.

All in all, Deadpool and Wolverine's scattershot approach to storytelling makes it probably the least of the Deadpool films (although it is significantly better than a lot of the X-men output) and characters from the previous film are missed. Still more than worth a watch for comic book movie fans though as it does the meta call back\ crossover routine better than most. Not exactly genre defining but will scratch the itch of easter egg hunters.

6 things Kevin Feige said we couldn't do out of 10.

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