There are many great duos in history.
Romulus and Remus.
Bulk and Skull.
Lennon and McCartney.
And of all the duos in history... this is one of them.
...and they both are headlining the best movie that Marvel has put out since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
I'm not kidding.
It's no secret that Marvel's Cinematic Universe has been in some dire straits since Avengers: Endgame. Some of it good (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), some of it bad (basically any Disney+ series that isn't Loki or Moon Knight), some of it absolutely atrocious (Thor: Love and Thunder), and some of it being absolutely unmistakably and unforgivingly boring (Eternals).
What's a multibillion dollar film studio to do? Particularly to soften the blow of pulling Robert Downey Jr. out of his Marvel retirement in a move that is both stupid and insensitive?
Why, call up Canada's favorite stepson, of course!
That's right, Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is back to squeeze his ass into red and black spandex after six years off and he's got all the jokes about what's happened since then with the Disney buyout of Fox and all the rest. This is, of course, after telling us that he managed to screw around quite a bit with Cable's time-travel watch (as seen in Deadpool 2) that he decided to even bounce around the multiverse. After failing to kill baby Hitler and murdering Ryan Reynolds to death before he agree to Green Lantern, Wade apparently decided to jump universes into the Earth-199999 universe (yes, I'm still refusing to call it 616 and you should, too) and tried to join the Avengers.
As Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) was the only person they could get to cameo for the scene, Wade is rejected.
Cut to the present day, Wade and Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) have broken up and Wade is having a miserable time selling used cars alongside his buddy Peter (Rob Delaney). Opportunity comes knocking, quite literally, in the form of the TVA as seen in the Loki series. After some initial misunderstanding, Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfayden) reveals to Wade that his universe is dying due to the death of its anchor being: the Wolverine.
So thus now, all the Fox X-Men films are canon with the MCU. And they won't be the only ones as we'll see as the film progresses.
Rather than take the golden ticket into the Sacred Timeline (which I seem to remember is a tree now), Wade decides to pull a Miles Morales and do his own thing - namely steal more time-travel tech and go hopping around the universe looking for a version of Logan (Hugh Jackman) who can help him save his world. After digging up the Logan from Logan (2017) in the opening, Wade has a hilarious montage of pain, suffering, and comic references before finding a variant who is severely down on his luck and hated by pretty much everyone - including the TVA.
If Wade can pull the hero out of his funk then maybe, just maybe, the two can save the day together.
Maybe.
Wade's made an educated wish about it.
...seriously, Ryan Reynolds nad Hugh Jackman make a fantastic double act. They're amazing and it makes me sad that we likely won't be getting more of this chemistry in later films.
Then again, I would have said that Robert Downey, Jr. would have never been called back to play Doctor Doom, so who knows? Maybe our timeline will do something crazy and fun to balance this out.
So, to get into the more spoilierfic parts of the film: this film uses the multiverse concept far better than Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness did, and I'm not even joking. Some of it is seen in the trailers, poking fun at Fox and even Marvel in more than a few swipes. The primary example, however, is the cameos and brother do they have a lot of cameos.
For a film that is so packed with so many cameos, it doesn't feel remotely as bloated as it should. And they pulled out all the stops here, bringing in people such as Blade (Wesley Snipes), Elektra (Jennifer Garner), and even Gambit (Channing Tatum) and mentioning about half a dozen others and that's just on the good guys' side.
Wanna know who one of the main villains is? Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin). Yeah, that's right. Charles Xavier's stillborn twin who is just as psionically powerful as he is and with far, far less restrictions on morality. Someone who I never thought would even come close to even being mentioned in live-action, much less showing up onscreen and as a major antagonist to boot.
Along with just being a cameofest (almost admittedly to the point of self-indulgence, but it's Deadpool), the movie also remembers that superhero movies can be stupid and fun. Ryan Reynolds in particular is on his A-Game in this one (as always), but just about everyone gets in a good quip or a joke at just the right moment (Wesley Snipes makes a comment about their only ever being one Blade in a way that seems almost prophetic now). But even the humor doesn't take away from the emotional impact.
Much like in the first and second Deadpool films, the emotional high notes hit and they hit hard. In particular, the inclusion of X-23/Laura Kinney (Dafne Keen) is good as a motivator for Logan, telling him of his variant's death in Logan and how not being the right guy never stopped him from being a hero.
The film and many of its cameos are actually an emotional high note in another way: they're a love letter to the Fox Marvel films, that is the X-Men series, Daredevil, Elektra, and all three Fantastic Four films (yes, even the 2015 one). This is punctuated by a series of interviews and outtakes from those movies set to Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" played during the end credits.
They weren't all great - in fact, the majority of them were god awful - but it's an era of history that deserves to be remembered if only for it being a time before the House of Mouse had consumed everything in sight.
...ah, if only, if only.
It's honestly a perfect feeling of closure either way.
Beyond that, see this if you're a fan of Deadpool. See this is you're a fan of Wolverine. See it if you're an X-Men fan, or a Fox film's fan, or just anything of the kind. This is a film made for you that touches on just about every corner of all the properties that Marvel has ever put to film (even Spider-Man... in an unexpected place).
Beneath the sex jokes, the gore, and the pop culture references is a film with heart, a film that knows its core audience, and (above all) remembers to have fun with it.
Grab some popcorn and go spend some time with God's Perfect Idiot. You won't regret it. I certainly don't.
Deadpool & Wolverine is now in theaters from Marvel Entertainment and Walt Disney Pictures.
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