From Deadpool, with love.

(If you’re looking for the review, click here.)

Deadpool & Wolverine is a big love letter to Deadpool’s fans, as well as fans of Fox’s Marvel  superhero movies.

You’re probably thinking, “Aren’t all of Marvel’s films love letters to their fans?”

Yes, but not to this degree.

There’s something different about the Deadpool franchise that sets it apart from the other stand-alone franchises, like Captain America, Iron Man and even Thor.  I describe it as  “irreverent reverence” (or “reverent irreverence”, if you will.).  For as much as the Deadpool movies gleefully skewer the superhero genre and its fans, those insults come from a place of love.  Allow me to explain.

Comic Book Fidelity

I’ve never read a single Deadpool comic, but my understanding is that the cinematic version of him is faithful to the source material.  All of the traits that made him a fan favorite are there, including his fourth wall breaking, foul language, graphic violence, rapid-fire quips and sarcasm, meta-level awareness of everything, pan-sexuality, and so on.  Folks who love his character in the comics clearly love his movie incarnation.  True, the first Deadpool movie didn’t explore his sexual proclivities, but that restraint was lifted in the second one and continues with this third entry as well.  As such, it would be difficult to complain that D&W doesn’t give the fans what they’re asking for, in regards to how Deadpool is represented.

Reynolds, the actor

Then there’s the actor who portrays the “Merc with a Mouth”, Ryan Reynolds.  Before seeing Deadpool back in 2018, I would have said that Reynolds was not my bag.  I’d only made it through a handful of his movies: Turbo and X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Woman in Gold.  (The latter one is interesting because Reynolds’s performance is so subdued that I thought he was on tranquilizers.)  Most people would cite The Proposal as his most accessible and popular film before Deadpool, but I couldn’t get past the first ten minutes of it.  I’ve heard that Van Wilder, Adventureland, Waiting… and Mississippi Grind are good, but I’ve never made the time to see them.

I wasn’t avoiding Reynolds per se, but I definitely wasn’t seeking him out.  His earlier performances should have resonated with me, given how I can be extremely sarcastic and flippant.  (Readers of mine know this to be true.)  Regardless, what ultimately swung me over to being a fan of Reynolds is his performance in the first Deadpool movie.  At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, Reynolds as Deadpool is one of the best superhero casting decisions ever made.  He and the character are such a perfect fit that it’s baffling why it initially didn’t pan out.

As fans are well aware, Reynolds’ first turn as Deadpool in Origins was a swing and a miss, not because of his performance but because the movie turned him into a villain with too many powers and no mouth.  After that film fizzled and Green Lantern crashed and burned, it would take Reynolds years to convince 20th Century Fox to let him have another turn as the character.  People may have forgotten how hard Reynolds worked behind the scenes to get the first Deadpool greenlit with himself playing the character, but his fans never forgot.

Reynolds + Deadpool = ♥️

But enough history.  Let me get back to why Reynolds is the ideal Deadpool.  He epitomizes the character’s personality so perfectly it’s scary.  Reynolds’ is a natural at being sarcastic, flippant, glib, etc., basically all of the things that people associate with Deadpool.  His completely unfiltered approach to the character is what gives the Deadpool movies their authenticity.  As strange as this may sound, I think Reynolds is honored to play Deadpool and always strives to give a performance that respects the character’s origins.  While Reynolds’ unbridled commitment is critical to the Deadpool movies, what has taken their success to another level is how they share in the audience’s appreciation for superhero culture.

Deadpool: He’s just like us!

Deadpool represents the unbridled id of every superhero fan, doing and saying things that mainstream superheroes are prohibited from doing.  However, his routine wouldn’t work if it was  rooted in nihilism.  Reynolds avoids that trap by keeping his love of the character and his fans at the forefront of his performance.  As a result, when Deadpool mocks something, his fans appreciate it because he’s speaking directly to them (literally and figuratively).

People complain about Deadpool’s snarky attitude, but there’s nuance to the jibes he makes about Disney, Marvel, superhero movie fans, or what have you.  Whatever Deadpool says, it comes from a nerd-like appreciation of superhero culture.  What the Deadpool character and these movies epitomize is the difference between poking fun at something you love versus something you hate.  Deadpool’s running commentary reminded me of the nerds in The Big Bang Theory arguing over superheroes.  They know the characters inside and out, so when they mock Aquaman or whatever, they’re coming from an expert-level understanding of the genre.  Reynolds and the folks behind the Deadpool movies are the exact same way, in that when Deadpool lobs a sarcasm grenade, the intent isn’t to injure but to get a knowing laugh from the audience.

For those about to riff

As a longtime fan of Mystery Science Theater and Riff Trax, I love that Deadpool provides running commentary on his own movie while it happens.  He also riffs on things that, like those two riffing shows, would require fans to know more than what’s currently happening in the movie.  There are probably several articles out there that list everything Deadpool references in D&W, so I won’t even try to list them here.  But the ones I remember include Chris Evans’ age, Hugh Jackman’s love of Broadway musicals, Hugh Jackman’s divorce, Mad Max: Fury Road, Jennifer Garner’s divorce from Ben Affleck and Hulk Hands.  While you can still enjoy D&W with only a passing knowledge of superheroes involved, you’re rewarded for having cultural awareness beyond them as well.

Fanboys, do you believe in love?

Deadpool may take few things seriously, but he is a serious fanboy at heart.  Deadpool knows superheroes as well as any “comic book guy”.  A running thread throughout the Deadpool trilogy is how badly he wants to be a member of a superhero team.  First it was with the X-Men, and in D&W it’s The Avengers.  Even though his powers make him indestructible, he believes that he will only be respected when he stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Wolverine or Thor.  Just like every Marvel fanboy, Deadpool wants to be an Avenger.  His dreams are their dreams.  Deadpool may take the occasional potshot at fanboys, but he always makes up for it by delivering boat-loads of fresh, hot chimichangas.

Fan Service?  Yes, please!

At the outset, after unearthing Wolverine’s corpse, Deadpool lays waste to a bunch of TVA flunkies sent to bring him in.  As one of the newer elements in the MCU, the TVA has to be the dullest one yet.  I have to say that watching Deadpool slice-and-dice these dull and irritating rent-a-cops was satisfying.  Then, to top things off, Deadpool does what every fan of Wolverine has ever wanted to do: he straps on Wolvie’s claws and goes berserk.  (Did that come out wrong?)

As thrilled as the audience is at Deadpool and Wolverine teaming up, so too is Deadpool.  He can barely contain himself over the possibility of saving the world not only with a genuine superhero at his side, but one that he has a huge man-crush on.  D&W knowingly uses their initial friction to address one of those important questions that only superhero fanboys have ever pondered:  who would win if the two fought each other?  Of course, the answer is neither, since they can’t be killed.  Fortunately, D&W doesn’t allow that truism to get in the way of figuring that out, and gives us a hilarious scene (scored to “You’re the one that I want”, natch) where the two spend the better part of the day stabbing each other until they pass out.  (That definitely doesn’t sound right.)

D&W also does particularly well in contrasting the differences between the two superheroes in this dream team-up.  I love how Deadpool’s flippancy continually irks Wolverine to the point where he wants to kill him.  And I also love how Deadpool keeps trying to yank Wolverine out of his tortured, alcoholic doom-spiral.  While there’s plenty of laughs from seeing this oil and water couple go after each other, there’s some poignancy as well.  Both characters are equally damaged and need the other to achieve redemption.

When the two eventually find a way to get along, the movie finally shows us how unstoppable a united Deadpool and Wolverine would be when they fight their way past an army of Deadpools sent by Cassandra Nova.  D&W cannily acknowledges the orgasmic aspect this has on fans by scoring the scene to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer”.

Finally, some critics have interpreted D&W’s use of Johnny Storm, Elektra, Blade, Gambit, X-23, Pyro and so on to ridicule how Fox has been reduced to being a Disney subsidiary.  I couldn’t disagree more.  I felt that the movie’s inclusion of those characters spoke to the fondness Reynolds has for those movies and being part of Fox’s Marvel universe.  The movie makes a point of giving Elektra, Blade and X-23 a proper send-off, which I would argue the movie achieves.  Heck, it even redeems the failure of Fox to make a Gambit movie which, based on what we see from Channing Tatum in D&W, would have turned out well.  And if this wasn’t enough to show that Reynolds and D&W’s heart was in the right place, the closing credits should put that notion to rest.  Seeing backstage footage of the casts of Fox’s superhero movies was a nice touch, particularly seeing Jackman when he was filming the original X-Men in 2000.  For those people who doubt the sincerity the people behind D&W have for Fox’s legacy, well, I don’t know what to tell them.

A word on insincerity

When D&W was released, I read someone on Twitter stating that Ryan Reynolds was one of the most insincere actors working today.  I think the problem people have with Reynolds is that he started out as a dramatic actor who settled on being a comedian.  If he had been a comedian from the start, like Chevy Chase, Adam Sandler or Bill Murray, I think people would respond to him differently.  As someone who watched many of Chevy Chase’s films, he often is detached from the movie happening around him.  (I doubt you would ever find “Chevy Chase” and “sincere” mentioned in the same sentence.)  The same applied for Murray for years, who made a fortune playing ironically detached characters before he started dabbling in dramatic roles.  Finally, people never take Adam Sandler seriously when he’s doing his Netflix comedies.  I don’t understand why people hold a different standard for Reynolds than those other actors, but it’s hypocritical from my point of view.  Even still, Reynolds does have moments of sincerity on display in D&W which I found affecting, like when he talks about saving his nine friends.  I suppose for people who want to hate Reynolds, they simply choose to ignore what they see with their own eyes.