I Watch Films: Deadpool And Wolverine
Deadpool And Wolverine
Following the events of Deadpool II, Deadpool attempts to join superhero team The Avengers, in the first of many explicit references to 20th Century Fox, who had the rights to make films of Marvel Comics’ X-Men, of which the Deadpool films are a spin-off, being bought by Disney, who already owned Marvel Studios and thus the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He’s turned down by Happy Hogan*, Tony Stark’s assistant (once driver and bodyguard). He retires from being a masked vigilante and becomes a car salesman with his friend and former X-Force colleague Peter Wisdom.
At a birthday party six years later he’s abducted by the Temporal Variance Authority, who I believe come from a Marvel TV show, whose work is to guard timelines. Mr Paradox wants to move Deadpool from his universe to the Sacred Timeline (the main Marvel Cinematic Universe rather than the Fox X-Men timeline). Deadpool is enthusiastic after he sees Thor crying over him in a monitor. However it turns out that the reason he’s being recruited is his timeline is doomed due to the loss of an anchor being. That being? Logan, the Wolverine, who died in Logan.
However everyone Deadpool loves is in his universe, and he learns that Mr Paradox intends to use a time-ripper to destroy it rather than let it decay naturally. Deadpool escapes using a time travel device and goes to Logan’s grave. Digging him up he discovers he really is dead, then fights the TVA guards using Logan’s adamantium skeleton as a series of rather bad taste weapons.
Unwilling to leave this be Deadpool goes searching for a spare Wolverine from another timeline. After a variety of comedy one-shot Wolverines he finds one. Mr Paradox claims anchor beings can’t be replaced and this is the worst Wolverine in all the multiverse. Deadpool realises Mr Paradox is doing all this without his superior’s knowledge, after which he sends Deadpool and Wolverine into the Void.
What’s the Void? It turns out it’s a place at the end of time with the shattered remnants of the lost multiverses – including all the Marvel characters who have been lost. In the first and best one Deadpool recognises Chris Evans, the actor who plays Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and is excited for him to reveal himself – only to be another Marvel character he’s played The Human Torch from Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer. They make their way onwards and encounter the ruler of the Void Cassandra Nova, not previously a film character, the powerful psychic twin of Charles Xavier. They also meet various other versions of Deadpool.
Escaping Cassandra Nova they meet some other Marvel characters, left hanging by the end of their various film series – Laura aka X-23 from Logan; Elektra, the Christmas Assassin from Daredevil and Elektra; Blade from Blade, Blade 2 and Trinity; Gambit, in this case with the actor attached for a never made Gambit film. They convince themselves they might as well go down fighting than just fade away** allowing Deadpool and Wolverine to escape in a rather confused sequence and confront Mr Paradox and his time-ripper – and also Cassandra Nova all over again.
What to make of this? The sheer number of references to previous films, and in particular series of films that have ended, is overwhelming, the enormous number of actors let alone characters brought in; they have committed to the joke. And even if you aren’t really interested in that, there is something more there – a gesture at a redemption arc for Wolverine, Deadpool having to face consequences, gore and stunts, a nihilistic villain and some good jokes, even if the best ones are about the film itself. I guess if you like Deadpool, this is that – squared?
Watch This: Funny, energetic, intertextual superhero film
Don’t Watch This: Just a lot of in-jokes, bad taste jokes
and gore
* If you want to get deeper into this, Hogan is played by Jon Favreau, who as well as acting, has directed and produced two Marvel Cinematic Universe films, and appears in the credits as an executive producer of many more.
** It’s interesting to see the parallels with some other multiverse superhero films – Andrew Garfield completing a Spider-Man trilogy in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Michael Keaton a Batman trilogy in The Flash
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