Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).
In case you haven’t already heard: The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been on a bit of a decline these past few years. At this point, the once-dominant franchise’s current state isn’t just an open secret — it’s a well-known fact worthy of being referenced multiple times in Deadpool & Wolverine by the film’s eponymous Merc with a Mouth. In its third act, Ryan Reynolds‘ Wade Wilson even openly pleads for Marvel to abandon multiversal storytelling altogether. He does that, of course, in a film that ends with his universe being saved from extinction and allowed to exist safely again in Marvel’s multiverse. There’s no point critiquing that contradiction. Making fun of things without fixing them has always been Deadpool’s thing, after all.
Heading into this weekend, though, there was a general hope among both comic book fans and casual viewers alike that Deadpool & Wolverine‘s release would mark a positive turning point for Marvel Studios. Some even dared to hope that the film would fix all of the MCU’s many canonical and narrative issues. So, now that it’s actually playing in theaters nationwide for everyone to see, it’s worth asking whether Deadpool & Wolverine has done enough to — as this headline ponders — put the MCU back on the right track.
The short answer to that question is: No. The long answer: Absolutely not. The longer answer? Well…
Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t really a true MCU movie
Here’s one thing Deadpool & Wolverine definitely does: It brings both of its iconic titular heroes into the MCU… kind of. It at least establishes, just in case fans hadn’t already guessed, that both Reynolds’ Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine exist within Marvel’s multiverse. Most of the film, however, doesn’t take place in the MCU’s prime reality, but the same universe as 20th Century Fox’s X-Men movies and spinoffs and The Void, i.e. the place where pruned artifacts and variants are sent by the Time Variance Authority (TVA) from Loki. The movie leaves Deadpool, Wolverine, and all of their allies in their own separate universe from the MCU’s Avengers, while also leaving the door open for future potential crossovers.
What Deadpool & Wolverine decidedly doesn’t do is fix basically any of the problems that have plagued the MCU’s recent films and TV shows. It still relies on cheap cameos, Easter eggs, references, and our pre-existing connections to characters from other movies to do all of its most dramatic work for it, which is admittedly very minimal. It also, perhaps most bafflingly of all, asks superhero fans to let their nostalgia cloud the fact that a lot of the Fox-era Marvel movies it references throughout its runtime were appallingly bad, including 2005’s Elektra and Fantastic Four and 2019’s Dark Phoenix, the latter of which is featured prominently in the film’s emotionally manipulative credits montage. No other superhero movie in history has asked viewers to care so much about corporate mergers and shutdowns.
No homework necessary
To its credit, the film doesn’t demand the same level of canonical research and homework that so many of the MCU’s recent TV shows and movies have. That said, many of its biggest jokes and cameos do require that its audience remember not only 15- to 20-year-old movies, but also abandoned superhero projects that never even came to fruition (see: Channing Tatum’s died-on-the-vine Gambit movie). So many of the film’s jokes are, in fact, tied to either obscure, forgotten movies and TV shows or details about its stars’ careers and personal lives that one has to wonder who Deadpool & Wolverine was even made for, because it certainly doesn’t feel like it was written with any of the 17- to 25-year-olds that would seem, on paper, to be its target demographic in mind.
In addition to all of these problems, Deadpool & Wolverine‘s style and look leave a lot to be desired. The film’s visual effects are spotty throughout, and its locations and backdrops range from mildly acceptable to blandly forgettable. Nearly all of its action sequences are frustratingly weightless as well, which is itself the result of their cluttered staging and obviously digital spurts of blood and gore. The fact that director Shawn Levy and editors Dean Zimmerman and Shane Reid repeatedly cut away to a new angle just before an attack actually makes contact with its target doesn’t help matters, either.
The big problem the MCU still hasn’t solved
More than anything, though, it’s Deadpool & Wolverine‘s script issues that are the most disappointing. Even after slowing down its production pipeline and starting to spend more time on its individual projects again, it still doesn’t seem like Marvel Studios has remembered how to tell a satisfying story. Deadpool & Wolverine‘s script is full of confusing, convoluted plot mechanics and more exposition dumps than perhaps any other MCU movie in history. Its villains’ and heroes’ motivations are thin, to say the least, and the film doesn’t even invest the necessary amount of thought into its two lead heroes’ unlikely friendship.
By the time everything is said and done, it’s unclear why Deadpool and Wolverine even become friends. It’s almost as if the studio thought putting their names together in the film’s title was enough. Three years into its worst era, Marvel remains incapable of making the case for its continued existence. If not even pulling Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine out of his well-earned rest can help it do that, then what can?
Deadpool & Wolverine is now playing in theaters.
