Finally caught D&W the other day.
I came out of it having had a generally fun time, but with big ol' asterisks.
When writing a Deadpool story, there are variances on how much a given writer will lean into Deadpool's tomfoolery. On one end of this scale, you have Wade's serious contemplations about his cancer or his place in the world as a Quasimodian freak. On the other end of this scale, you have the collected works of Daniel Way and the repeated echoes of "chimichangas".
D&W definitely leaned towards the latter on this one, and I feel like it comes out the weaker for it. Felt like there was a lot more "wow isn't that wacky" in this one than in the prior 2. Part of it is that the previous films couched a lot of that wackiness in a heartfelt story about found families. In this one, the found family is really only there as a princess in a castle rather than as active agents in the story.
While I will admit I am an absolute mark for the cameo fest this film provides, and while I found the ensemble of cameo actors plenty entertaining, there is a scene in the film I call The Cameo Parade that provoked a heavy eye-roll. The camera slows down so you can really savor each of these cameos walking out so you can say "wow" at each one. The only thing missing was Jeb Bush delivering a beleaguered "Please clap".
Okay, let's pull out of this nosedive, what did I like about the film?
Hugh Goshdanged Jackman. The man came back ready to deliver, and deliver he did! The minivan argument was a big highlight of the film for me thanks to his biting delivery.
Those cameos I mentioned rolling eyes at? Still had fun with 'em! They were generally well-applied and at least one of them in particular impressed me with how they managed to animate said cameo in action. See spoiler tag for specifics:
Channing Tatum's Gambit. Fantastic! They actually made his card BS look cool as hell on the silver screen. My metamour from Louisiana also indicated that they could 100% understand everything he was saying and that his dialect was relatively on point.
All in all, it could've been waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay worse. I had a good enough time of it, but let's say that this flick didn't do any favors for my general MCU aversion these days.
I liked D&W, but a) it requires waaaaay too much other knowledge for it to make sense
Loki season 1 feels like an absolute must, with Logan being a ‘probably’ - note that neither of those are the earlier Deadpools
, and b) it felt more like a series of loosely connected vignettes than a coherent whole.
There were lots of great lines, none of which I remember, the cameos made me grin, chuckle, or clap my hands like an excited little girl, and the Deadpool/Wolverine fights were as fun as expected. Particular props for
Gordon Reynolds as Nicepool
, which led me to some thoroughly entertaining research.
Overall, fun movie, but the worst of the three because at no point did I actually give a shit.
Side note: the
Deadpool vs Deadpool’s fight
was the worst CG I’ve seen in years. It felt Toby McGuire-Spider-Man bad. (I’m sure it wasn’t, but it was obvious enough to be jarring.) Maybe it was just my theatre?
Nice Wolverine collage.
Deadpool & Wolverine was a fun watch for me. Definitely not for everyone though. 
Side note: the
Spoiler:Deadpool vs Deadpool’s fight
was the worst CG I’ve seen in years. It felt Toby McGuire-Spider-Man bad. (I’m sure it wasn’t, but it was obvious enough to be jarring.) Maybe it was just my theatre?
Not just your imagination. There was definitely some janky VFX work in that big fight. I was also particularly annoyed by the RIDICULOUSLY overdone shaky-cam in the team fight against the big bad. I don't know if the unreadable fight coreography was intentional or not. Could have been a jab at several awful fight scenes in the Fox movies. If so, bad call.
That said, those bits didn't ruin the whole movie for me, because it was so jam-packed with everything else.
D&W was the better version of Love and Thunder. Utterly worthless as Tory, but the individual scenes mostly worked. L&T didn't quite nail it.
I hadn't seen this poster but I really like it
They have the inverse one as well.
IT'S MORBIN' HUNTIN' TIME.
Today I remembered they're trying to make Kraven a thing, and it still looks ridiculous and very bad.
That looks very bad... like maybe Madame Web bad.
Agreed, and what they did with Venom is not going to work here...
Venom, specifically a Spider-Man film without Spider-Man, was a fluke. Every attempt to copy that commercial success has been garbage.
Also, like... Venom barely worked. It worked if you went in willing to give it a lot of leeway. It's not a foolproof formula that you should be trying to repeat over and over, you should be thanking your lucky stars that it limped across the finish line in the first place.
Well, plus Tom Hardy...
Venom has been far more effective at being the "pisstake" on modern superherodom than Deadpool & Wolverine: you can tell because of how it gets under the skin of so many orthodox nerds.
Venom, specifically a Spider-Man film without Spider-Man, was a fluke. Every attempt to copy that commercial success has been garbage.
Joker worked.
Also, like... Venom barely worked. It worked if you went in willing to give it a lot of leeway. It's not a foolproof formula that you should be trying to repeat over and over, you should be thanking your lucky stars that it limped across the finish line in the first place.
The first Venom (I haven't seen the second) worked because of the interplay between Tom Hardy and Venom. It didn't feel forced. It felt natural.
Tom Hardy's character comes across the same way Peter Parker does. Really down on his luck, can't catch a break, just trying to get by and do his best despite waves hands frantically
Rat Boy wrote:Venom, specifically a Spider-Man film without Spider-Man, was a fluke. Every attempt to copy that commercial success has been garbage.
Joker worked.
True, but that had the advantage of a veneer of sophistication that comes with being a light remake of a Scorcese movie.
... Although actually, if they wanted to try to make Last Temptation of the Kraven, that might be a train wreck worth watching.
Damn, now I need to find that David Harbour SNL and watch the whole thing!
So I finally saw Deadpool & Wolverine this week. It was an absolutely fabulous and glorious set of cameos with a not particularly good movie around it, but it was basically two hours of fanservice for comics/MCU nerds, so that was good enough for me.
That being said . . .
Why did Paradox want Deadpool to join the "real" MCU universe anyways? Was it his decision, or a TVA thing? Why did he tell Deadpool he was blowing up his universe, and doing it quicker than normal? What was his motivation to erase that universe within a few days as opposed to his motivation for doing anything? Why did he want to kill Cassandra Nova rather than just leaving her in the Void where she clearly wasn't bothering anyone? What motivation did anybody have to do anything in this movie?
"So the movie can happen!"
"That works!"
Re: the spoiler: I think the TVA is one of the worst story devices MCU writers have come up with. Multiverses and time travel are a great way to make an impactful story impossible.
Re: the spoiler: I think the TVA is one of the worst story devices MCU writers have come up with. Multiverses and time travel are a great way to make an impactful story impossible.
I couldn't agree more. I thoroughly enjoyed the Loki standalone show, but that was more because of Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson and the other actors' interactions rather than the story. As soon as the multiverse became a thing nothing really mattered anymore.
I don't think multiverses necessarily make nothing important. It still should have rules.
One thing MoM mostly got right was pushing back on Wanda that those twins were not her twins. And she had to search $Texas number of universes to find them.
Yes, with infinity anything is possible, but a good story (of which Marvel is struggling with more often now) can still make it all matter to the characters and audience.
DP and W didn't, but as others mentioned, it was too awesome to watch to matter.
Rat Boy wrote:Venom, specifically a Spider-Man film without Spider-Man, was a fluke. Every attempt to copy that commercial success has been garbage.
Joker worked.
It didn’t need to be Joker, though. There was virtually no connection to the character that was theoretically being portrayed here.
Venom worked, as mentioned, because the audience did a bunch of the heavy mental lifting.
I dunno, I think neither Venom nor Joker really work. If I had to pick one, it'd be Venom, because the odd couple energy results in some genuinely funny scenes despite itself, while Joker - while being genuinely handsomely made - just makes me wish I was watching the movies its imitating instead.
The general audience who watched the trailers for Joker didn't ask, "Who the hell is Joker?"
I dunno, I think neither Venom nor Joker really work. If I had to pick one, it'd be Venom, because the odd couple energy results in some genuinely funny scenes despite itself, while Joker - while being genuinely handsomely made - just makes me wish I was watching the movies its imitating instead.
I'm glad it isn't just me. I see trailers for Joker 2 and I'm so painfully uninterested it's impressive. Venom is the best Sony-made 'current Spider-man' thing they have, but it's such a low bar to clear that almost anything would do it. I actually hate that the Sony movies are even considered Marvel movies, it just hurts the branding.
More than Marvel hurts itself?
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