I finally watched the Deadpool & Wolverine film this weekend, and I'm with the negative commenters here. I think MrDeVil909's review is particularly perceptive.
For me, it was final confirmation of the eventual 'heat death' of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the inevitable result of its relentless and endless expansion (and the foolish decision to open the Pandora's box that is the Multiverse).
And - at 128 minutes - it was also too darned long. I cannot help wondering whether it might have been funnier and more enjoyable as an 80-minute extended live action 'What If?'
Two further thoughts:
On the humour, I didn't find a lot of it funny (certainly not when compared to the first Deadpool). However, I'm now 53, so I suspect that very few of the jokes were tuned for funny bone of the grumpy middle-aged man.
I liked the cap tip to 'Blade'. It's hard to believe that 'Blade' is more than 25 years old now, but I watched it recently and it still stands up. My own view is that without the success of that film we simply don't get the MCU that we've enjoyed over the last 16 years. I think it acted as a proof of concept that justified the huge later investment by Marvel...
I watched Deadpool&Wolverine yesterday. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either. It for sure ran too long and they leaned way to heavy on the music doesn't match the violence on screen gag.
I did enjoy the cameos, particularly Blade and X-23 and even Toad from the 1st X-Men movie. The fight against the army of Deadpools was soooo boring though. Overall, it was just a super uneven film, to me at least. My daughters(31 and 24) thought it was great.
Am I getting too old for this shit?
I also watched Deadpool & Wolverine this weekend as well. I'm someone who loves a a good 4th-wall break. From Dobbie Gillis to Ferris Buller to It's Garry Shandling's Show, it's something I've always enjoyed. The thing is you need an actual story to break from in order for it to be effective. They constantly broke the 4th-wall but forgot to include enough of the other 3 walls to hold up the movie.
The cameos were fun, but they were there for little more than "Hey can you believe we included all these cameos!?!?"
Also, the constant fighting between beings with infinite super-healing abilities was both pointless and tiring. Wow, they just stabbed each other again... yippee?
The cameos were fun, but they were there for little more than "Hey can you believe we included all these cameos!?!?"
I think the point was a long, involved, loving tribute and farewell to the Fox Marvel/X-men universe. A lot of stuff in the Deadpool movies isn't just for the plot, it's more meta than that. Of course that applies to the fourth-wall breaking stuff, which is straight out of the comics. But the entire point of the story about a place where timelines go to die is one big nod at Fox.
Also, the constant fighting between beings with infinite super-healing abilities was both pointless and tiring. Wow, they just stabbed each other again... yippee?
This.
Deadpool is cheap, edgelord Wolverine. Boooooooring!
The original MCU:
Robocop?
Great Scott, this is getting heavy.
I feel like you all watched a different movie than I did :lol:
I mean, this was me for months after seeing DP&W with a cheering and hooting crowd. And I came out of that experience thinking I was merely indifferent towards it, but I suspect that may have been a defense mechanism, because when friends would ask me about it later, I would go the f*ck off on it. So, may be lancing a boil here, but oh well, but I can lead off with two positives: I'm a pretty big X-Men fan, I really adore those characters, with one important proviso I'll probably loop back around to, so my biggest fear was that they'd trot out poor James Marsden and Famke Jansen and Anna Paquin, pressed into bad versions of the Jim Lee era costumes which I already don't much care for, and try to make me hoot and holler for, frankly, bad versions of characters I love, much as I accepted those movies as they were at the time. My second biggest fear was that they'd reveal Wolverine had murdered a bunch of his friends, and the focus would be on how bad he feels about that. I'll give the movie credit for doing neither, though I'll have to come back to Wolverine.
In addition to sweaty and desperate, I'd add smug, tedious, facile, insincere, gutless, ingratiating, mawkish, threatening, witless, and sad. I laughed twice: when they revealed who Chris Evans was actually playing, and when Wesley Snipes showed up. And they were singular laughs. Otherwise, none of the humor landed for me. Its notion of "meta" begins and ends with pointing out that the character of Wolverine is, in fact, played by an Australian song-and-dance man named Hugh Jackman. I am beyond done with Ryan Reynolds, thus the two scenes dedicated to Ryan Reynolds riffing inanely at Ryan Reynolds were pretty f*cking rough.
Deadpool 1 was legitimately transgressive. I mean that. It played at my local and beloved cinemapub, which ran it afoul of a dumb state law meant to target strip clubs (if interested, I bet googling "Brewvies Deadpool" will get you some results). The Mouse was clearly intent on proving they could play in that R rated field, but they can not--this was a PG-13 movie with lame, uninspired fights that expected (light) CG blood and swearing to carry it over the line. Previously Deadpool was more of a harmless pansexual perv, in this he felt more like a frat bro who uses sexual comments as a power play.
It felt nauseating, watching the Mouse celebrate its corporate dominance, while also posing itself as some sort of fan savior. Everything dripped with the Mouse's craven need to never damage or impugn The Brand. People pointed out "Ooo, they went for it" with the Blade comment (felt to me much more like a smugly mean-spirited jab about how they own the character's ass, frankly), I will point out how obnoxiously fawning and reverential it was toward MCU Product, having bad ass edge lord cool guy Deadpool dickride the Avengers and repeatedly asserting now he matters, he now has significance, because he can be in an MCU movie! Look how Wolverine is in the classic yellow and blue costume you all wanted, right!? The Mouse understands, and takes this comic stuff seriously! We do not think this is silly! Well, except, no, he isn't in that costume, he's in the same over-detailed leather armor everyone else wears, and he doesn't have the blue briefs, possibly because they feared that would be too alienating for the edge lord Comic Fan audience they were all about flattering.
Like I said, I'm a pretty big X-Men fan. And for basically my entire life, Wolverine has been overexposed as shit, and I feel like this movie was my breaking point with the character, and he needs to take a long f*cking time-out. I enjoyed and accepted those Fox movies by and large, but they built them around Wolverine, and turned him into a black f*cking hole sucking in stories from other characters I've come to appreciate much, much more. So, all the teases about Oh Joy, more Wolverine fell flat, because, personally, no, I do not want more Wolverine, I've had enough Wolverine, name a mutant, any mutant no matter how obscure, I will want them more than Wolverine. Glob Herman movie? f*ck yeah, I will be there opening day for Glob Herman.
And now here's where I may have to go deep. DP&W was hailed as a return to form for the Mouse. And some of the worst people out there hailed it as a return to form as a "corrective" to, basically, elevating characters who aren't white and male. And this really depresses me, because, frankly, that's antithetical to what the X-Men are and what makes me love them. And they've been that since their inception--I'm always quick to point out both Scott and Jean count as neurodiverse. But, the movie made all the money, so all those cracks about making Jackman be Wolverine until he's dead came off as a final, depressing threat.
Oh, and "I killed the good humans, too"? What the f*ck does this attempt at mealy-mouthed respectability centrism even mean?
And for basically my entire life, Wolverine has been overexposed as shit, and I feel like this movie was my breaking point with the character, and he needs to take a long f*cking time-out. I enjoyed and accepted those Fox movies by and large, but they built them around Wolverine, and turned him into a black f*cking hole sucking in stories from other characters I've come to appreciate much, much more.
I agree with pretty much everything you wrote, SpacePProtean. However, this bit stood out for me.
My comic reading years were about 1979 to 1986; sparingly at first, but with increasing dedication as I became a power-fantasy 'obsessed' teenaged boy. But you're right that Wolverine eclipsed the X-Men from the moment his stand-alone limited series came out in 1982.
However, to be fair, the other storyline that drained the life out of the X-Men was the endless resurrections/reincarnations of Jean Grey during that same period. Certainly, it was the main reason why I outgrew comics entirely. If dead characters could be written back in with a 'it wasn't really Jean Grey who died' wave of the hand/pen, then what couldn't be undone and therefore what were the real stakes of any major events?
TBH, it feels like you wanted it to be something then it has shown itself to be the last two movies. Mostly in regard to humor and 4th wall stuff.
Yeah, if you're tired of both Wolverine and Ryan Reynolds, I strongly doubt there's anything this movie could have done to win you over.
Maybe theater owners watched the trailers!
However, to be fair, the other storyline that drained the life out of the X-Men was the endless resurrections/reincarnations of Jean Grey during that same period. Certainly, it was the main reason why I outgrew comics entirely. If dead characters could be written back in with a 'it wasn't really Jean Grey who died' wave of the hand/pen, then what couldn't be undone and therefore what were the real stakes of any major events?
There's certainly a strong argument for this, but since I re-read much of this era this year (primarily via omnibuses) I feel the perception that it's an endless cycle is overblown, though it's an undeniable specter that looms over the character. However, really, until possibly the end of Grant Morrison's run in '03 or '04 or something, it was one death and one resurrection. And, frankly, I really enjoyed the ideas in a lot of the repercussions, even though those got dragged out way too much.
Yeah, if you're tired of both Wolverine and Ryan Reynolds, I strongly doubt there's anything this movie could have done to win you over.
I feel these are things that happened to me over the course of the movie--I came in skeptical on both (hell, I loved both DP 1 & 2, and Logan as well), but came out ossified.
Maybe theater owners watched the trailers!
You seriously could have dropped a zero there and I would not have been surprised.
There's certainly a strong argument for this, but since I re-read much of this era this year (primarily via omnibuses) I feel the perception that it's an endless cycle is overblown, though it's an undeniable specter that looms over the character. However, really, until possibly the end of Grant Morrison's run in '03 or '04 or something, it was one death and one resurrection. And, frankly, I really enjoyed the ideas in a lot of the repercussions, even though those got dragged out way too much.
Ah! You see I always counted her death/rebirth in the shuttle crash (X-Men 101) as a death/resurrection. And I counted the massive feint that was the Madelyne Pryor storyline (1983?) as a de facto resurrection too. In comic book time, it was months before we (and the X-Men, to be fair) discovered that it wasn't Jean.
However, as you intimate, it eventually got silly.
Yeah, they could count, but I don't see them that way since the shuttle crash, while impactful for the character (and, I feel, very moving), was sort of an action movie "not death," like she got knocked down a pit, only to emerge fine later that same issue, and the point of the Maddie story realizing she isn't Jean*. A lot of what follows is weird (which I love) and repetitive and dragged out (much less so), but a lot of it I also really enjoyed--Jean and Maddie reconciling/merging at the end of Inferno, for example (even if a story later it turned out not to be this simple).
I expect the Mouse to handle all of this very poorly, if at all.
Deadpool and Kidpool Help SickKids
In case anyone was wondering if they'd tone down the violence on Disney+, the answer appears to be a resounding "hell no".
They have come so far. Remember in the first Iron Man how he built the suit, and it looked like it could actually exist?
Now Cap throws the shield while flying, the shield speeds ahead to the correct missile, then bounces to the next one perfectly.
He rolls to his side and his wings slice through a plane wing without slowing him down, etc.
I think it just pushes me too far.
Cap's shield has never followed the rules of physics.
In Civil War, Spiderman even mentions that.
They have come so far. Remember in the first Iron Man how he built the suit, and it looked like it could actually exist?
Now Cap throws the shield while flying, the shield speeds ahead to the correct missile, then bounces to the next one perfectly.
He rolls to his side and his wings slice through a plane wing without slowing him down, etc.I think it just pushes me too far.
That was 2008 and there’s been eleventy movies since then. That “realism” ship sailed a loooong time ago.
I think this looks great.
They have come so far. Remember in the first Iron Man how he built the suit, and it looked like it could actually exist?
Now Cap throws the shield while flying, the shield speeds ahead to the correct missile, then bounces to the next one perfectly.
He rolls to his side and his wings slice through a plane wing without slowing him down, etc.I think it just pushes me too far.
Thanos' snap was definitely realistic 
Hey, Farley, were you okay with the nanite Iron Man suit? 
Obviously Falcon's wings are made of unobtainium, or like, "metal from the heart of a dying star." Also, he has had a few years to perfect the physics-defying moves Cap did with the shield.
Hey, Farley, were you okay with the nanite Iron Man suit?
No! God I hated that thing.
1. It must have no mass because he is just wearing it all the time
2. It can contain rocket fuel - remember when it becomes a thruster for him to speed up to the alien ship?
3. What exactly is it's power source since he had the arc reactor taken out of his chest..
3. What exactly is it's power source since he had the arc reactor taken out of his chest..
Pym particles
unstable molecules
comic book bullshit
Better than the comics where the suit is stored in his blood.
Yes I know but I prefer fiction where the rules stay consistent in their established world. They don't have to match our world but they should be consistent in theirs
It often feels like lazy writing - "a wizard did it"
Heh, my issue with the original Iron Man suit (not the Mk I) was how do you generate thrust from electrical reactor?
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