Deadpool & Wolverine

Dreadpool & Yawnverine - 4/10

by Jad Sammour

Ah… where to start. Oh yes, uh I don’t know what it’s called exactly and I don’t know what it is. We may not have a clear, at least for me, disease but do we have some symptoms and Deadpool & Wolverine is blistering with them; everything wrong with cinema today and it’s so aware of them [as if awareness and self-deprecation will save it, no it won’t but oh boy can we laugh about it?]. Was this too vague? [or pretentious maybe I do have some issues and they’re reflecting into my criticism of something that is supposed to be light and entertaining and just plain fun with no need to think about it? You wouldn’t know, I’m just doing my duty here. Is this funny or annoying? Maybe going on for longer than it should? That’s somewhat what the film “sounds like”.] Okay let me get back to what matters. Wait, what matters? I don’t know I’m starting to feel like a nihilist *insert unfunny internet joke that is only funny when you're scrolling through brainrot reels at 3 in the morning*.

Well Deadpool 3 has been long-awaited and it brought Wolverine into the mix. It’s a cool thing to do, I guess. The film doesn’t shy away from doing that in the most meta and necrophilic way. Deadpool & Wolverine is an annoying shell of a film, barely a film. It fires on all cylinders it has to try to reach as many taste clusters as possible (mainly junk food taste clusters, and unfortunately McDonald’s taste clusters, boycott!!!), while having a thin core of a purpose. For 2 hours, you’re sitting through boringly blocked dialogue scenes that are longer than they should be, jam-packed full of as many meta, juvenile, self-referential jokes as possible until something happens, mostly not even part of the scene, that takes the story to the next place. On and on, until we meet random cameo, joke about the cameo, do something with the cameo, get stuck in another boring dialogue scene, or an action sequence that feels out of place as if directed and made by an entirely different team (as is always the case in studio flicks), then onto the next scene, on and on and on and on. So much exposition and annoying talking filmed and edited boringly. Some jokes are funny, hilarious even, but most of them are egregiously bad. Dreadful stuff. Though they may be funny to a lot of audience members. I think the film is best enjoyed if you're so into it. 

Okay I may be slightly going overboard here and I don’t know if this is my underwhelming reaction to what the movie gave us but it really sucks as a movie, as something you pay money and sit and watch, it feels almost offensive to the viewer - it doesn't even feel like a film, just a washed up amalgam of jokes and scenes lazily put together to excuse its existence. I had fun with a bunch of moments, it had one action scene (involving a car) that I found to be really entertaining but the rest of it is bankrupt, desperate, and pathetic. Most cameos are actually good they are maybe more justified than the No Way Home characters. Deadpool himself was annoying, or maybe I outgrew the character? I liked the previous ones, but then again the last time I watched a Deadpool film was in 2018 [and I barely recognize the person I am now, let alone remember who I was in 2018, before cynicism and the cruel realities of life jaded my perceptions and turned me into the person I am today]. The film is “R-rated” but that feels like a symbolic formality. It’s foulmouthed and the graphic violence is video-game-unrealistic. It is edgy for a teenager at most, and when it thinks it's offensive, it is not. A child would enjoy it the way they hear a grandpa cursing at dinner, or chuckle at a Mortal Kombat fatality. The plot/story is mostly nonsensical beyond what the plot needs to make the conditions of the story work, with yet another forgettable villain (I hope Emma Corrin enjoys her Marvel money - and she delivered a great performance wasted on a flatly-written character), and in this jumbled mess of over-firing I was left wondering what was happening to this cinematic universe, to studio films, to the budget. Everyone wanted it to "save" Marvel, but you don't save something by making jokes about it, about its horrible studio, its past, its legacy, and hope for the best. No, you actually make changes in your entire approach to the thing and cure it, not double down on its worse tendencies in a self-aware way - now the film is important despite its terrible quality as it stands as a microcosm to the current state of studio films, audience expectations, the need for nostalgia, the failure to try something new, bland filmmaking, humor, and studio filmmaking. Yes it is an important film by being the ultimate scraping of rock bottom. What I found to be the rotten cherry on top, is the film trying to function as a coda for the 20th Century Fox era of super-hero films. I am nostalgic for these films and I love them, so in theory a film that tries to honor them should be something that cheers me up. Unfortunately, when the studio responsible for buying 20th Century Fox - and subsequently ending these films, and ruining the last X-Men installment - makes the film with the "coda/homage/farewell", it comes off as killing someone and going to their funeral. Absolutely despicable.

The movie looks awful. Muddy, murky colors with the flattest lighting. Boring locations. The cinematography is boring. All dialogue scenes are blocked out in a very elementary way then suddenly shift into an elaborately-designed action sequence with erratic camera movement as if it came from a different universe - one big set piece in the Void towards the third act is so badly shot you can't even see what's happening. Go learn from Furiosa how to shoot action (and make a film) instead of joking about it. 

Ryan Reynolds is annoying. Hugh Jackman came back for the wrong reasons, and he mostly stands around with a terrible haircut cursing at Ryan Reynolds. They have chemistry together and make a nicely-contrasted duo but it’s a shame to waste this on such a stupid flick. 

Yes, we know you’re a hooked marvel fan begging for the next cameo serotonin hit, or something to make you remember how it was to sit down to watch a Marvel film before 2019. Go watch it. I might rewatch it sometime in the future and enjoy it, but today was not that day. 

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