Deadpool & Wolverine is a crowdpleaser struggling to reach its absurdist potential

We’ve all changed a lot in the last six years. However, Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) especially transformed in that period of time. The Merc with a Mouth has traded in katanas and chimichangas for selling cars and wearing a toupee. It isn’t a glorious life, but it is a steady one. Still, Wilson can’t put concerns over his greater insignificance out of his head. While at a birthday party with his best friends, Time Variance Authority agents (the group from Loki) show up at his apartment. They snatch this fourth-wall-breaking snarker and deliver him to Mr. Paradox (Matthew MacFayden).

This powerful overseer of time and space makes Wilson an enticing offer. This superhero can take his chaotic mayhem to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though that sounds lovely, Wilson quickly realizes that his dearest friends and timeline are in peril. This guy is more experienced in wisecracking and punching people with bricks, not saving worlds. Who is good at that kind of superheroics? Why, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), of course. It’s time for a buddy mission between the two biggest characters from 20th Century Fox’s X-Men movies.

Unsurprisingly, Deadpool & Wolverine, a movie with five screenwriters (plus uncredited work from Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin) from the director of The Internship, is a bit of an ungainly product. Connective tissue between grand set pieces is hastily assembled. Massive doses of fan service try to co-exist with Deadpool's meta-dialogue critiquing that same material. This creative team especially struggle balancing out a rigid narrative structure with “anarchic” humor. Deadpool & Wolverine wants relentless silliness. This is, after all, the cinematic manifestation of "lol, random" humor.

However, it’s also too in love with convoluted multiversal exposition to make those gags land. Logan Lucky’s delightfully inexplicable “bear in the woods” wouldn’t be nearly as funny if it was sandwiched between endless explanations for who that guy was. Ditto Hazel's affection for bombs in Bottoms or why Michael Keaton keeps quoting TLC in The Other Guys. Leaving things to the imagination is critical for weirdo punchlines.

Unfortunately, Deadpool & Wolverine loves endless chatter, no less than with Deadpool himself. Unsurprisingly given the enormous success of both the first two movies and most Deadpool media, Wilson has arrived in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with his motormouth fully intact. If you’ve hankered for hearing Ryan Reynolds saying “bottom”, “hungy”, “woke mob”, “ableist”, and “I identify as [blank]”, Levy’s got you covered. All your favorite online phrases from 2019 are here!  

Folks who enjoyed Deadpool’s quips from the first two movies will be in hog heaven. Like with the preceding Deadpool features, though, I found this style of humor only sporadically amusing. There’s just not much variety in his punchlines, especially in endless instances of Deadpool tiptoeing around potential gay panic jokes. Sometimes, Reynolds spouts a truly imaginative mixture of lewd phrases. Other times, it feels like he's dril "turning a big dial that says 'racism' on it" as he sweatily ascertains whether this particular description of anal sex will get audiences cackling. The confidence and creativity imbuing hysterically inexplicable I Think You Should Leave sketches is absent from these quips, which often blur together.

It doesn’t help that I recently watched Multiple Maniacs for the first time. That R-rated comedy starred Divine as the loud and brash Lady Divine. She’s another fictional figure who loves to kill and won’t stop talking. However, everything about Lady Divine is actually transgressive and darkly humorous, like her threatening to inject a bunch of uptight suburbanites with LSD. Ryan Reynolds delivering internet-friendly lingo or lampshading Deadpool & Wolverine’s screenplay problems can’t compare! Granted, nobody expects the star of a Disney blockbuster to match the unpredictable darkness of a 1970s John Waters protagonist. However, Deadpool’s quips and physical humor frequently reinforcing the status quo (such as thinking anything involving “butt stuff” between dudes is hilarious) make one truly appreciate the genuinely subversive mayhem of Lady Divine.

Reynolds still isn’t my cup of comedic tea, but Hugh Jackman’s return as Wolverine as a straight man to Deadpool’s chaos proves satisfying. Dramatic actors committing to wacky comedy with their heart and soul is often a solid recipe for success. Just look at Jesse Plemons in Game Night or John C. Reilly in Walk Hard. Jackman’s acting chops honed in movies like The Fountain and Bad Education come in handy here playing a serious foil to the film’s other titular lead. Happily, he's even handed a few 100% serious moments devoid of punchlines. Jackman imbues those slower intimate scenes with palpable gravitas.

Despite getting his name in the title, this adamantium-clawed mutant sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of all the Deadpool mayhem. It's the inevitable curse of the straight-man to often fall behind the wackier overt member of the duo. However, bringing this character back after the grand send-off in Logan renders Wolverine's occasional superfluousness especially irritating. Even with that quibble, Jackman once again shines as this cigar-chomping anti-hero.

Directing Reynolds and Jackman is none other than Cheaper by the Dozen auteur Shawn Levy. A veteran of both 20th Century Fox comedies and Reynolds star vehicles, Levy's visual chops have improved for his largest-scale directorial effort yet. Granted, revisiting James Mangold’s Logan just before my Deadpool & Wolverine press screening made it especially apparent how much better Mangold is at blocking than Levy. The detailed and multi-layered frames Logan delivered effortlessly are largely absent here. Levy instead relies on the very traditional style of framing found in his smaller-scale yukfests. Invisible camerawork and predictable staging are the order of the day. You can take the filmmaker out of shooting mid-budget 2000s comedies, but you can't take the mid-budget 2000 comedies out of the filmmaker.

However, this filmmaker’s emphasis on shooting largely outdoors and on practical sets serves Deadpool & Wolverine nicely. The sterile overtly digital landscapes of Levy's Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb are thankfully absent. This quality especially benefits the variety of backdrops inhabiting The Void. This desolate dimension houses everything from a café to stretches of desert. Wherever our two leads go in this domain, the environments seem tangible.

Deadpool & Wolverine also showcases two very fun crowdpleaser sequences that benefit mightily from Levy embracing theatricality. That quality eluded this filmmaker on prior blockbusters like The Adam Project and Free Guy. Thankfully, he uncovered some fun showmanship just in time for this superhero movie. Even with all the ironic snark permeating this production, Levy got me genuinely enthralled in Deadpool & Wolverine’s best spectacle moments.

These images don’t just stand out compared to Levy's The Internship and Date Night. A visual preciseness informs these moments happily departing from the jumbled murky imagery of recent Marvel Cinematic Universe installments like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.  Unfortunately, Levy’s staging of gags remains rudimentary. Awkward cuts and flat camera angles weigh down simple conversational banter. It's a fault almost certainly emanating from having the camera dedicated exclusively to capturing Ryan Reynolds ad-libs. However, this filmmaker embracing the occasional injection of visual bombast finally got me excited (however temporarily) during a Deadpool movie’s finale.

Those incredibly memorable sequences also benefit greatly from Dean Zimmerman and Shane Reid’s well-timed editing cues and George Richmond's cinematography. Levy’s more creative visual impulses even extend to depicting baddie Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin) (literally) fingering people’s brains. This display of mutant powers employs body horror imagery that's appropriately jarring in these silly proceedings. Nova isn’t an especially thoughtful or deep villain on paper. However, those eerie images (not to mention Corrin’s deeply committed and entertaining performance) help her leave some kind of impression.

Less successful on a technical level is composer Rob Simonsen's work. His contributions inevitably will become a go-to example of forgettable Marvel Studios movie scores. Even the best X-Men feature of all time (Logan) had an ultimately functional but not especially distinctive score. That track record opened a window of opportunity for Deadpool & Wolverine. Here was a chance to really deliver something memorable with its orchestral compositions.

Unfortunately, Simonsen’s tracks have no sense of identity or fun befitting a supposedly “wacky” foray into the MCU. Naturally for a Deadpool feature or most post-Guardians of the Galaxy superhero films, Deadpool & Wolverine also features plenty of familiar pop song needle drops. Most aren’t especially imaginative choices. However, credit where credit is due, Deadpool & Wolverine has almost certainly produced the first movie soundtrack containing both Goo Goo Dolls and Jimmy Durante.

Deadpool & Wolverine’s worst moments make it a vastly inferior version of The People’s Joker aimed directly at edgelord teenagers who still think saying the R-word is cool. Then there's the awkward lingering shadow of the whole movie existing solely through Disney gobbling up 20th Century Fox. Constant reminders of Fox's demise inevitably cast a dark shadow over a supposedly zippy comedy. However, even as someone who finds Ryan Reynolds an acquired taste, Deadpool & Wolverine is reasonably diverting with some terrific high points. Deadpool devotees will certainly leave on cloud nine. After six years away, Deadpool is still the same...for better and for worse.