Movie review: ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ team-up retains R-rated zest

It has gone unspoken, but the first rule of the “Deadpool & Wolverine” experience seems to be “You do not talk about the ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ experience.”

We assume that’s also the second rule when it comes to this highly anticipated film, which finally landed in theaters last week.

In September 2022, “Deadpool” franchise star Ryan Reynolds revealed Hugh Jackman would reprise the role of gruff-and-tough hero Wolverine in the movie, and carefully constructed trailers were released in recent months. Otherwise, though, Disney-owned Marvel Studio had given us little more than a brief synopsis or two, revealing almost nothing of the goings on of this third “Deadpool” outing, following big hits “Deadpool” (2016) and “Deadpool 2” (2018).

Why have we waited so long between the second and third installments of such a popular franchise? For that, you can thank Disney’s acquisition a few years ago of 20th Century Fox, the studio that held the big-screen rights not only to the foul-mouthed antihero but also other prominent Marvel characters, most importantly the mutants of the X-Men, such as the big-clawed, quick-healing Wolverine.

All the paperwork completed, Disney now oversees a much larger Marvel playground, which has implications for its hugely successful — if stalling of late — Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Let’s table that for now, though. What Disney’s absorbing of Fox means for the moment is that the House of Mouse has its hands on Deadpool, an incredibly foul-mouthed and violent figure inhabited on the screen by the charismatic Reynolds.
Would Marvel Studios actually make a movie as violent and boasting the same level of adult language as the first two films? OK, sure, “Deadpool & Wolverine” earned an R rating — the studio’s first effort to do so — and those previous movies, sexually charged swears and all, now reside on the streaming service Disney+, but would they REALLY make something comparable?

Short answer: Yes.

Maybe “Deadpool & Wolverine” feels just a tick tamer, but that could be because that spicy Deadpool schtick long ago stopped seeming quite so shocking.

Still, if Disney didn’t want reviewers to say too much about “Deadpool & Wolverine,” that was made easier by the fact that so much of what’s said — mainly by Deadpool, aka Wade Wilson — can’t be repeated in a publication such as this.

So many things are said. So many filthy things.

But, OK, let’s talk about the story ... at least a little.

Years after the events of “Deadpool 2,” Wade and Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) are on the outs (a tissue, please). Failing to find a way to “matter,” the disfigured Wade has stopped Deadpool-ing, now wears a “hair system” and sells cars alongside pal Peter (Rob Delaney), whom he still calls “Sugar Bear.”

We know from the movie’s flash-forward opening that this won’t last, as Deadpool is seen then in “downtown North Dakota” digging up Wolverine at the site of his death in 2017’s critically acclaimed “Logan.” We don’t yet know why he needs Logan, but Wade believes the former can’t possibly truly be dead because of the healing abilities Wade also possesses.

Welp, dead he is, but at least Deadpool has use of Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton to not so gently fend off armed agents of the Time Variance Authority who show up to apprehend him.

We learn that Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen of “Succession”), a higher-up in the TVA — an organization that oversees the multiverse and that was featured prominently in the two seasons of the Disney+ MCU series “Loki” — has offered Wade a job. The constantly fourth-wall-breaking Wade initially is very excited, believing he’s going to a place where he may see a “marvel,” somewhere truly “cinematic,” but when Mr. Paradox reveals all to him, Wade makes a multiversal escape and sets about finding a Logan to help him save the day.

Eventually, he finds one, the “worst” one, a Wolverine who let down his friends and now spends his days drowning his sorrows in a bar. This Logan isn’t keen keen on helping him, but Wade suggests there may be a way for him to redeem himself.
And so we get an uneasy alliance, one paused every so often for the pair to kick (and stab) the absolute snot out of one another ... before quickly healing. As you’d expect, these carefully choreographed fight scenes deliver the goods.

Our heroes, such as they are, wind up in a place seen in “Loki,” where they run afoul of the movie’s most powerful villain, played by Emma Corrin of “The Crown” and “A Murder at the End of the World.”

It is here, also, that Wade gets the type of high-level cameos he expected would come with a Marvel budget. We won’t spoil them, of course, but let’s just say that one is hotter than all the others.

Less exciting but important: Dafne Keen reprises the role of Laura from “Logan.”
A pair that first played opposite one another in 2009’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” in which Reynolds portrayed another version of Deadpool, he and Jackman are a lot of fun together in this romp.

Wade won’t shut up. Logan wishes so badly he would shut up. It just works.
The screenplay, credited to Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Zeb Wells and the movie’s director, Shawn Levy, prioritizes laughs over making anything coherent out of this multiversal story, which was wise. (It also takes some swipes at the MCU’s multiversal storytelling, which is welcomed.)

Levy directed Reynolds in 2021’s “Free Guy” and 2022’s “The Adam Project,” and he proves to be a safe choice here even if, again, the “Deadpool” formula no longer seems so fresh.

“Deadpool & Wolverine” arrives at what the movie not so jokingly refers to as a “low point” for the MCU.

However, those hoping the romp may point to a clear new direction for the increasingly complicated universe may be disappointed, as this feels less like an MCU reset and more like ... well, we’ve probably already said too much about the “Deadpool & Wolverine” experience.

Meszoros reviews movies for The News-Herald of Willoughby, Ohio.

'DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE’

3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong bloody violence and language throughout, gore and sexual references).

Running time: 2 hours, 7 minutes.

How to watch: In theaters now.