Review by Cliff Homewood
When Toy Story 3 was released, critics stated this might be the first trilogy with no weak link (cough Man with No Name). I would posit Deadpool as also being among this rare breed. I came out of the cinema having had a rollicking good time. If you make someone laugh you make someone like you. I came out of this film elated, just like in the previous ones. You know what you are getting, all the addition of Wolverine does to it is add blood, lots of blood. It’s a film that says Wolverine Vs Deadpool, neither of them can die so let’s have fun with this fact. It’s a bloody film but never felt gory, even having the blood create title credits at one point. All three films have a great opening sequence. Bravura. Setting a high benchmark for the film.
Deadpool’s writers (‘The true heroes here’) started their Hollywood journey with the spec script Zombieland. They went onto write the Deadpool movies and now are highly regarded within the industry. They did not know how to break this film. They said with the recent Disney acquisitions there was too much choice, and it was hard to know what to go with. Until Hugh Jackman (who plays Wolverine) signed up, then they wrote it very quickly. They had to with the upcoming writer’s strike.
Hugh Jackman saw Deadpool, ‘three days after I’d announced I was not going to do Wolverine again and I remember going, oh hang on a sec, I think I’ve screwed up.’
Hugh and Ryan Reynolds (playing Deadpool) are good friends and as well as having a laugh making the movie he finally got to wear Wolverine’s comic outfit, Hugh states, ‘How did we never do this? It looked so right, it felt so right. I was like, “That’s him.”‘
Whilst the film works fine as a standalone if you want context, then Loki is where to go, it’s the first time I’ve seen a film actually reference where to look. Deadpool sits on the fourth wall as opposed to breaking it, referring us to an episode from season 1 of the Loki series. It was good to see Colossus again from the previous film, but the humour has moved on, this being a buddy movie between Deadpool and Wolverine. When they get on. Wolverine is given some nice depth in this film and as usual there’s some good cameos. Some characters are recast, Vinnie Jones for instance declined to reprise his role as Juggernaut. The film’s all the better for it.
Hollywood famously loves casting the English as bad guys, and although Deadpool never makes a joke of this, Emma Corrin is a revelation as Cassandra. You can’t beat a well-acted bad character who is unhinged, never knowing which way they are going to react from moment to moment. She also provides one of the most unsettling horrific set pieces when we see how she uses one of her many superpowers. She’s formidable, you wonder how the hell our good guys are going to beat her.
There are subtle jokes about Peter Parker that an audience might miss, but like previous films all the jokes hit in a near constant stream. Hence leaving the cinema on a high. It shows Loki how to make a constantly entertaining TVA storyline as that series sadly, inevitably, drags. It’s perhaps the best multiverse film since the Spider-verse introduced the concept.
Matthew Vaughn says, ‘The Marvel universe is about to have a jolt… I think Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are about to save the whole Marvel Universe.’ The nuttiness of this film is reminiscent of a James Gunn film like Suicide Squad. Considering its currently got the Guinness World Record for most viewed movie trailer in 24hours and is the first R rated film to gross over $200 million on its opening weekend, it’s a well-earned success.