Disney Turning Over A New Leaf With “Deadpool and Wolverine”
Written by Emily Gaudet
Any Marvel fan who has seen “Deadpool and Wolverine” knows it has completely changed the brand of Disney forever. A 128-minute movie with 116 F-bombs, Deadpool III pushes boundaries never before seen. As a long-time Marvel fan who had faded away from Marvel movies in recent years, “Deadpool and Wolverine” brought my passion for the franchise back in full swing. I should share, however, a very disappointing secret: I have never seen any of the X-Men or Wolverine movies in their entirety. I was very relieved when I watched the movie and understood almost all of the references included in the film. Ryan Reynolds’ classic witty humor mixed with the stoic Hugh Jackman creates a silly movie with just the right amount of action and story-telling to keep the plot engaging to its viewers. With plenty of surprise cameos, the audience sits at the edge of their seats throughout the film, reuniting with some beloved characters and meeting new characters pulled from comic favorites!
While I’d love to rave about all of the positive things this movie has to offer, I do have to say that I was able to predict some of its major points. As a self-proclaimed movie buff, predicting plot points isn’t always a bad thing, but I expected a bit more surprise from the plot of a Deadpool movie. My issue, however, lies mainly in the ending of the film. The climax of the movie seemed awfully similar to how “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1” had ended. This connection has cheapened my experience. It was when I was able to predict arguably the most important point in the film that I felt the disappointment of a quite simple ending to an otherwise complex storyline.
Critiquing Reynolds’ performance as Deadpool is treacherous, as the character and the actor are very difficult to pull apart from one another. Overall I’d say Reynolds’ style of acting really worked for this film. The way he blends naturally into his character, Wade Wilson, while breaking the fourth wall consistently throughout the film and acknowledging his existence as Ryan Reynold while pretending not to be Ryan Reynolds creates a special relationship between Wade and the audience as they get to see every side of a very complex character. Jackman’s returning performance as Wolverine was especially refreshing. To see a more humorous side of such an impassive character brings back some of the humor and brevity seen in the Wolverine comics.
Speaking in terms of cinematography and special effects, Marvel’s budget was clearly very high for this film. With an incredible fight scene being the opening of the movie, the bar is immediately set, and cleared with every action scene to follow. It’s clear that director Shawn Levy’s past work and friendships built with both Reynolds and Jackman had a great influence on the comfortability and of everyone both on and off-screen. In the end, “Deadpool vs Wolverine” is sure to not only be the movie of the summer, but the movie of the year.
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