Ryan Reynolds, who is already plastered all over Disney+ with his Welcome to Wrexham documentary series, finally makes his presence known in the big screen Marvel universe with Deadpool & Wolverine, a long-promised meet-up that keeps some plates spinning for a cinematic slate that is, we are repeatedly told here, no longer in the rudest of health. Rather than immediately have Reynolds' talkative (or annoying, if you prefer) avatar brushing shoulders with what remains of The Avengers, director Shaun Levy and his co-writers, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Zeb Wells, and Reynolds again have concocted a slightly more metatextual premise for their crossover event. A concept that uses the Whovian claptrap present in cancelled streaming serial Loki to draw in characters from films that were either made when Marvel was happily licensing off any property it could to stay solvent or released under regimes now obliterated by enormous, monopoly-flouting mergers.
So, as well as an eternally reliable Hugh Jackman essaying a particularly grumpy take on The Wolverine, Jennifer Garner's Elektra is wished back into being, along with Dafne Keen's X-23 (from Logan) and Channing Tatum as a version of Gambit that never quite made it out of development hell. All are welcome distractions from the relentless motor-mouthing - particularly Tatum who ably demonstrates the difference between genuine, comedic irreverence and a strain of humour, otherwise omnipresent in this film, in which the audience often feels like they've been taken hostage by a brand ambassador. It's the film's use of Wesley Snipes though as an older, grouchier Blade that turns out to be the biggest double-edged sword. Of course, in the week that Kris Kristofferson has passed away, it's wonderful to see Snipes back in his tacti-Goth get up, now with a fine line of grey creeping up the knife-edge of his hairline, but the brief machete-twirling seen here is not an adequate resolution for a performance and persona that has cast such a massive, sun darkening shadow across the genre of comic book adaptations.
As Deadpool & Wolverine rattles ever closer to its conclusion, the false expectations engendered by its premise become more apparent, even glaring. The fourth-wall breaking muddies the conceptual water: are these heroes refugees from their own, individual franchises or orphaned ideas that have been tossed off from our higher, indifferent reality? Is the plane of existence that we, the viewer, inhabit something that can be accessed by the onscreen characters? If Deadpool can directly address the audience, shouldn't his allies harbour some resentment for, if not the cinemagoer that did not turn up for each of their individual instalments, then perhaps the executive regimes that so mishandled their incredible destinies? The crumbling edifice of the 20th Century Fox logo is frequent background flavour in a topographical realisation of a desktop recycle bin but is that really enough to sate our collective bloodlust? Basically, is The Daywalker cleaving David S. Goyer, the writer-director of New Line's Blade: Trinity, in twaine a realistic expectation for post-modern, early-2000s nostalgia bait or is it merely the delusional desire of this terminally chippy weirdo?
Regardless, Ryan Reynolds' latest charm offensive absolutely peters out, content to build for itself yet another world-destroying machine then have it be destroyed. Like a great many Marvel films then, Deadpool & Wolverine peaks while the credits are rolling. Although, unusually, the entertainment being extracted here isn't premised on even more completely unrealistic (or, in their more recent instances, unlikely to be referred to again) expectations. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Green Day plays over interlaced B-roll footage from the Fox era and, for once, it feels like the shattering of motion picture kayfabe is being leveraged in a genuinely affectionate, rather than cynically advantageous, way. As a device, these behind-the-scenes glimpses are typically limited to comedies, deployed as a way to reassure anyone watching that of course the crew were absolutely delighted to be on set that day when the highest paid actor decided to waste everybody's time by ad-libbing. Here though, the effect is sincere and cumulative, tracking through a couple of decades worth of both success and failure; most of which hinge upon the unfailing likeability being broadcast by Jackman. A superhero actor who, at this point, is surely second only to Christopher Reeve in terms of being able to remain dignified, even immune, when surrounded by hare-brained nonsense.
