In the first R-rated film for Marvel, and a marketing win for Disney all around, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman bring it, to an entertaining blockbuster that is this summer’s ‘Barbie’.
Many moons have passed since last summer and a lot has changed. Actors and writers went back to work in Hollywood, after striking for months in the summer and early fall of 2023, and a film about a bromance has replaced one about a beloved girls’ doll, plus one on the inventor of the atom bomb, in the race for blockbuster of the summer. Barbie, and Oppenheimer have passed the flame, not the Olympic’s one but the cinematic torch, to Deadpool & Wolverine.
It’s not an accident that the film, about two action heroes (or anti-heroes depending on how you look at it) is doing so well at the box office. Just look at Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes director of Social Content Erik Davis’ post and this is clearly the blockbuster of the summer, the film that other films need to contend with come fall.
Deadpool & Wolverine is bloody, it’s funny, it’s weird, it pushes the envelope on political correctness and it features acting cameos by some beloved Marvel faces, plus a rocking soundtrack. Even I, the complete opposite of the expected demographic for this film, sat in my seat, crunching on popcorn inside a grand cinema in Leicester Square and didn’t realize two hours and 7 minutes had passed by. Until the credits rolled on, to the sound of Green Day’s song ‘Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)’ and I got teary eyed as the minutes-long featurette highlighting the journey of the characters from Fox, to Disney and beyond.
Along with the rocking soundtrack, which I’ve tried to compile in the Spotify list above, there are cameos to end all cameos in the film. I heard seat companions gasp left and right, as one after the other appeared on screen.
Variety listed them best in this article: “The first major cameo is from MCU legend Chris Evans. But instead of playing Captain America, he’s back as Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch, from his first superhero role in Fox’s Fantastic Four. Like other discarded Fox characters, Johnny finds himself in the Void, where pre-Disney-acquisition characters are abandoned. He’s joined by Jennifer Garner’s Elektra, Wesley Snipes’ Blade, Dafne Keen’s X-23 and Channing Tatum’s Gambit, who never actually appeared in one of Fox’s X-Men movies but had long been rumored for a standalone.” Of course, one could argue that even Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman is a cameo, as his character heroically died in the 2017 film Hogan. But there is a way to explain that too, it seems. You’ll have to watch the film to understand.
As a personal aside, I loved Channing Tatum incomprehensible Gambit, whose Louisiana accent and card throwing is only overshadowed by his mumbling and lost look. He’s someone whose film I’d watch, for sure, if you’re listening Disney…
There are also Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan, Wunmi Mosaku’s Hunter B-15 from Loki and The Hulk himself. Along with all the Deadpool and Wolverine variants which include Henry Cavill as Cavillrine, Reynolds’ wife Blake Lively who voices Ladypool, Matthew McConaughey, who voices Cowboy Deadpool and Nathan Fillion is Headpool, a disembodied, floating head.
So, there you go, my take on the latest blockbuster, in theaters worldwide now.