On the Trail of Deadpool and Wolverine MIDNIGHT REVIEWS
Examining the possibilities of Deadpool and Wolverine, based on what came before.
Deadpool as a character in both movies and comic books is beloved by some, loathed by others. For every fanboy or girl, there is a decrier announcing that Deadpool is crass, violent and on the whole unnecessary. Where you land on this is up to you. This piece is not here to change your mind, merely talk about potential.
Depending on who writes Deadpool, he can be immature, bogged down in his own navel gazing, nihilistic, grating, hilarious or touching (no, not in that way). For example in the 90s, Joe Kelly somehow turned an immortal, gun-toting mercenary into a personable character with relatable problems, despite the oversized, over-the-top nature of comics from that time.
The merc with a mouth has collected other names over the years. Mr Overexposure being the main one during his run on the comics with no less than three mainstream titles running simultaneously, with similar diatribes when Deadpool 2 came out in 2018. Any football fans remember ex-footballer and pundit Gary Lineker awkwardly explaining Deadpool’s appearance just before the FA Cup Final? Funnily enough, you can find the Reynolds part of the clip, but it’s difficult finding Lineker’s bemused reaction afterwards.
Dear old Wade has been almost everywhere, from late night talk shows to children’s play areas. He even appeared alongside another ex-footballer, now clothes horse and representative for human rights abusers, David Beckham. Fortunately, with Deadpool’s penchant for blurring the lines between hero and villain, at least it makes narrative sense that both these mercenaries would hang out together.
But apart from looking into the lens every so often, has the potential of a character rife with contradictions and therefore primed to explore deeper themes actually been realised?
Who is Deadpool?
It’s been generally accepted that Ryan Reynolds was not just the right choice but the perfect choice to play Deadpool. In this role, he is the ultimate sarcasm machine. When the writers or Reynolds on the set push themselves further than dick jokes, lines usually land and stay standing. But his pencil and ink counterpart occasionally achieves moments of self-reflection and commentary on others, and hands out bon mots that bely a deeper realisation disguised with either apathy or juvenility; even with the jokes that land, the movie version only achieves a surface level understanding. Comics Deadpool does terrible things because they are in his character. Movies Deadpool moves from A to B.
Things can be summed up with my own realisation that Ryan Reynolds is a fine purveyor of the one thing that he does but struggles to truly deliver on all the emotional beats. They are there, on paper, but played out in a perfunctory way.
When Vanessa is killed in Deadpool 2, this is Wade’s world crashing down around him despite every effort made in the moment. After this, we should feel as empty as he does but it all plays out at a distance. Is this performance, or direction? My first instinct is to say that it’s a bit of both.
That being said, when it comes time for the more nihilistic shades of Wade Wilson to come to the forefront (murdering Francis; killing himself whilst casually lying on a collection of oil drums), Reynolds performs ably. But beyond this I never feel an emotional tie to Wade Wilson beyond what the script needs to get to the next bit. Has the potential for Deadpool actually been realised? My view is absolutely not.
Issues with References
References used to refer to academic papers, those things that show the reader that the writer had, in fact, done their own respective reading. But now they’re all the rage in Western mainstream movie making. Need a joke for your knockabout action-comedy? Say the name of someone in the papers and wait for the audience to roll around laughing. References to Johnny Depp and Amber Heard appearing in 2024 unfortunately prove that this sort of ‘joke’ reduces the already short life of any kind of topical gag.
Just like the bright colours and universal stakes, comic book movies take this and realise it to an extreme degree. Deadpool is the same. Having nailed the basis of Deadpool, has anyone ever actually realised his potential? In comic books he breaks the fourth wall but, perhaps fortunately, rarely breaks the medium as he could do. Has the movie version done anything close?
He stares directly at the camera and talks to us but for a character who sells himself on being unhinged, without a leash, with no one who can stop his shenanigans, Deadpool always feels tethered.
There’re two ways you can go with Deadpool to realise his potential. Either go full-on weird with it and break the medium, or up the emotional stakes.
Option 1: “I asked for Steadicam.”
There are plenty of experimental films out there, if you know where to look. I remember once watching a half hour kaleidoscopic exercise in editing involving over-the-top violence and gore. Out of, say, twenty people at the screening, a couple of them walked out before the end whilst the rest of us were a little dumbfounded by the entire premise. But the movie was fascinating in its delivery, enabling a distance between audience and images due to the dreamy nature of its editing. A point being made about on-screen violence and the nature of passive mediums.
There are experimental films focusing more on narrative. Characters able to sift through the story they themselves are involved in, shifting and changing elements at will in order to suit their wants and needs.
Obviously this option would turn some people off. Marketing would be a nightmare. How do you shift messaging in trailers from, “This is a series featuring guns and swords and puerile jokes,” to, for example, “This is an examination of film structure and the relationship between on-screen violence and real-life violence”?
Several more mainstream movies and TV shows have achieved great things with this, though. Hannibal, a show I would recommend to anyone besides small children, doesn’t have that exact message but achieves a dreamlike love story alongside a pitch-black sense of humour, whilst delivering double shots of blood and violence; you can have it all!
But let’s be honest: this risky proposition, with Marvel movies on a downturn critically and commercially, is not the one Disney are going to take.
Option 2: “He’s not the Messiah.”
Deadpool either joking or seriously considering that he is Jesus is nothing new.
There is an arc from the comic books involving Deadpool, after an exhaustive search and severe testing of potentials, being chosen as the saviour of mankind. His main task is finding and facing off against a ferocious enemy before then being forced to make a choice: allow a bizarre psychic asteroid to spread pure bliss over the entire planet, at the cost of autonomy and any sort of progress, or destroy the space-based soother and return humanity to its usual routine of relative freedom punctuated with war, theft and general unkindness.
They’re still the big, universe-encompassing stakes that comic books and comic book movies are reliant upon. If Deadpool destroys the asteroid, planets it would’ve reached will also miss out on this ultimate bliss. But on the way the storyline involves deep personal reflection by the man in red and black, multiple questions piling up inside his head.
Is he a hero or the scum of the Earth? Has he been chosen because he is a saviour, or because he’s the perfect attack dog? Is destroying the asteroid even the right thing to do? This last one has the added wrinkle of Deadpool getting a taste of said perfect bliss, allowing him time to taste what humanity would be missing out on if he made the active choice.
These are big questions, the types of questions that character-driven science fiction uses as its bread and butter.
Despite the meta leanings the character is known for, this run by Joe Kelly et al mostly eschews this for a straighter, no less funny story about someone trying to build themselves up whilst thinking so little of themselves. It is excellent.
This isn’t to say that Deadpool’s meta snarkiness stops a writer from creating something of high quality, or that eliminating most of the meta references automatically creates great storytelling. I’m not even saying this story should be adapted. But this run is when I’ve felt most invested in the character, in the same way he invests in his own life.
What’s to Come?
Is this what is coming from Deadpool and Wolverine? We glimpse Wade Wilson enjoying a relaxed life, with hair that makes him look like Max Headroom’s bulky big brother, but of course this will only be setup.
His want to create a family in Deadpool 2 worked, to an extent, but I’ve never felt for movie Deadpool the same way I felt for the Deadpool that was forced to decide the fate of an entire world. Proof that smaller stakes don’t always equal a more human connection. But the inclusion of multiverse spanning Wade and Wolverine doesn’t equate to this connection either. If Logan died, and is still dead, but Wolverine is still here, then what’s the point in him?
The movies’ strengths lie in the jokes that work. The fourth wall break inside a fourth wall break. The deliberately detailed setup, and swift killing, of X-Force, leaving us where we were ten minutes ago having learned nothing; a glorious, hilarious waste of time. Even Reynolds’ performance as Wade Wilson tears it up in Xavier’s wheelchair, whilst hardly a writing masterpiece, reveals a wound that Wilson will find difficult to heal.
An argument is usually made that a movie can be a fun romp without needing to be smart or involve a depth of feeling. This is technically true, in the same way that a chocolate cake doesn’t have to include fudge icing. But why not have it?
Deadpool and Wolverine could be the ultimate comic book road movie, with transdimensional portals and multiverse Hugh Jackmans instead of actual roads.
Side note: Would it be possible to have an army of Wolverines facing off against an army of Robert Angiers? Side note 2: No, this would be dumb, but it’s a premise Hollywood is increasingly moving towards. Spectacle instead of substance. References over gags, the naming of things instead of the actual use of those things.
My hope is that Deadpool and Wolverine refuses to play it safe, whatever choices it makes, pushing for the red zone in specific, well-chosen ways. My fear is that we’ll get given a cluster bomb of references and setups for other IPs (an acronym I’ve grown to loath along with the words ‘content’ and ‘franchise’) interspersed with limp dick jokes.
Yes, Deadpool is the merc with the mouth. But can he walk the walk?
Matthew D. Smith likes to overshare his views on movies and TV shows whenever and wherever he can. Indulge him, and follow him on Twitter or listen to the podcast he co-hosts with Leslie Wai.
