This guy.
Photo: Jay Maidment/20th Century Studios/MARVEL
Marvel has done many a crossover episode (all the Avengers movies, that one civil war between two supes, random cameos from the Marvel Cinematic Universe Multiverse). But a crossover episode joking about butt stuff and blow with two of its most beloved characters? Marvel hasn’t done that until now. Deadpool & Wolverine arrived for critics’ viewing pleasure just ahead of its July 26 release, giving us the opportunity to dive into reviews about the Ryan Reynolds– and Hugh Jackman–led superhero comedy. Critics say the new popcorn movie knows just how to twiddle diehards, what with its fourth-wall-breaking, referential humor that winkingly skewers the MCU, the actors themselves, and, most crucially, the corporate merger between Disney’s Marvel and 20th Century Fox, which brought Wolverine into the House of Mouse. Despite its confusing multiverse plotlines and self-aware “I’m here to make money” identity, critics can (mostly) agree on one thing: It’s funny. More reactions, below.
“Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t a particularly good movie — I’m not even sure it is a movie — but it’s so determined to beat you down with its incessant irreverence that you might find yourself submitting to it. The picture arrives, of course, at a fallow time for Marvel after a string of duds and an abortive attempt to introduce a new superhero phase following the climactic, stage-clearing (and absurdly lucrative) battles of Avengers: Endgame. It’s something of a relief that this new movie isn’t trying to reboot or revamp or extend or set the stage for anything. (There is a good joke about how it ties into a specific episode of Loki, and it probably does, but I’m not gonna bother to find out.) Honestly, it appears to exist solely to make money. The film tries to wink its way out of its nonsense plot — a convoluted setup that involves Deadpool finding a live Wolverine in another universe so that he can save his own universe before it’s destroyed by a mysterious organization called the Time Variance Authority (TVA), led by an extremely hammy Matthew Macfadyen. It acknowledges its own cravenness, and that transparency can be preferable to stolid sincerity.” — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture
“The script is upfront about what Disney wouldn’t allow Reynolds & Co. to show. Cocaine is prominently mentioned, but nobody does any; butt stuff is described but not depicted; there’s homoerotic horseplay and wordplay but no actual sexual person-play. That being said, the writers get more latitude than I assumed they’d get when it comes to criticisms of Disney running the MCU into the ground and off in multiple, incompatible directions post Endgame. ‘Welcome to the MCU, by the way,’ Wade tells Logan. ‘You’re joining at a low point.’” — Matt Zoller Seitz, Roger Ebert
“Deadpool & Wolverine — which might more accurately have been called Deadpool & His Sidekick Wolverine — is sometimes very funny, at times a bit flat, and so filled with callbacks to other X-Men and Marvel movies that your head might explode, not in a good way.” — Caryn James, BBC
“The subtle squeamishness over sex and sexuality is one thing. But considered in conjunction with half-assed punchlines about Deadpool fearing being ‘canceled by the woke mob’ or being over ‘Gen Z’s trauma-dumping,’ it seems Disney is moving the Merc with a Mouth toward conservatism. Perhaps a movie meant to to placate the same audience that gnashed their teeth over the last Star Wars trilogy’s — and The Acolyte’s — focus on marginalized characters over the previously predominantly white, straight, and male heroes. The jokes at the expense of Disney, Marvel, and Kevin Feige play the same way in effect. Sure, they seem initially provocative, with Deadpool calling out Marvel’s missteps or Feige’s rules for MCU movies. But consider how notoriously controlling these studios are over this IP. Consider Disney and Marvel’s history of squelching queer representation on-screen. And you can see how Wade, who is supposed to titillate us with his unapologetic hot takes, feels less like he’s breaking fresh ground and more like he’s parroting the well-worn gripes of Twitter trolls.” — Kristy Puchko, Mashable
“But in the end, Deadpool & Wolverine is a movie about corporate mergers, about intellectual property, about the ways that the business of Hollywood battles the creative process. It is a film about how anything that was ever successful in Hollywood is made to repeat that same song and dance endlessly, how a bloated and risk-averse industry can’t let well enough alone, how nobody is ever really dead anymore, how the world is always ending but the story is never allowed to finish.” — Alissa Wilkinson, The New York Times
“Dwindling grosses, audience ennui, critical maulings — well, if this is the last hurrah of Marvel it’s going down all punchlines blazing. Ebulliently directed by Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum), this is a hyperactive cheese dream that brings together two of Marvel’s best characters and a supporting cast who will have nerds frothing at the mouth.” — Ed Potton, The Times
“As bountiful as the action scenes are here, the jokes are the sturdiest part of Deadpool & Wolverine (and if it seems like I’m giving too many of them away, don’t worry, there are loads more to go around). That’s because the plot is a lumpy stew of familiar elements, given minimal narrative clarity despite the reams of expository technobabble spouted by Matthew Macfadyen’s Mr. Paradox.” — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
“Hey, you’re either the butt of the joke or you’re the studio waggling Reynolds’s keister at the lens while he pokes fun at your own corporate mergers. Wisecracking about his, and their, mistakes like he’s trying to win couples therapy, Deadpool represents what mainstream Marvel flicks couldn’t do: make a hard R-rated movie with more curses per minute than a convention of witches. He’s what they have to do to win back an audience who’s outgrown them.” — Amy Nicholson, The Washington Post
“Deadpool & Wolverine is as much fun as you can conceivably have at a corporate merger meeting. It’s tedious, yet, occasionally, Ryan Reynolds’s fourth-wall-allergic “Merc with a Mouth” will pass a note around the table with a penis drawn on it, and everyone can have a quiet, little chuckle to themselves.” — Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent
“Audiences (and Disney) may well demand it, though this singular mutant satire works best as an irreverent homage to what’s come before, as opposed to the prototype for future superhero movies.” — Peter Debruge, Variety
“It assumes that everyone in the audience is well-versed in the boardroom maneuvers of 20th Century Fox and Disney and will get jokes about what “Feige said” (a reference to producer Kevin Feige). When Wilson sees a skull under an Ant-Man helmet, he yuks that Paul Rudd has finally aged. There’s also a crack about Jackman’s recent divorce. When things get a little too Mad Max–ish, he worries about being in the wrong IP. Who is the audience for this? Entertainment lawyers who watch TMZ?” — Jordan Hoffman, Entertainment Weekly