What exactly do we want from a Deadpool movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? The integration of Ryan Reynolds’s potty-mouthed mutant into the rather more wholesome universe populated by the likes of Spider-Man, Thor and the Hulk? Or a freaky, bloodthirsty, meta-fuelled superhero buddy movie that gives Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine one last hurrah on the big stage? Thirty-seven minutes of footage screened for fans from Shawn Levy’s film (at a super-snazzy London fan event featuring live bands, Spandau Ballet’s Martin Kemp DJing 80s hits and Jackman and Reynolds themselves) suggested we may well need to settle on one or the other, at least for a while longer.
Much has been made of Deadpool & Wolverine’s potential to integrate X-Men – once the property of 20th Century Fox, now owned (like Marvel) by Disney in terms of big-screen rights – into the MCU. And yet what was most striking about this early glimpse was the prospect that Levy and Reynolds may not spend much time worrying about making the chimichanga-munching antihero “work” in this new universe at all.
The film’s basic premise (no spoilers here, this is all in the trailers) is that Deadpool needs to save his world by finding a Wolverine from another universe who may be vital to completing that task. This means Marvel get to bring back Jackman’s adamantium-clawed mutant despite his death in 2017’s Logan, and the Australian actor inhabits the role with the same gruff charisma we’ve come to expect. Nor has Reynolds changed much as Deadpool.
From the moment he enters, Wade Wilson is dropping f-bombs, slicing and dicing his way through enemies in increasingly offensive ways – except of course there is no real offence here, because testing the boundaries of good taste is sort of the point – and leaping around universes in a manner that’s aimed squarely at delivering on laughs rather than making any kind of logical sense. In many ways, the new film comes across as a satire of Marvel’s recent approach to multiversal activities, which is of course fine. Deadpool was always going to continue being the naughty schoolkid who has smuggled in something nasty the dog did into the playground, except now he’s messing around in a whole new superhero sandbox.
There was always a reason Deadpool seemed to operate on the edge of Fox’s X-Men movies, entering the X mansion but barely even glimpsing any of the main mutants from those films. These R-rated entries are so tonally different from anything else that it makes sense to keep him as a rebel outsider who stays in his own lane. At first glance, it looks as if Levy and his team will retain that same sense of identity even when operating in a new sphere, which is entirely understandable. There may be umpteen jokes about the Marvel supremo Kevin Feige and his alleged refusal to allow drug references in the new movie (as seen in a recent trailer), but the studio head honcho is hardly likely to let the new kids on the block mess with all his toys from the get-go.
And yet the thing about Marvel on the big screen is that it is all about world sharing. If Deadpool & Wolverine does not set the pair up to be available for a future Avengers movie, just as the Guardians of the Galaxy arrived just in time to help out in Infinity War and Endgame, why make such a big fuss that they are now part of the MCU at all?
At first glance, it appears Levy has probably fudged this issue, pushed it down the road for someone else to handle, and we may end up grateful for that. Do we really want to see Spider-Man using the c-word and removing enemies’ spleens with sharp-bladed weapons, or Hulk smashing bad guys into bloody, disgusting pulps? On the other hand, are we really desperate to see Deadpool neutered in a mainstream Marvel movie, suddenly unable to talk about anal sex or snorting coke because Disney needs to get this in as a 12?
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Back, then, to those two vital tasks facing Levy and Reynolds. Integrate Deadpool and the X-Men, while making this a kick-ass, meta-fuelled, ultraviolent superhero buddy movie for the ages. On this early evidence it will be a miracle if Deadpool & Wolverine ends up achieving both. In time, we may end up being very grateful that the film’s makers barely even bothered to try, and just settled on taking the piss instead.