Deadpool & Wolverine: A Nerd Buffet

Deadpool & Wolverine promotional image. (Disney/Marvel Studios)

SPOILERS, of course. You have been warned.

Holy amazeballs. What else can I say? It’s flippin’ awesome. I don’t think it’s the best movie I’ve seen this year, but it has almost surely broken into my top three. Boy Kills World keeps falling in the rankings (I still need to see that again.) While it is the only MCU movie this year, what a wonderful solo effort it truly is. Here’s hoping this breaks a billion at the worldwide box office.

Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman have such wonderful chemistry together. The fight sequences are brutal and a feast for the eyes. The fourth wall breaks are dope as Hell, especially all the jabs at 20^th Century Fox. Cassandra Nova, Professor X’s evil parasitic twin, is the main villain, with Mr. Darcy/Tom Wambsgans playing the secondary villain. The music compliments the story so damn well. There is a lengthy fight sequence where Deadpool uses the skeleton of the Wolverine from Logan to kill TVA agents set to “Bye Bye Bye.” For some (awesome) reason. The movie earns that R rating. A real hard R. Most of the movie takes place in the void realm from the tail end of the first season of Loki.

Now that sufficient space has passed in the review, I think I can discuss the litany of cameos littered throughout the movie. Blake Lively, Matthew McConaughey, and Nathan Fillion all play a different variant of Deadpool, most of the rest of which were at least voiced by Ryan Reynolds. Henry Cavill plays a version of Wolverine for about ten seconds of screen time. That was certainly awesome. Chris Evans returns to play Johnny Storm/the Human Torch, which was hilarious (I saw it coming.) Channing Tatum plays Gambit, speaking, at times, in authentic Cajun gibberish. Jennifer Garner and Wesley Snipes both return as their respective roles of Elektra and Blade, including a jab at the current development Hell surrounding the MCU Blade movie. Ray Park comes back as Toad with the actors who originally played Lady Deathstrike, Pyro, Sabretooth, Azazel, Callisto, and X-23 all returning. Jon Favreau even shows up for a scene early in the film. Hugh Jackman also played a litany of different Wolverines, including a short comics-accurate version that was very funny. Someone else played the Vinnie Jones version of Juggernaut for some reason. I think I got most of the important ones. I was surprised Liev Schreiber didn’t show up. Also, a Tom Hiddleston cameo might have been advised. My goodness, what a nerd buffet for hardcore superhero movie fans. Jennifer Gardner even got to put in a little dig at Ben Affleck.

I am very happy most of the cameos were not spoiled for me, although they really shouldn’t have put the Sabretooth and X-23 ones in the final trailer. That was odd. Especially since the Sabretooth x Wolverine fight lasts about five seconds. His appearance in the movie is not much more than what we see in that trailer. Honestly surprised they gave Pyro so much screen time instead of giving it to Ray Park or one of the many other characters that probably should have been given the role of spy for Mr. Darcy.

The end credits scene is largely superfluous, but that is to be expected at this point. It was pretty funny.

I hope this means Deadpool will be joining the next Avengers movie, whatever form that takes at this stage. Jonathan Majors being an awful person kind of dashed the established plans.

This movie gave me just about everything I could have wanted from the concept. If you’re a massive nerd, this is the movie for you. Even if you’re not, I think you’ll enjoy yourself.