DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE (2024)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

I also noticed that whereas the first film had some fun dealing with "female-objectification" tropes, Number Two apparently decides that it's more important to play it safe with a half-dozen "homoerotica" tropes. The first film was more even-handed, while this one seems designed to defuse politically correct criticism. -- my review of DEADPOOL 2.

Though the third DEADPOOL film pours on the homoerotic jokes like they're going out of season, I don't object to them because (a) they're tossed out quickly, without showing a concerted idea to make a straight audience uncomfortable, and (b) they're focused upon a character established as being at least bi-curious. All that said, I will comment on one odd aspect of the film's sexual politics. Officially, the reason for Wade Wilson, a.k.a. Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) to go through all the chaos of the film is to save his timeline. However, before the time-business even starts, the former killer-for-hire has sought to become a "hero" in order to please his off-again, on-again girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). Yet there's no promise of sexual rewards for the would-be crusader, just the companionship with a circle of buddies. So yeah, I tend to believe that, contrary to one of the film's jokes, cocaine-snorting wasn't the only pastime that Disney kept off the table.

D&W is also a contradiction in terms re: being a "multiverse" film. True, Wilson sneers at the whole idea of multiverses (with a false analogy to the 1939 WIZARD OF OZ). But without multiverses, D&W could not exist, so Wilson's protests come to sound a little like Br'er Rabbit protesting against being tossed in the briar patch: a hoax to get his victim to go along with his plans. Yet from the box office records being set by the movie in its opening weekend, it's a hoax with which the audience was eager to engage with-- in contrast to the more tiresome universe-crunching of "straight" movies like THE FLASH and DR STRANGE AND THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS. 

At the same time, the writers of D&W are much smarter about what they expect "normies" in the audience to know about the history of superhero films. MCU movies that depended on viewers having seen all of the company's films and streaming shows, like the MULTIVERSE film mentioned above, were clearly misguided. Instead, when Deadpool goes hunting for an alternate-universe Wolverine to save his own timeline, the script (credited in part both to Reynolds and director Shawn Levy) spotlights franchises that appeared some time back, particularly those of 20th-Century Fox, whose properties Disney acquired via purchase. A "normie" won't know a lot of the references tossed out and won't religiously check all the Easter eggs on YouTube. But when the film makes a FANTASTIC FOUR joke, he's likely to get the general sense of it as long as he knows some general stuff about pop culture.

The writers keep the plot very loose to make room for all the references, and in some ways it's just another "save the universe" story whose main purpose is to bring together an "odd couple:" wacky Wilson and taciturn Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Reynolds cuts capers throughout most of the film, and gets a little monotonous at times, but it's likely he does so to clear the decks for Jackman to be more brooding and tragic. The tragic backstory for Wolverine is just okay, but Jackman's intensity serves as an "anchor" for the whole film, much like the character is supposed to "anchor" Wilson's timeline. (Hmm, if Wilson's timeline is doomed to decay without a living Wolverine, doesn't that mean that whatever timeline loses its Wolverine goes down the toilet?)

As I was born during a period in which no hero ever slashed or gashed his opponents-- not counting sword-fighting swashbucklers and the occasional samurai-- I'm not blown away by the almost endless impalement-scenes during most of the battles. (Even three of the four "guest stars" who take place in one big battle are blade-users.) The initial villain of the movie is so weak that a secondary villain takes over his function in the last half-hour, but I must admit that said evildoer Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin) made me wish she'd been the main Big Bad from the start. 

 Like the other two, this one is just "fair" on the mythicity level, though I still rate the first DEADPOOL as the funniest of them all. It would be nice if Disney/MCU learned something from Reynolds' shakeup of their icons, but it seems unlikely.