Deadpool & Wolverine

Captain America: Brave New World

18/02/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Heading to the screening for this, I have a wistful recollection of earlier times, when going to see the latest Marvel movie was actually something to look forward to. You know, Avengers Assemble, Guardians of the Galaxy, that kind of thing. It wasn’t so very long ago and yet it already feels like a distant memory. These days, the best I can hope for is, ‘Maybe it won’t be terrible.’

Marvel Studios are victims of their own success. Too many sequels, too many prequels, too much product. But as long as the crowds keep coming, they’ll continue, right?

There are maybe eight people in the huge IMAX auditorium this afternoon, which makes me suspect that I’m not the only one who’s bored with the MCU’s recent output. And okay, Deadpool & Wolverine did make an almost indecent amount of money – largely, I think, by daring to opt for a 15 certificate instead of the more usual 12A, but it was no masterpiece. It makes me wonder how much longer the studio can survive offering insipid releases like Captain America: Brave New World.

Mind you, on paper, it sounds surprisingly promising. Get this: recently elected American president, Thaddeus Grant (Harrison Ford) is showing signs of instability. (Given the current situation in the USA, this could have played out like a clever satire, but all too predictably, it doesn’t.) Grant sends Sam ‘Cap’ Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Joaquin ‘Falcon’ Torres (Danny Ramirez) to Mexico to combat sneering villain, Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito), who has stolen some… er… classified items. A massive punch-up duly ensues. Lots of people die in polite 12A fashion – there’s no blood to speak of and the cameras never really register the impact that big explosions have on the human anatomy.

When Sam and Joaquin return victorious, exhibiting a kind of smug self-satisfaction that’s hard to endure, they discover that President Grant is acting very strangely indeed. He appears to have become fixated on the discovery of a new metal called adamantium, which can only be found on the mysterious ‘Celestial Island,’ and which he’s desperately keen to get his mitts on. On a trip to the White House, Sam and Joaquin witness an assassination attempt on the president, which is initiated by their old friend, super soldier Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly). Afterwards, he has no explanation for his behaviour…

But look, I don’t know why I’m bothering to go into the alleged ‘plot’, which took no less than five screenwriters to create, since it’s mostly an excuse to throw together a series of action set-pieces, leading up to the penultimate scene where Grant mutates into… well, if I say it here, there will doubtless be indignant cries of, ‘Plot spoiler!’ – even though what happens has been blatantly revealed in all the film’s trailers and even features on the poster. I hope they paid Ford a lot of money to converted into pixels and I also hope that ace actor Tim Blake Nelson was paid a shit-ton of the stuff to wander about sporting a head like a rotting cauliflower and muttering dark threats in the role of evil genius Samuel Sterns.

I’m left with the inevitable questions. Why does Torres talk and act like a hyperactive teenager when he’s clearly in his 30s? What were those ‘classified items’ anyway? And how come, when a man turns into a Hulk, he still has a pair of pants that fit him?

At least this one comes in at just under two hours, for which relief much thanks, but if ever proof were needed that Marvel have squeezed this franchise as thin as it will go, surely here it is. But no, as the inevitable post-credit sequence grimly intones, Captain America will return…

Which sounds more like a threat than a promise.

2. 3 stars

Philip Caveney

Deadpool & Wolverine

26/07/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been going through a bit of a rough patch of late. Since the heady days of the Russo Brothers and The Avengers, where every film seemed to grab the box office by the jugular and shake all the money out, there’s been a distinct lack of focus, an inability to home in on a winning formula. Big changes are pending but, in the meantime, there’s Deadpool & Wolverine, the (ahem) 34th film in the MCU, which, like its two predecessors, is R rated. This means that there are plenty of expletives flying out of the screen and that the extended fight sequences are much bloodier than we might usually expect.

After failing auditions to join The Avengers and The X Men, Deadpool (Ryan Renolds) – or Wade Wilson, to use his off-duty name – has made an attempt to go straight. He now works as a used car salesman, wearing a toupee and favouring Hawaiian shirts in his leisure time. But he’s dragged back into the superhero world by Mr Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen, riffing outrageously on a version of his character from Succession). Paradox works for the Time Variance Authority and is a sort of snarky Dr Who figure. He announces that Wade’s strand of time is deteriorating fast due to the death of Logan – or Wolverine – and that it is all going to come crashing down fairly soon, which means that Wade and his eight friends are going to die.

Unless of course, he can do something about it.

Wade manages to steal Paradox’s tempad and heads into the Marvel Multiverse (as you do), looking for another Wolverine to take Logan’s place. For some inexplicable reason, he settles on the one who’s a miserable alcoholic, who feels he has nothing to live for. Well, things can only get better, right?

It would be pointless to try and relate any more of the plot because, frankly, it’s incoherent, a thinly-veiled excuse for our two heroes to fight with each other (and occasionally enjoy a bit of a bromance) as they travel to a variety of different locations – including one that looks very much as though it’s been ripped off from Mad Max. (Naturally Wade mentions this. “Hey, looks a bit Mad Maxy, huh?”) As they travel, the duo repeatedly break the fourth wall, chatting directly to the audience, dropping references to various franchises, film studios and Marvel characters past and present. Much of this means very little to me (though a bunch of superfans in the screening I’m at laugh uproariously throughout, perhaps to demonstrate how multi-versed they are in all things Marvel.)

There are A LOT of cameo appearances by various actors, some of whom I recognise but most of whom I don’t. And there’s A LOT of fighting. The biggest problem for me with the latter is that the many protracted punch-ups I’m obliged to sit through are rendered utterly pointless by the fact that none of the characters can be killed, which neatly removes any sense of jeopardy there might have been.

It’s not all terrible. I actually chuckle at some of the one-liners and there’s an impressive performance by Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova, the twin sister of Charles Xavier, who has an unfortunate habit of sticking her hands directly into people’s heads in order to er… read them. Of course, there’s the inevitable, supposedly nail-biting finale as Deadpool and Wolverine attempt to do… something… with a bunch of timey-wimey… things but, by this stage, I’m mostly looking at my watch wondering if the film is ever going to finish.

Maybe it’s just that I ran out of patience with Marvel a long while back, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who wishes that the Multiverse had never been invented. Apart from a couple of glorious animated exceptions, any film that ventures into those uncharted waters appears to founder and sink. That said, this screening is fairly well attended and we’ll see how much money Deadpool & Wolverine manages to pull in.

And we’ll wait to see what comes next. Kevin? Take your time.

3 stars

Philip Caveney