Lampshading Lampshading: The Movie.
Is it a cynical cash grab if its stars are visibly invested, in every sense, in said grab? Does lampshading that, and then lampshading the fact that they’re lampshading that, make it better in any way? Is it possible to pander to an audience so hard that it comes all the way back around again to being sincere? As performers, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are both crowd-pleasers; as huge successes, Deadpool and Wolverine are the roles to which they owe their respective careers; as businessmen, there’s no smarter investment for both of them than this movie – and, at this point, they have the resources to make this the best version of itself, and make themselves the most money. And, while watching Deadpool & Wolverine, it’s hard not to think about the money: the cameos alone…
Oddly enough, I think the true target audience for Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t the diehard fans, but actually more a group that includes… well, erm, me: those of us who grew up on the comic book movies of the ’90s and ’00s; who thoroughly enjoyed many of the MCU movies up to and including Avengers: Endgame (2019); who tracked the industry machinations which informed the development and release of comic book movies, as they increasingly became inextricably enmeshed with the storytelling within those releases (and even, as becomes important in Deadpool & Wolverine, in media that was never even made); and watched the subsequent Marvel TV series and films with dwindling engagement and growing disappointment, quietly accepting that things had peaked and would never again be (to me, at least) what they had been. All of this is to say: I knew enough to get the references, but wasn’t invested enough to need them to be reverential. In other words: I didn’t need or expect Deadpool & Wolverine to be great, so I’m not disappointed that it isn’t.
It says a lot that ‘spoilers’ for this movie are cameos, not plot details.
Is Deadpool & Wolverine fun? A wavering, high-pitched “… yeeeeah?”, if you’re a PhD in comic book media and entertainment conglomerate mergers. As a comedy, as a story, or as a movie-watching experience altogether, Deadpool & Wolverine depends so much on the audience both having an encyclopaedic knowledge of comic book movies and not being too precious about them (something for which the most vocal, self-described ‘real fans’ are not known) that it’s entirely propped up by these things, and does not stand on its own.
Taking the Kevin Smith approach to comedy (ie simply making pop culture references), the jokes in Deadpool & Wolverine are entirely referential to worlds outside this movie, and little-to-no comedy arises from any situations or ideas within this movie. The storytelling is sloppy, misses opportunities, and features two half-baked villains (which does not, in fact, add up to a single, fully-baked villain). Characters get no arcs – which is bewildering as, given the material and nostalgia this movie has the literal license to cash in on, they’d only need to complete or coda arcs drawn elsewhere to have them hero-land here. Relationships established in other movies (including the previous Deadpool movies) are undeveloped or even abandoned entirely in this one, and the relationships introduced here (including the one between its titular characters) aren’t developed at all. Anyone who counters all this with “This isn’t supposed to be about arcs or relationships, it’s just having some fun” is presumably happy for their Deadpool films to be more Scary Movie than, say, Austin Powers or The Princess Bride (remember?).
Deadpool & Wolverine tries to have its cake and eat it, by being both (supposedly) irreverent and (painfully) reverent, with characters, costumes, and cameos.
Deadpool & Wolverine trashes more than one of the legacies it purports to somehow celebrate – and Deadpool constantly commenting to camera about this makes the film aware but not clever, which means that it remains unclear just how sincere or emotional this is all supposed to be. And given how many nostalgic movies and TV shows we’ve been served up in recent years which are about nothing more than smashing action figures together, what does, what could, Deadpool & Wolverine offer in the way of anything new, different, worthwhile, or even novel?
Further Viewing
It’s easy enough to find examples of the viral marketing of all the Deadpool movies, videos which each rack up more millions of views than the official trailers. Complimenting those, is the occasionally earnest and remarkably energetic junket interview, which reveals the genuine personal investment in these movies (via Variety):
We have an example – hell, we have two – of huge franchise comic book movie done really, really well: