Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 122: Deadpool and Wolverine

On this episode, Barry and I don our superhero tights and talk all things Deadpool and Wolverine. Topics discussed include the value of Ryan Reynold's shtick and a multitude of multi-verse cameos, as well as the tenuous future of the MCU.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 122: Deadpool and Wolverine

Thanks for listening!!

©2024

Deadpool and Wolverine: A Review - Shticking and Screaming

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

My Rating: SKIP IT/SEE IT. If you like Ryan Reynolds’ shtick, you’ll like this movie. If you don’t, you definitely won’t.

Deadpool and Wolverine, the third film in the Deadpool franchise and the…God help us…34th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, hit theatres on July 26th, and I just got a chance to see it.

The film, which stars Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, has made over $800 million dollars in just two weeks of release, and seems poised to cross the billion-dollar threshold. That is an impressive haul even considering the film’s $200 million budget.

One of the more intriguing things about Deadpool and Wolverine is that Deadpool is the first of the 20th Century Fox cinematic comic book characters to have his own movie since Disney purchased Fox back in 2019. The first two Deadpool movies, as well as all of the X-Men and X-Men adjacent movies like Wolverine and Logan, and the Fantastic Four movies, were all Fox properties. Now Disney owns those characters and has to figure out a way to use them to save their floundering Cinematic Universe, which has fallen off a cliff in terms of box office and cultural relevance in since the high point of Endgame in 2019.

Deadpool is an interesting character to debut the Fox and friends comic book heroes in Disney’s family friendly realm because he is a self-aware, cynical and sarcastic symbol of Generation X and believes in absolutely nothing but snark and raunch.

In Deadpool and Wolverine Ryan Reynold’s signature snark is certainly turned up to 11, but the raunch is reduced to a Disney-friendly 4, with Deadpool’s usual sexual antics, like getting pegged, being only spoken about but never shown. Walt Disney is no doubt looking up from hell quite pleased.

The Deadpool franchise has always relied entirely upon the comedic stylings of its star Ryan Reynolds, and thus far has done so to great success. But at the moment it’s not just Deadpool but the entirety of the MCU that is relying on the Reynold’s singular self-aware superhero snark…and while I am a fan of Reynolds as Deadpool, his shtick is definitely starting to wear thin…frankly bit too thin to sustain any dreams of carrying the MCU on his back.

The first Deadpool movie was an exhilarating breath of fresh air, and Reynolds was perfectly suited and situated to pull it off. Deadpool lampooned the superhero genre at the height of its success, while also being a top-notch superhero movie in its own right, no easy task.

The second Deadpool film was less successful mostly because the first film had been so successful, and so expectations were high. Deadpool 2 was still very funny, but it got caught up adoring itself a little bit too much to work as well as the original.

Deadpool and Wolverine, which is Deadpool 3, is the least successful film in the franchise, at least in terms of comedy, drama and action, but looks like it will be the most financially successful as it hurtles toward the billion-dollar mark heading into its third week of release. And so it goes here in Hollywood.

Deadpool and Wolverine is essentially an odd couple-comedy-road movie, with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine playing a short-tempered, violent Bing Crosby (not unlike Bing Crosby in real-life) to Ryan Reynold’s foul-mouthed, violent Bob Hope.

The movie definitely made me laugh out loud a couple times, and I noticed about midway through that I had a stupid smirk stuck on my face the entire time I watched. These accomplishments are not to be taken lightly as I am notorious difficult to please when it comes to comedy.

Yes, there is a plot in the film, sort of, but it’s not worth getting into at all because it is not only moronic but basically inconsequential, which is not a great thing in terms of storytelling…but it is what it is.

Yes, there’s a cornucopia of cameos, none of which really work beyond a momentary nod of recognition, but superhero fans will adore them.

Yes, there’s a villain, Cassandra Nova, who is almost instantly forgettable and is played with a rather remarkable lack of verve and panache by Emma Corin.

Yes, there are action sequences, some of which are fun and some of which are bland and derivative.

The cinematography is often painfully dull and devoid of the vibrant colors of the first two Deadpool movies. The film looks flat and uninspired. Not a shock that it is directed by Shawn Levy, whose signature style is flat and uninspired.

The best things about Deadpool and Wolverine though are, not surprisingly, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman.

I’ve never been a huge Hugh Jackman fan, and thought his being cast as Wolverine – one of the greatest comic book characters of all-time, back in 2000 was a let-down, especially when Russell Crowe was allegedly the first choice. But I readily admit after having watched all of the X-Men and Wolverine movies, the fantastic Logan in particular, that Jackman is a terrific Wolverine.

Logan was a great way to end his run as the iconic character, and Deadpool and Wolverine feels a little disappointing in that regard as it diminishes the impact and accomplishment of Logan, one of the best comic book films ever made, but in Hollywood in general, and Disney in particular, money talks and artistic bullshit walks…so here we are.

Deadpool has always worked because it is essentially a self-aware parody of not just superhero movies but the superhero movie industry. It spotlights and skewers all of that genre’s flaws, most notably its absurdities, inanities and insanities.

But the real reason the Deadpool movies work is because of Ryan Reynolds and his singular comedic style which is a magnetic mix of manic, foul-mouthed and insecure fandom in character form.

The reality is that if you like Ryan Reynolds you’ll love all of the Deadpool movies, Deadpool and Wolverine included. Reynold’s humor is only heightened when matched with Jackman’s brooding Wolverine, which is a shockingly powerful piece of acting considering the silliness that surrounds it.

If you like Ryan Reynold’s and his usual shtick, you’ll like Deadpool and Wolverine. I like Ryan Reynold’s shtick and that’s why I liked Deadpool and Wolverine. Is it a good movie? No, not really. Is it a well-made movie? No, not really. Is it a fun and ultimately instantly forgettable summer movie you can mindlessly chuckle at and never really consider ever again? Yes…yes it is.

©2024

Trump is Deadpool and We're All Doomed

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes 04 seconds

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Infinity War.

Deadpool 2 is currently resonating with audiences to the tune of $600 million at the box office, which does not bode well for Democrats in the 2018 mid-term elections.

What does Deadpool 2 have to do with the elections this fall? Well, popular culture, most notably film and television, can be a leading indicator of the sub-conscious mood of the collective.

For instance, in the summer of 2017, the female empowerment narrative of Wonder Woman deeply connected audiences, raking in $821 million at the box office. Wonder Woman's success, combined with the cultural cache of Hulu's series The Handmaid's Tale and its dark themes of misogyny and ritualized sexual abuse which premiered in April of 2017, foreshadowed the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements that erupted in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein revelations.

Similarly, in 2016, there were bright warnings signs in the form of numerous superhero movies that dominated the box office whose narratives foretold the coming of the paradigm-shifting Trumpacolypse that was headed our way.

Two of the cinematic indicators in 2016 were the films Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which was released in March and grossed $873 million worldwide and Captain America: Civil War, which hit theaters in May and hauled in $1.1 billion worldwide. 

Both films arrived at the Cineplex with strikingly similar narratives. In Captain America: Civil War, the globalists wing of the Avengers, led by Iron Man, faces off against the nationalist faction, led by Captain America. In Dawn of Justice, Superman, the ultimate international "elitist" Superman, battles the localist vigilante Batman.

The color schemes of both Civil War and Dawn of Justice fed into the red state-blue state divide of our election as well, with Iron Man's dominant color being red and Captain America wearing his signature blue, along with Superman’s vibrant red cape opposite Batman’s dark blue Bat-suit. These clashing colors were emphasized in the film’s posters and billboards, which littered the American landscape in the spring of 2016 and registered in America’s psyche.

These films presciently mirrored the internecine political battles of the party primaries and also the bitter divisions in the general election, but there was another film that actually revealed who would win the presidency. That film was Deadpool, starring Ryan Reynolds, which hit theaters in February of 2016 and went on to gross $783 million worldwide.

Deadpool, whose mutant superpower is that he cannot die, is an irreverent, foul-mouthed and morally ambiguous character. Sound familiar? It is pretty obvious that Trump is to politics what Deadpool is to superheroes. Trump too is maliciously irreverent, shamelessly foul-mouthed and at best morally ambiguous and with his signature (too long) red tie, Trump even shares a color scheme with the red-clad Deadpool.

Like Deadpool, who can be shot, beaten and blown up and still survive, Trump cannot be destroyed. Trump's messy public life is a testament to his indestructibility, having survived two tabloid divorces, three weddings, six bankruptcies and that was before he ever even ran for president. As candidate and president, Trump's invincibility is remarkably Deadpoolian as he has survived a cavalcade of scandals that would have obliterated any other "normal" politician.

When Trump said he could shoot someone in the face on Fifth Avenue and still not lose any voters, I thought of Deadpool, who Trump could actually shoot in the face on Fifth Avenue, and neither of them would suffer any long-term physical or political damage.

Moviegoers loved Deadpool because it mocked the superhero genre's tropes and conventions, but also effectively used them to entertainingly propel the film’s narrative. Similarly, to the delight of his supporters, Trump took a sledgehammer to American political "norms" yet also masterfully used his opponent’s respectful adherence to those norms as a weapon against them.

Just as Deadpool charmed audiences by being the anti-superhero superhero, Trump, the billionaire plutocrat who ran as a populist for the workingman (shades of Batman/Bruce Wayne), won the adoration of his fans posing as the anti-politician politician.

Which brings us to Deadpool 2, whose box office success is an ominous omen for Democrats in the up coming mid-term elections.

The uncomfortable symmetry of another Deadpool film, once again accompanied by a Marvel blockbuster, Avengers: Infinity War, being in theaters during an election year is only heightened by Infinity War’s unsettling story.

In Infinity War, super-villain Thanos, played by Josh Brolin who coincidentally and promiscuously enough also stars as Cable in Deadpool 2, is an outsider who defeats the superhero establishment in the form of the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy, and then executes half of all living beings in order to bring “balance” to the universe. This is the equivalent of Democrats and never-Trump Republicans joining forces and being completely decimated by Trump with extinction level consequences. 

People keep telling me to relax, that the Democratic juggernaut coming in November will take down the Republican congress, but Deadpool 2 has a specific storyline that bodes particularly ill for the Democratic dream of redemption in 2018.

In the movie, an unstoppable mutant named, ironically enough, Juggernaut, breaks out of mutant prison and literally tears Deadpool in half. But in the film's climactic battle, the invincible Juggernaut is defeated, not by Deadpool, but by his associates, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, who stop Juggernaut by opportunistically shoving a live wire up his ass and then throwing him in a pool, where he flails away in agony. My fear is that the Democratic juggernaut will suffer the same fate on election day. Is Mitch McConnell Colossus? Is Paul Ryan or Mike Pence Negasonic Teenage Warhead?

And even if Trump does get torn in two by the Democratic juggernaut in November, he'll no doubt just emulate Deadpool and grow a new bottom half in time to win re-election in 2020.

Speaking of 2020, rumor has it that Deadpool’s next film will be X-Force, which has a tentative release date of…2020…just in time for Trump's re-election bid!

I'm telling you, the signs are all there, Trump is Deadpool. Let's just hope he isn't Thanos too.

A version of this article was originally published at CounterPunch.

©2018

Deadpool 2: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!!****

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars                 Popcorn Curve* Rating - 3.9 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An entertaining anti-superhero movie superhero movie. 

Deadpool 2, directed by David Leitch and written by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and the film's star Ryan Reynolds, is the story of the foul-mouthed, snarky, former Special Forces soldier turned superhero immune from death, Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds stars as Deadpool with supporting turns from Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Zazie Beetz, T.J. Miller and Julian Dennison. 

Deadpool 2 is the aptly titled sequel to 2016's surprise success Deadpool and is considered the eleventh film in the X-Men series but it really only has a very passing and peripheral connection to that cinematic universe. The first Deadpool came out of nowhere in 2016 to rake in $783 million at the box office.

I have always liked Ryan Reynolds as an actor…well…not always…but I did used to like him. He looks and acts like my best friend who died twenty years ago, and so I always rooted for Reynolds to succeed. But then he churned out a cornucopia of shitty movies, with the apex, or nadir, being 2011's crap-tacular Green Lantern, which was so mind-numbingly awful as to be miraculous. 

Hollywood had been trying to turn the handsome, charming and affable Reynolds into a star for years and after repeated misfires he perpetually failed upwards. With Green Lantern, I finally washed my hands of the Ryan Reynolds experiment, and I thought Hollywood had done the same. Then in 2016 Deadpool came out with Reynolds in the lead and I thought, "what sort of compromising material does Reynolds have on studio big wigs that they keep giving him so many shots at the brass ring?" I had zero interest in seeing the film and so…I didn't. 

After a plethora of friends raved to me about Deadpool I still had no interest, and only ended up seeing it for free on cable. Seeing it was like witnessing the resurrection…of Ryan Reynolds moribund career. If ever there were a role perfectly suited for a specific actor, it was Deadpool and Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds' sharp wit and deadpan humor combined with his athletic physique made for the perfect match as Deadpool. 

The original Deadpool was a fantastic superhero movie for two reasons, the first is Reynolds and the second is that it had the perfect tone and original approach to the genre at exactly the right time. Deadpool was the antidote to the tsunami of Marvel and DC films over the preceding decade, and decades to come, that either took themselves too seriously or not seriously enough. 

By breaking the fourth wall Deadpool broke conventions, and by winking at the audience Deadpool got to have his cake, making fun of superhero contrivances, and eat it too, using those same superhero contrivances to entertain. Deadpool was the most unique superhero film in recent memory and it succeeded both as an action movie and a comedy. 

Deadpool 2 is not as good as Deadpool, but how could it be? With the first film audiences had no expectations, but with the sequel expectations are definitely heightened. The weight of those expectations does drag down Deadpool 2 a bit as the comedy seems a little more forced and less free flowing than in the first film. But with that said, Deadpool 2 is still an excellent superhero movie and in parts is explosively funny. It even made me, someone who almost never laughs aloud at movies, actually laugh out loud, or as the young people say "LOL", multiple times. Even the post-credit scenes made me guffaw heartily.

In Deadpool 2 Reynolds is at his sarcastic best as Deadpool once again and carries the film from start to finish. A big key to Reynolds success in the role is that we usually see his face covered with a mask and if not, then it is scarred from the burns received during the characters origination. Reynolds detachment from his handsome boy face allows the actor to release a volcanic amount of energetic cynicism that makes Deadpool…well...Deadpool. Reynolds doesn't do any movie star preening, he just fully embodies the dynamic character and seems to be having a helluva lot of fun, which in the hands of a lesser talent would result in disaster, but here it becomes contagious with the audience. 

The supporting actors are good, and in the case of Josh Brolin's Cable, very good. Brolin does the impossible and never breaks while being on the opposing end of Reynolds relentless shenanigans. Brolin brings a palpable melancholy and gravitas to Cable along with a grounded physicality that translates well and is a worthy counterbalance to Deadpool.

Zazie Beetz is a revelation as Domino, whose super power is "luck". Beetz is a charming, magnetic and compelling actress who seems right at home on the big screen with Reynolds and Brolin. My guess is that Ms. Beetz has a very bright future ahead of her. 

Julian Dennison is the teenager "Firefist" and is definitely the weak link in the cast. Dennison's New Zealand accent leaves his speech a bit difficult to decipher and out of rhythm with the rest of the cast which undermines his performance. In addition he has the least fleshed out character and least interesting material with which to work. 

The action sequences in Deadpool 2 are pretty spectacular and never fail to deliver excitement and a lot of laughs. The "X-Force" sequence, from start to finish, is uproariously funny and boasts an A-list cameo for which to keep an eye out. 

The Deadpool films are a breath of fresh air in the otherwise stiflingly homogenous superhero cinematic universe. Now that Deadpool has been unleashed in two films, the character will only bring diminishing returns as audiences become more and more accustomed to him and therefore more resistant to his charms. As the new car smell of Deadpool wanes, the danger Reynolds faces is that audience familiarity with his style will breed contempt. As the Deadpool films go forward, the bar gets ever higher for Reynolds to pull off the character with the same cheeky aplomb as he did in the original and first sequel, and that is no easy task. 

In conclusion, Deadpool 2 is a bit underwhelming in terms of the storytelling and coherent narrative, but in terms of pure entertainment value, it is definitely a success. If you want to be entertained for two hours, I recommend you go see Deadpool 2 in the theatre. If you enjoy comedy and superhero movies, this is the film for you. If you are lukewarm on superhero movies but want to laugh at them, this might also be the film for you. If you dislike raunchy humor, hate Ryan Reynolds and loathe superhero movies…then I recommend you go shove five Skittles down your dickhole and then play with yourself until you ejaculate a rainbow, because you are absolutely impossible to please. 

*The Popcorn Curve judges a film based on its entertainment merits as a franchise/blockbuster movie, as opposed to my regular rating which judges a film solely on its cinematic merits.

©2018