Tea-Meter: 1/10

It has been a long few months of hating on this movie. I did have a few criticisms before Deadpool & Wolverine released, like Wolverine's suit being overdesigned and some horribly washed-out color grading in the trailers (which is sort of fixed in the theatrical cut), but I never really did hate it with my heart or expect it to be godawful "cinematic" corporate slop. I seriously hoped to like this.

And, now that I've seen it, I can confidently say: it was pretty bad.

Deadpool & Wolverine is the long-awaited third installment to the Deadpool franchise, the character's introduction to the MCU, and a seeming final goodbye to the Fox X-Men films. Being produced by Disney after the Disney-Fox merger, this movie feels completely different in its attempts to carry on the Deadpool charm. It assassinates the character of Wade Wilson, turns him into a sadistic maniac, and tries to substitute over-the-top gore as a replacement for actual humor, and feels like a poorly thought out, unnecessary sequel.

Horribly written characters all around. Tons of actors reprise their roles from old and not very beloved pre-MCU Marvel films, but their attempts at being included in the movie are ridiculous. Their introductions are random, and Deadpool makes a lot of meta jokes to try and make you laugh and just enjoy the fact that they do appear, but once the moment es and you think about what they're doing, you realize they barely even qualify as characters and more so as nostalgia bait and exposition machines. They literally mirror the cameo introductions of No Way Home in the worst way possible, just blatant pauses and slow-motion shots that are so obviously there to give the audience time to clap and cheer. Even newer characters suffer from lack of depth. Cassandra Nova is just a generic power-hungry villain, and Paradox is mostly just a means to set up the movie and squeeze out a few more laughs. Perhaps the most hilarious are the Deadpool Corps. Their motivation is explained in some more exposition earlier on in the film, and appear only once to get people screaming "LOOK AT ALL THE DEADPOOL VARIANTS," provide some low-effort entertainment, and get out a few more chuckles. And I don't even feel like this needs to be explained, but the misogyny in Deadpool & Wolverine is absolutely insane. The only three real female characters are devoid of personality. Vanessa exists solely to motivate Wade's arc through their breakup, Cassandra is like I said above, a generic, power-hungry villain, and Elektra is badass but serves only to provide exposition and is included because the executives ran out of old Marvel movie characters to bring back.

I've wanted to say this for a while, but this is just a homophobic film. I know a lot of people say Deadpool is pansexual so the film can't possibly be homophobic, and while I'm not denying that he is pan or bi or queer in some way, a film can feature a queer character while also making fun of their sexuality or identity. Deadpool & Wolverine is clearly targetted towards straight audiences, and in the film, Deadpool constantly makes gay jokes or quips while making the (assumed-to-be) straight Wolverine uncomfortable. The first two films had their share of homophobic jokes, but it's raised to another level in this entry. The entire punchline to half the jokes are just "hey get it because Deadpool said something gay." A literal mockery of Deadpool's pansexuality made to appeal to the straight masses. Shameful.

The levels of hypocrisy present are off the charts. Deadpool & Wolverine pretends to be above the rest of the post-Endgame MCU, but it lacks any self-awareness to make its meta jokes land. There's one particular line from Deadpool where he comments on how the MCU has been completely downhill since Endgame with its popularly hated-on multiverse that just infuriates me. I'm not saying the MCU hasn't been shit for years, but genuinely what the fuck was that? What a pathetic attempt to pander to the MCU-bros and grifters who joke about how everything is bad now while using the popular hatred to excuse their misogyny and racism. And, the real reason the multiverse has been shit in the MCU is because it has ONLY been used to introduce alternate universes that bring back actors from previous non-MCU films without real narrative impact, but the worst part is: that's literally what Deadpool & Wolverine does. It wants to put down the things hated by the general public, but any self-awareness is gone in its hypocrisy. But of course, it'll be excused by MCU-bros because Deadpool! Ryan Reynolds! He can do no wrong! What can be expected from the fanbase who shovels up slop and defends their precious male celebrities at all costs?

A real shitshow and waste of time. I don't even want to get into how awful Shawn Levy is as a director, but he could've been replaced with a plank of wood for the role of director and nothing would change. Words cannot express how worthless and anti-art this is, and the constant for this film has proven to Disney/Marvel that they can get away with minimal effort nostalgia-bait slop as long as someone irritating enough can distract the MCU-bros by pandering to their masculine, misogynistic, and even racist tendencies.