Movie review: Deadpool & Wolverine brings the laughs, eh?

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Wade “Deadpool” Wilson was born in Regina, Saskatchewan. James “Logan” Howlett, a.k.a. Wolverine, hails from northern Alberta. In Deadpool & Wolverine, these two underemployed Canucks embark on a road trip seeking some simple pleasures and, if they’re lucky, redemption. And while they are sometimes transported by mystic energy portals, for at least part of the movie their ride is a worn-out Honda Odyssey.

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Thus I give it to you that this is not as advertised some kind of Disney/Fox mashup, Marvels meets X-Men through the graces of the entertainment behemoth that now owns both intellectual properties. Nope. It is in fact a crafty remake of the classic 1970 CanCon staple Goin’ Down the Road. Trailers even show our boys passing the ruins of the CN Tower.

I’m trying to give you as spoiler-free an experience as possible here, in part because there are more cameos stuffed into the movie than there are hollow wooden figures in a Russian doll factory. (That’s right; the MacGuffin is a matryoshka!) But that’s actually a pretty easy task, since most of Deadpool’s funniest lines, while they could have been crafted by a clever 11-year-old with access to urbandictionary.com, are couched in language no sane newspaper publisher would allow to gum up the presses.

Here is one relatively innocuous one, from early in the film’s 127 minutes. “There are 206 bones in the human body,” Deadpool says to the camera. “Two hundred and seven if I’m watching Gossip Girl.”

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This is both a horny little double entendre, and a reference to the fact that Ryan Reynolds, the Canadian behind the Canadian behind the Deadpool mask, is married to Blake Lively of Gossip Girl fame. Deadpool breaks the fourth wall early on and never bothers to fix it again, referring to main characters by their actors’ names, and to secondary ones as extras and day players.

He needs Wolverine to help with one of those hand-waving, jargon-filled, the-world-is-ending type of disasters. But the supposedly immortal Wolverine died at the end of 2017’s Logan — one of the best superhero movies ever, by the way; watch it if you haven’t, preferably before seeing this new one.

And so Deadpool travels the multiverse (quickly, thank heavens) to find another Logan. Which is how he ends up with Hugh Jackman in a classic comic-book-yellow suit. He also winds up making some enemies, not least Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova, evil twin sister of the X-Men’s Professor Xavier; and Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Paradox, a pencil-pusher from the Time Variance Authority. (See the Disney+ series Loki. Or don’t; it doesn’t really matter.)

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There’s also an appearance by — no, wait, I said I wouldn’t spoil any cameos. Though I will say that one character, when he shows up, speaks in an accent that is equal parts France, Texas and Ontario. He’s apparently from Paris. All of them.

Deadpool made me laugh. Wolverine too, if only because he’s such an effective straight-man buffer to Reynolds’ all-id performance. And laughing was when I most enjoyed Deadpool & Wolverine. In the parts that are more serious and Marvel-y — there are for instance two separate knock-down-drag-out fights between our basically unkillable protagonists — the plot drags a little.

But then the scene shifts to a knockoff Mad Max setting that is a hairsbreadth away from a Furiosa cease-and-desist letter from Warner Bros. And that badass chick from that old movie shows up, and the dude from that even older movie, and he says his catchphrase, and all is right in the world again. (Bump my three-and-a-half stars to a solid four if that tease got you excited.)

The film was co-scripted and directed by Shawn Levy. He does a good job of staying out of Reynolds’ way when necessary, and filming all the big moments with appropriate bigness. His resume includes working with Reynolds (The Adam Project, etc.), working with Jackman (Real Steel) and working on effects-laden action-adventure properties such as Free Guy. Oh, and he’s Canadian.

Deadpool & Wolverine opens July 26 in theatres.

3.5 stars out of 5

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