Can you believe it’s been six years since “Deadpool 2” was released? In the modern era of superhero movies, that’s practically two lifespans. It’s a smart idea because Deadpool isn’t a great character to do a sequel every other year. These R-rated flicks keep making money by giving us a taste of the merc with a mouth every so often. With “Deadpool 3” closing in on a billion dollars, it’s safe to say there will be a “Deadpool 4.”
While the movie is making money, is it worth watching? Historically, sequels can be a strong performer, strong enough to be better than the first film. Can Deadpool deliver a strong third entry in a world where superheroes are oversaturated?
BLUF – Deadpool 3: Spoilers-Free Part
The bottom line is that it’s worth watching. Not only is it worth watching, it’s a fantastic movie. It’s lots of fun, cameo-filled, and a total blast from start to finish. The creators made this a love letter to the 20th Century Fox superhero films. It’s not just the X-Men, but the films that really helped shape the superhero film genre.
Along the way, we have awesome action scenes. You get gratuitous violence in every fight. We get the typical Deadpool laughs, fourth wall breaks, and plenty of jokes made at Disney’s expense. Somehow, in all this, they found a way to bury a little heart into the film and give a fan-favorite character a real arc in a satirical action comedy.
From this point on, you’ll be dealing with spoilers. Lots of spoilers.
How Deadpool 3 Works
“Deadpool 3” is the first Deadpool film since corporate giant Disney purchased 20th Century Fox. Disney now owns Deadpool, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and many more properties that create a much less fractured Marvel Universe. To tie it all together, we are getting into the multiverse again.
Marvel has played with the multiverse a lot, and they’ve nearly beaten it to death without any real results outside of good fan service. Deadpool is the first to use the multiverse in a way that makes sense. Deadpool is coming from the 20th Century Fox universe into the Disney MCU. Kind of.
Disney doesn’t let any of their S-Tier Avengers get in on the cocaine jokes, the booze, and the constant bizarre sexual references. Deadpool gets pulled in by the Time Variance Authority and offered a job, a new suit, and some adamantium katanas to leave his universe. He’s struggled to find purpose and switched from Deadpooling to used car sales.
The TVA gives him a shot and informs him that his universe is dying because an anchor being has died. That anchor being was Logan, aka the Wolverine. Deadpool doesn’t want to see his world die, so he goes to find a Wolverine.
We get a fun mini montage of Deadpool meeting various Wolverines, including a comic-accurate five-foot tall Logan, the crucified Logan, berserker Logan, and even a Henry Cavill cameo. He finally finds a sad sack Logan drunk in a bar and kidnaps him. Deadpool’s plan is half-cocked, and as such, he’s banished to the island of misfit superheroes with his kidnapped Logan.
From there, their goal is to escape and save Deadpool’s world while giving sad sack Wolverine a shot at redemption.
Old and New
The film’s meta-commentary focuses on what happens to all those 20th Century Fox properties, like the original Fantastic Four, Elektra, Blade, and even properties that were never launched, like the Gambit film. Where are those characters now that Disney owns them? Well, since Disney isn’t doing anything with them, the Time Variance Authority banishes them to the Void.
The Void is a wasteland at war led by Cassandra Nova, sister to Professor X, and featuring characters familiar to fans of the 20th Century Fox superhero movies. This Void not only delivers some great fan service but also gives epilogues and endings to the characters and the actors who played them.
Seeing Wesley Snipes in the Blade outfit gave me that rush of fan service dopamine I didn’t know I needed. Having Chris Evan play Johnny Storm instead of Captain America was a blast! While the Void serves as Deadpool’s second act for a lot of these characters and actors, it’s their last act, and they get to go out on top.
Between the bloody violence and fart jokes, the film has a bit of heart with both the sad sack Wolverine and these characters we haven’t seen for over a decade. Younger viewers (those just turning 17 or 18) likely won’t get the same enjoyment old dudes like me will have. These early Marvel characters were a big part of my childhood and likely a big part of most millennials’ childhoods.
The Action
It’s a fun movie with good jokes, a good story, and a meta use of the multiverse, but how’s the action? It’s bloody good fun! They waste almost no time taking Logan’s death in Logan and making it a joke. Deadpool digs him up and then proceeds to use his body parts to fight bad guys.
We get more than one Wolverine versus Deadpool fight. The first is a spectacle that is total fan service but in a great way. Since both can heal, they are slicing and dicing each other into pieces. Another fight takes place in a Honda minivan and is just as memorable.
When Deadpool and Wolverine aren’t killing each other, they are cutting their way through bad guys. This version of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine wears the classic yellow and blue suit and acts more like the comic and X-Men 97 Wolverine in how he fights. It’s fantastic to see for the first time in film.
Near the end, we get the classic Old Boy-style long-shot fight scene. Our bad guy hires the entirety of the Deadpool Corps to stop Deadpool and Wolverine. We see a crazy mixture of Deadpool, which is fun. What’s even more fun is seeing Deadpool and Wolverine cut and shoot their way through the entire corps.
Overall, the film made great use of the characters. The healing factors of Deadpool and Wolverine allow them to get the hell beat out of them, and it’s fun to see. We also get great performances from Channing Tatum, Wesley Snipes, and Jennifer Garner.
The Guns
Deadpool isn’t a gun-heavy film. It’s mostly swords. Deadpool still carries his .50 AE Desert Eagles and uses them akimbo. The movie takes advantage of the R rating, and when Deadpool shoots someone, parts of them explode. It’s not realistic, but it’s fun. He loses the guns to Wolverine’s claws but later acquires a second pair after the demise of Nicepool. The new guns are gold-plated and used in the final fight scenes.
When the Deadpool Corps arrives, we see more guns. Lady Deadpool carries a pair of micro Uzis, Cowboypool has a pair of Single Action Army revolvers, Golden Age Deadpool carries a Webley revolver, and Kidpool carries squirt guns. There aren’t a ton of other guns in the movie, and even Blade sadly doesn’t have his custom MAC pistols, but some other dressed-up SMG.
The Next Deadpool
Hopefully, we get a few years between Deadpool films. He’s best in small amounts, and time seems to allow for quality. In an era where superhero films are floundering, let’s let Deadpool be our satirical vacation from the superhero dominance.
