Across the Multiverse: Deadpool & Wolverine

Deadpool & Wolverine is a love letter to the forgotten era of Fox-era Marvel films, filled to the brim with cameos and references that most audiences won’t even get. It’s clearly catered towards a specific crowd of Marvel superfans and I’m completely here for it. 

In the film, we follow arguably the two most well-cast comic book characters in Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and Huge Jackman’s Wolverine, as they adventure through the Void to find a way to save Deadpool’s world from being destroyed. The Void is referred to as a purgatory for people who “don’t play nice with the rest of the multiverse,” enslaved by Cassandra Nova, the evil twin to Charles Xavier, who is evil in this film literally just because. 

If you’ve seen “Logan” you must be wondering how Wolverine is even able to be here after dying heroically in that film, and, in true Marvel fashion, the answer is yet again the multiverse. The film literally begins with Deadpool digging up Logan’s grave at the very beginning,desecrating his memory (very meta). He quickly realizes that his universe’s Wolverine is not a viable companion option (y’know, ‘cause he’s dead), and after a badass fight scene choreographed to *NSYNC’s “Bye-Bye-Bye,” we realize why Deadpool’s there in the first place. 

Logan’s sacrifice in the first film directly impacts the stability of the Fox universe timeline as a whole. Every universe has an “anchor” that holds the fabric of spacetime together. Figures that it would be Wolverine, who’s up there with Batman as maybe the most memorable comic book hero ever. 

After being rejected by the Avengers, Deadpool takes it upon himself to prove that he’s a real hero after all, and he needs a proxy Wolverine to do that or his world’s literally doomed. It doesn’t help that Professor Paradox (Matthew McFaydadyen), part of an organization that rules space and time known as the TVA, is trying to kill Wayde’s world faster than it naturally would die for a promotion.

Now, let’s talk about the cameos. There were so many I had to just make them their own section of the review. Early on, we move through a montage of different Wolverine’s from across the multiverse including the miniscule comic-accurate sized Logan, Age of Apocalypse Wolverine, Patch Wolverine, Uncanny X-Men Wolverine on the cross, and last but definitely not least Henry Cavil as “The Cavilrine” which just feels right! 

Most other cameos in the film consist of blink and you’ll miss it characters in the background that are just treats for eagle eyed viewers. That is until we reach the Void, a cosmic trash heap of discarded IPs from the Fox days, now owned by Disney. Here we meet Chris Evan’s Johnny Storm, Jennifer Garner’s Electra, Wesley Snipes’ Blade, Dafne Keen’s X-23, and Channing Tatum’s Gambit that never was. This movie finally gives these amazing legacy characters a great, as well as the Fox Marvel movie franchise, a beautiful and emotional sendoff that feels earned, as most fans watching this movie grew up on those films. I loved this film and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes superhero films in general, or even just a fun movie with some great jokes. The multiverse might feel tired, but this film certainly doesn’t. 5/5