Oh boy,,, let’s get right into it.

Sometimes things can be a victim of their own fandom. For example, I hate the New England Patriots. Do I personally hate their quarterback Drake Maye or their head coach Jerod Mayo? Of course not. I hate what they represent. I hate Patriots fans. Not each individual Patriots fan, but their fandom as a whole and what they represent.

Hopefully I’m making sense here and let’s start by saying, I don’t hate this movie, the Deadpool franchise, or its fanbase. I just went with an extreme example to prove my point. The truth is, I am not a fan of Ryan Reynolds and everything I had seen surrounding Deadpool totally turned me off from it. The clips I had seen, the promotion from Ryan Reynolds, and the die-hard Deadpool fans all made me feel like this probably wasn’t the movie for me.

I am, however, a massive fan of Hugh Jackman and Wolverine. So, before this movie came out I decided to watch both Deadpool films so I could be in the loop. My takeaway was, they are just fine. I was correct in thinking that the humor isn’t really for me. A lot of the jokes are things I would have found funny in like 6th grade and all of the fourth wall breaking can be a bit draining. But overall, there is a lot of fun action and they are largely harmless.

So, let’s discuss this third movie in the trilogy- here is my SPOILER review.

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE: 3/5 Stars

A little more background on my Marvel fandom because I do think it’s important when discussing this movie: I am definitely a fan of the Marvel movies and have seen every movie in the universe except The Marvels. However, it is pretty obvious that the MCU isn’t a great place. If these movies just never get back to that top-tier level it isn’t the end of the world to me but if they are to get back to that, they need a hard reset.

That is the first compliment I will give this movie. I think it was a good RESET for the MCU. That doesn’t mean it “saved the MCU” or “got the MCU back on track.” I think it publicly addressed the failures of Marvel post-Endgame and Deadpool was the only character that could be self-deprecating in that fashion. So from that perspective, I think it was smart. It will be up to Marvel where they go from here if they can start to move things in the right direction.

In terms of the actual movie, I actually liked a lot of the action and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine will always get me fired up. There was also a decent amount of comedy that I enjoyed in the movie. But the Deadpool bits are just so overplayed for me. The “it’s funny because he’s making graphically sexual jokes and he’s a superhero” and “it’s funny because he’s breaking the 4th wall to tell us that he’s actually Ryan Reynolds, who is married to Blake Lively, making this joke to us, not a fictional character” routines were just grating.

I actually noticed myself laughing at parts where most of my theater was quiet and cringing at some of the moments that got the biggest pops in my theater. That is where, again, I have to try not let the fans of a thing influence my view of that thing. However, due to basic human nature, that is virtually impossible.

SPOILERS: All of my reviews have been non-spoiler so far but it’s impossible to discuss this movie without spoilers. The truth is, a lot of the cameos actually worked for me. Was it “slop”? Yes, probably. But when I come into a Marvel movie, I’m largely cool with the slop as long as it’s well executed. At first, I thought the Chris Evans cameo was cheesy but when he dropped the “FLAME ON” and we realized he wasn’t Captain America, but the Human Torch, that was an awesome moment.

Then the main group of returning characters really worked for me. I thought Channing Tatum stole the show. I love Channing Tatum and I know how badly he has wanted to play Gambit so getting that chance here was huge and he nailed it. His comedy as Gambit were the funniest scenes in the movie for me. Also, Wesley Snipes returning as Blade was badass as he always is.

So overall, I enjoyed a lot of this movie and if the “Deadpool/Ryan Reynolds-style” humor was toned down from like 200% to 50% I might have loved this movie. I just couldn’t get over almost every joke said by Deadpool sounding like something a 35-year-old YouTuber making content for 13-year-olds would say.