Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: I’m the hypothetical boogey-moviegoer who lurked in the MPA’s hivemind imagination when they invented the PG-13 label! This prudish geek is back for another round of simultaneous enjoyment and irritation flared up from the inner turmoil between my oft-undiscerning appetite for comics-based movies that aim to deliver Something Different, versus my general disdain for F-bombs (with extremely few exceptions) and sex jokes (more adamantly unilaterally). I realize I’m outnumbered millions-to-one among geekdom-at-large, but I find ways to cope, such as typing into the void upon my tiny, mostly nonpaying hobby-job site.

I skipped the first Deadpool in theaters and instead watched it on a Black Friday Blu-ray with variant Christmas cover, where a smaller medium helped minimize its gratuitous indulgences. All the other parts of Tim Miller’s directorial debut were amazing, though, so I upgraded Deadpool 2 to a theatrical outing. The first one was better, but David Leitch delivered far more satisfying renditions of Colossus and Juggernaut than their half-baked mainline forms. I appreciated both films offering pleasures beyond the guilty kind, sometimes to an intentionally daffy extreme, which is not something that automatically bugs me. All told, the Merc with a Mouth’s two misadventures as a headliner were better than most X-films and, fun trivia, outgrossed them all.

Hence more of the same, but no longer confined to a licensed offshoot series that doesn’t “count”. One corporate merger and a few non-superhero films later, Ryan Reynolds and his entourage of masked stunt doubles are back! And this time, it’s more all the way! More fanboy pandering! More fourth-wall breakage! More pop culture references! More overplayed Top-40 oldies from across the decades! More F-bombs! More sex jokes, obsessively specializing in gay-panicky snark! But the more, more, MORE begins with its very title: Marvel Cinematic Universe After Dark! Wait, no, I mean Deadpool & Wolverine!

Incoming director Shawn Levy worked with Reynolds on Free Guy and The Adam Project — both entertaining on different, less profane levels, and both (mostly) demonstrating he hasn’t lost his grip on effects-heavy popcorn-flicks, as previously exercised in the Night at the Museum series and the underrated one-off Real Steel. The latter was also his first time working with Hugh Jackman, who was on break from his Wolverine day-job for a few minutes. So it’s reunions all around as Levy cat-herds the MCU’s first theatrical foray into R-rated territory, following (and drastically exceeding) some of the edgier Disney+ shows. He also takes the helm during an overlong transitional period as Marvel’s farmed-out IPs have been slowly returning to its legal clutches and the MCU’s never-ending soap-opera has suffered multiple weak links in its chained-together feature films. For all its unapologetically cash-grabby ploys, Deadpool & Wolverine is arguably ambitious in trying to tackle all of that at once.

Naturally it takes the easiest shortcut through all those adjacent forests: a wacky multiverse romp! We already knew the current MCU Phase (whichever it is; I’m ignoring the numbering) would be all about spacetime continuum violations, which are now the only kind of sci-fi that audiences seemingly want today. Loki and WandaVision fired the starter pistol and set the pace; Doctor Strange’s and Ant-Man’s respective sequels took turns running with the baton; and everyone rolled their eyes when The Flash burst in from the sidelines and begged everyone to come join him on his multiversal racetrack. The Scarlet Speedster could’ve rightfully claimed the multiverse crown for himself, given that “The Flash of Two Worlds” was the non-secret origin of coexisting superhero worlds, if only his big-screen leap hadn’t been years overdue or proffered its Easter eggs with a leaden earnestness and embarrassingly slipshod graphics. Barry Allen stands in the corner in a dunce cap while his Cosmic Treadmill sits in Deadpool’s apartment for occasional filthy uses.

(While I’m on the subject of things Deadpool definitely didn’t do first: I would absolutely die happy if we’re someday treated to a scene of DC’s Ambush Bug, my childhood’s true king of mega-meta comics mouthiness, being cold-called by Deadpool and screaming back into the phone, “If this is anyone but Pogo or John Barth, you’re STEALING MY BIT!”)

Anyway, on to Deadpool & Wolverine and its fully meta plot: Our Antihero enjoys about five minutes of birthday happiness with any pals who survived the first two films or were resurrected at the end of the second (which involved mere time travel, not spacetime travel) before Disney+ goons teleport in and damage his calm. Marvel movie viewers who skip all the streaming shows (e.g., most pro film critics) may resent the intrusion by the Time Variance Authority, those armored goons tasked with preserving the one true MCU timeline at the expense of all others. Never mind that Loki‘s season-2 finale tweaked the status quo to pardon and permit alt-timelines going forward (otherwise the final season of What If…? would be stillborn), but that’s only obliquely acknowledged here, in a laughable attempt to keep this film “self-contained” before the subsequent full-scale invasion of developments that make sense only if you’ve paid attention to, oh, the last 27 years’ worth of Marvel movies, both the finished products and the aborted projects.

The TVA drag DP to their HQ and set him before their ambitious, smarmy middle-manager Mr. Paradox (Succession victor Matthew Macfadyen). Loki‘s season-2 finale notwithstanding, TVA sensors indicate Deadpool’s timeline is dying due to the loss of its “anchor being”, a concept that’s among the film’s cleverer meta-commentary bits: it’s posited that every universe has one important character without whom its existence would be pointless. In this case, the “anchor being” in question died at the end of Logan, whereupon James Mangold personally if unwittingly threatened trillions of lives in the process of making the Best X-Film Ever. Thanks to him, DP’s universe — read: Fox’s entire X-Men film series plus spinoffs, possibly even Legion and The Gifted — is scheduled for deletion. There’s a whole megadeath MacGuffin armed with a doomsday timer counting down to triggering The End and everything.

(We’ve seen this happen in practice, haven’t we? Think of a TV or film series that killed off a beloved character, then had its plug pulled and/or otherwise never produced another episode, sequel or prequel in its original medium ever after. Exhibit A: Wash in Serenity. Or consider ensembles that jumped the shark and should’ve embraced the hard yank of a vaudeville hook after a major death, yet limped onward to their ultimate detriment. Exhibit B: Bill McNeal in NewsRadio. If that’s too harsh, might I suggest Sirius Black?)

As one among the nigh-infinite fictional denizens in this doomed milieu, the painfully self-aware DP doth protest. The obvious answer to all his problems is to go fetch another Wolverine, team up, re-anchor their reality, and conquer the box office. They’re the best there is at what they do, and what they do is make money. What he doesn’t do is develop a list of informed criteria for the Wolverine selection process. After a hilarious montage of alt-Wolverine rejects (not all of them played by Jackman), “winner” is a dubious term for the one Jackman does play for the rest of the film — one who blames himself for the deaths of all his old teammates and won’t stop drowning his self-pity in alcohol. But he wears a classic yellow costume straight outta the comics, and that’s good enough for Deadpool!

A few fights later — sometimes versus TVA goons, sometimes each other — Plan A fails and Our Antiheroes end up in the Void (insert footnote referring you yet again to Loki), a purgatory where misfits and/or variants are condemned to languish in perpetuity. Levy’s Easter-egg assembly line steps up production as the Void is already populated by old foes from previous Fox films, some of whom were in the trailer as fan-bait. But their leader is new to screens: Cassandra Nova, the long-lost evil twin of Professor X. Her very premise is so very superhero soap-opera, she was sent from Morrison and Quitely’s New X-Men run directly to X-Meta-Jail — didn’t pass Hollywood, didn’t collect $200, was never even considered for a lousy spinoff solo film that easily would’ve been hers if Sony had made all the X-Films rather than Fox. As mischievously portrayed by Emma Corrin (Princess Diana from the middle seasons of The Crown), Cassandra is a spurned psychopath who accepts she’s a carbon-copied castoff yet relishes wielding the omega-level power that her backstory affords her. Naturally she has her own thoughts on what to do with her surroundings.

Beyond a certain point, which I may have already passed, nearly all the best parts are spoilers. Sadly, those surprises are being ruined as we speak by entertainment news sites whose geek-columnists are basing their latest thinkpieces on the flawed assumption that if you didn’t see this in its first two weekends, then you must not really want to see it, in which case what do you care which ex-Marvel actors are name-checked in their headlines? In addition to the aforementioned bevy of Wolverine variants, we also get a literal army of Deadpool variants, apropos of most comic-cons we’ve attended over the past ten years; Easter eggs scattered throughout the TVA shelves, the Void’s dirt plains, a top-secret hideout, various storefronts, and virtually any and every location and set; and, when things are at their grimmest, still another wave of superhumans who back Our Antiheroes’ play and maybe, just maybe, make the most of their shot at redemption and their temporary furlough from Superhero-Movie Jail.

(Just as The Flash reminded us “Be careful what you wish for” via an unreal, unsightly cameo by Nicolas Cage’s Superman that never was, so does D&W shine a spotlight on a character I’ve never liked, never cared if they made it into a movie, and who never did make it into a movie till just now. And they’re the best thing about ALL of this. I laughed every single time they spoke. Every. Single. Time.)

The film’s second half is consequently far more entertaining thanks to those folks who reinforce Marvel’s definitive object lesson: any character — whether they were shabby from their very genesis or grew shabbier as their sequels hit rock bottom — can find new life with the right collaborators in the right circumstances. Some gratuitous revisionist nostalgia doesn’t hurt. As their presence raises the stakes, the fight scenes improve, the effects get flashier…it’s like the more passengers this film picks up, the more Levy & co. were driven to try that much harder to deliver the goods.

As for our dynamic duo in the title…their results vary. They fight each other more than once (a claustrophobic throwdown inside a large piece of product placement is especially savage) and try to walk each other through their sources of angst, but Jackman’s done better. During breaks between X-gigs he won an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony, but there’s a less-than-zero chance of going full EGOT here. Extra-Sad Wolverine is among his lower-tier Wolverines. His Last X-Man Standing status isn’t even new; Logan is still sitting RIGHT THERE on our DVD shelves. Granted, D&W cheekily and zealously admits Logan was superior and they’re merely repurposing its corpse — literally, as it happens — and we knew going in that Jackman wouldn’t top himself again, but it bugs me to call what he does here “good enough”. It’s…fine? I guess?

Likewise, Reynolds’ Deadpool is the same as he ever was. He’s still begging for respect and mugging for the camera. He still wants to matter and still mocks any characters who ever actually have mattered more than him. He thinks he’d be a cool hero and he seems oblivious to why racking up a body count is, y’know, bad. But what’s most important for the film’s sake is, more often than not, his nonstop hyperverbal performance frequently is funny and goes a long way…though I still could’ve done without the sex jokes. Every “aren’t I so very NAUGHTY!” bon mot was a vinyl scratch to my ears.

I’m certain Deadpool & Wolverine will be the best, most expensive raunchy comedy with superpowers and sci-fi tropes in it that I’ll see all year. I expected to resist its geek-pandering charms, but was totally overwhelmed by their sheer volume, in particular the flood of extremely left-field comebacks, those whom no one could’ve possibly predicted reprising their roles in our lifetime. I suppose I could do what I’ve done with a few past blockbusters and run through some of that in a separate, all-spoiler entry…but the rough draft in my head just looks like a lazy listicle. I’ve done plenty of those, but D&W wasn’t quite stellar enough to put me in the mood. Mostly I’m satisfied with the surprises I got and I’m okay to move on now. Ten thousand other sites already have their “Every Deadpool & Wolverine Easter Egg Catalogued!” clickbait ready and waiting for you, exhaustively and exhaustingly.

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Meanwhile in the customary MCC film breakdowns:

Hey, look, it’s that one actor!: Several survivors from the last two Deadpools bookend the film but aren’t invited for the central mission: Firefly‘s Morena Baccarin as lady-love Vanessa (now, sadly, his ex); Karan Soni as hapless taxi driver Dopinder; Leslie Uggams as cokehead roommate Blind Al; Rob Delaney as powerless, perky Peter; Stefan Kapičić’s Colossus; Brianna Hildebrand’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead; Shioli Kutsuna as her girlfriend Yukio; and more! And that’s just in the first five minutes!

If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ve already seen a few returnees from X-days past: Aaron Stanford’s Pyro; Tyler Mane’s Sabretooth; Dafne Keen as X-23 (now older, and better served here than she was in The Acolyte); and other villains who’re brought back but not played by the original actors, which is a bummer to learn after the fact. A few famous names show up as Deadpool variants, all impossible to recognize unless you know them really well, which makes it critical to stick around for the end credits (or, y’know, check online later).

Otherwise, I’d rather not spoil any more surprises beyond those we simply must cover in our final section…

How about those end credits? To answer the burning question that MCC is always happy to verify: yes, there is indeed a scene after the Deadpool & Wolverine end credits. Before all that, the main credits themselves are accompanied with a very special clipfest: a look back at Marvel’s years at Fox with clips from the movies, DVD extras, daffiness between takes during filming, and contemporaneous behind-the-scenes interviews. As the flashbacks continue to the tune of Green Day’s “Good Riddance”, you may tear up while a much younger, fresher-faced Reynolds — not yet the wealthy owner of any companies or sports teams — gushes about getting to play the character while on set for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. You may also wince at brief reminders of Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four. It’s a warts-and-all montage!

Once all the credits are done and several dozen comics creators have received their nods — the late comics legend Len Wein justly receiving his own singular mention before all the rest (comics fans know what I mean) — then there’s one last scene to come. For those who tuned out prematurely and really want to know, and didn’t already click elsewhere…

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[…insert space for courtesy spoiler alert in case anyone needs to abandon ship…]

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…back at TVA HQ, Wade is sick and tired of being blamed for Cassandra Nova brutally murdering Johnny Storm (special guest Chris Evans!) on his say-so. He cues up all the monitors and shows us a deleted scene from when he, Logan, and Johnny were captured and being carted off to the lair inside Ant-Man’s giant skull. On the way, Johnny begins mouthing off about Cassandra at a deeply R-rated level — saying everything Deadpool swore he said about her, and going even farther than what we were told. Remember the Chris Evans who used to do R-rated comedies before he became our best hero? Yeah, that Evans is back now.

Deadpool feels exonerated to share this candid prison-truck footage with us, but glosses over the part where he didn’t get Johnny killed by misquoting him; he got him killed by being a tattletale. Y’know what else doesn’t earn a cocky antihero any respect, Wade? BEING A NARC. TO SAVE YOUR OWN HIDE FROM THE BIG-BAD. YOU IDIOT.