God's perfect idiot.

Deadpool & Wolverine — 3.5/5

I think Ryan Reynolds' greatest weakness is an unlimited supply of money. Money means you don't need to draw straight lines. Money means you can explore every idea in your head, with no need to dot a linear path between them. I enjoyed this movie, but I can't deny that it is filled with excess. Every idea in here feels like he did it because he could get away with it. As such, it starts to feel like Fan Service: The Movie. And listen, I'm a fucking fan, so some of this shit was a cupid's arrow into my heart. But a lot of it feels like an easy cheer for an easy audience. Why is he dancing to N'Sync's 'Bye Bye Bye' within a fight scene aside from the fact that he could afford it? And it's unfortunate, because there's so much fun to be had here! Cassandra Nova is a genuinely great villain!! The performance surprising enough to make me an Emma Corrin fan for life. She carries psycho with a smile (similar to but different from Antony Starr as Homelander in 'The Boys'). A few rewrites and they could have made her the focus rather than the 40m of excess deviations that led us to her. TVA is narrative bloat, English Tom Wambsgans never really takes off, the Avengers interview is just... off.  I appreciate Ryan Reynolds infusing each of these Deadpool movies with an emotional core, but this one felt wasteful, thrown aside, disconnected. It had to rely on Laura because Vanessa didn't really have a purpose here. I think Ryan Reynolds always comes across with an air of desperation to everything he does ("please like me!!"), and I think that desperation is actually his greatest strength. In Deadpool 1, there was a desperation to succeed within guidelines of a limited supply of money and support, and he blew it out of the water. He earned the right to not have a master telling him what to do. But, I think for these movies to continue to succeed, he needs to figure out how to give himself a boss.