Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters July 26, but the review embargo for the film broke on Tuesday, and the early reaction from critics has been largely positive.
The third Deadpool movie, and first to be included in the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe, stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman as the titular characters and is directed by Shawn Levy. The cast also includes The Crown‘s Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova and Succession‘s Matthew Macfadyen as TVA agent Mr. Paradox.
As of Tuesday evening, the review aggregator sites had wildly divergent scores for Deadpool 3. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film’s score clocked in at 80 percent from 140 reviews, while over at Metacritic, the score was a more muted 54 percent on from 45 reviews.
Below are key excerpts from some of the most prominent early reviews.
In a mixed review for The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney writes that dedicated Deadpool fans will love the in-jokes, which are cranked up for the third installment. “As bountiful as the action scenes are here, the jokes are the sturdiest part of Deadpool & Wolverine,” Rooney writes, adding, “That’s because the plot is a lumpy stew of familiar elements, given minimal narrative clarity despite the reams of expository technobabble spouted by Matthew Macfadyen’s Mr. Paradox.”
“This is not an unmotivated crossover event,” writes Alissa Wilkinson, in her largely positive review for the New York Times. Wilkinson feels the endless jokes and goofiness works as Deadpool 3 is “self-reflective” of the corporate nature of comic book movies nowadays, but that approach has limits. “Now that this is an M.C.U. film, there are mandates. The stakes have to be absurdly high, having to do with the destruction or salvation of whole universes. More important, there must be corporate synergy,” Wilkinson writes.
Vulture critic Bilge Ebiri confesses he laughed during Deadpool 3, if somewhat begrudgingly. “Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t a particularly good movie — I’m not even sure it is a movie — but it’s so determined to beat you down with its incessant irreverence that you might find yourself submitting to it,” writes a seemingly exhausted Ebiri.
The Los Angeles Times‘ Katie Walsh felt Deadpool 3 was “for fans only.” Walsh writes the film has a “unique script, composed almost exclusively of quips, references, fourth-wall breaking, celebrity gossip, Hollywood inside baseball, jabs at other film studios, ironically retro needle drops and detritus scraped from mid-aughts movie message boards.” She adds the film will please “geeks and the terminally online” but is “whole lot of hot air and not much else.”
In a middling review, Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian felt Deadpool 3 delivered everything a fan of the franchise would want, and the film makes it clear that it shouldn’t be taken too seriously. “This is a movie which more or less orders the audience to stop taking any of the proceedings seriously, shattering the fourth wall into a million pieces with material about nerds saving their “special sock” for particular fight scenes,” writes Bradshaw. “It’s amusing and exhausting.”
Vanity Fair‘s Richard Lawson felt Deadpool 3 stuck the landing, despite being “a movie about acquisition and IP, housed in a mostly nonsensical dimension-skipping tale of regret and legacy (but in a funny way).” “The film’s gaze is narrow and insider-y, but it somehow kind of works,” writes Lawson, adding, “Deadpool & Wolverine is an amusing reflection on the recent cultural past, and a half-cynical, half-hopeful musing on what its future might be.”
In a rave, The Daily Beast‘s Nick Schager felt Deadpool 3 “does give the MCU the shot in the arm—and kick to the nuts—that’s urgently needed.” Schager writes that the film “is more amusing and electric—more alive—than any MCU installment in years, and it impressively integrates Deadpool’s distinctive R-rated personality into the decidedly PG-13 franchise.”
In another positive review, Empire critic Olly Richards writes that fans will literally s***, as Deadpool 3 “goes hard on the in-jokes and wish-fulfillment.” Despite the avalanche of jokes, Richards felt Jackman elevated the material, for a few moments at least. “While the film is ridiculous, Jackman plays Wolverine just as he always has: brimming with hurt and self-disgust. In a film with a million dick jokes, he manages to deliver a character arc that’s genuinely moving, achieving the greedy honour of a second worthy bow-out,” writes Richards.
