Deadpool & Wolverine: Death of a thousand cuts

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated R, for constant strong bloody violence, gore, relentless profanity, and crude sexual references

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.4.24

This isn’t a movie; it’s a string of crude and violent blackout sketches laced with relentless profanity and vulgar one-liners, loosely stitched to a so-called plot that’s dog-nuts even by superhero movie standards.

 

Having penetrated the Big Bad's weird lair in this aggressively deranged flick,
Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, left) and Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) realize that they
may be in over their heads...

The result is aimed squarely at arrested adolescent males and the geekiest comic book nerds ... and, judging by the opening weekend’s box office results — $438 million worldwide, shattering the previous record for an R-rated film — the folks at Marvel Studios apparently knew what they were doing.

Let’s call it a triumph of crass commercialism, while acknowledging that mainstream viewers — and even fans of the “conventional” Marvel superhero films — are advised to steer very, very clear. 

 

This gleefully atrocious burlesque wears “Tasteless” like a badge of honor. But if the wretched excess is removed — to quote Gertrude Stein — there is no there there. After the introductory title credits orgy of slashed throats, impalements, severed limbs, decapitations, gouts of blood, and relentless F-bombs, the realization that the entire film will continue in this manner, isn’t merely disheartening.

 

It’s boring. Truly.

 

The primary running joke concerns the constant squabbling and fighting between Deadpool and Wolverine, because — since both have regenerative powers — neither can be killed. Cue all manner of shooting, stabbing and bone-breaking mayhem.

 

Mildly funny the first time. Not on constant repeat.

 

Director Shawn Levy and his four co-scripters deserve mild credit for archly breaking the fourth wall and elevating meta to new heights, with foul-mouthed Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) taking cheeky real-world jabs at Disney, 20th Century Fox and all manner of pop-culture entities. It’s like a Simpsons episode on speed, and when the snarky asides and Easter Eggs arrive with such rat-a-tat intensity, some of them are bound to land. And yes, a few do.

 

But that’s pretty thin gruel, given the vehicle driving this nonsense.

 

So: The “plot,” such as it is. Fasten your seatbelts; it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

 

Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, has been trying to go straight — as a car salesman — since his previous adventures in 2018’s Deadpool 2. This effort goes awry when he’s snatched from his life on Earth 10005 by Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), a bureaucratic agent of the Time Variance Authority (TVA), responsible for monitoring all temporal law in the Marvel Comics Universe.

 

(Yes, this is a multiverse mash-up.)

American Fiction: So true, it's scary

American Fiction (2023) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated R, for brief drug use, sexual references, fleeting violence and pervasive profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.29.23

This is as scathing a slice of social commentary as 2021’s Don’t Look Up ... and just as timely and relevant.

 

With his professional life taking an increasingly chaotic turn, Monk (Jeffrey Wright)
finds joy in his slowly developing relationship with Coraline (Erika Alexander).

But director/scripter Cord Jefferson’s new film — adapted from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel, Erasure — also is a deeply personal drama about a family in crisis, with memorably sculpted characters superbly played by a talented cast.

These two qualities seem wholly at odds with each other, and yet Jefferson makes it work. The result is enthralling — by turns hilarious, heartbreaking, sensitive and blistering — from the first moment to the last.

 

And very, very clever.

 

Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) is a respected author and professor of English literature, with several thoughtful, critically acclaimed books to his credit. Alas, they’ve not sold well, much to his disappointment, and that of his agent, Arthur (John Ortiz, making the most of a small part). Worse yet, his newest manuscript has collected nothing but rejection letters.

 

The carefully worded reason, from each potential publisher? The book “isn’t Black enough.”

 

“They want a Black book,” Arthur sighs.

 

“They have one,” Monk snaps back. “I’m Black, and it’s my book!”

 

This fuels Monk’s ire over — to quote Jefferson, in the film’s press notes — American culture’s tunnel-visioned fascination with Black trauma, typified by the fact that books and films almost never portray Black doctors, professors or scientists, preferring instead to focus on Black rappers, drug addicts, gang-bangers and slaves.

 

Because that’s what sells to the white audience.

 

Monk also is impatient when it comes his students’ cultural sensitivities, insisting that only snowflakes would be bothered by a course in early fiction of the American South, which includes coverage of Flannery O’Connor’s The Artificial N- and Other Tales. This attitude doesn’t endear Monk to his departmental colleagues.

 

But the absolute worst comes when Monk’s presence on a Boston literary festival panel draws a pitifully small audience, because almost everybody is in the much larger hall that features Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), whose newly published first book, We’s Lives In Da Ghetto, has become a smash best-seller.

 

Her read-aloud excerpt makes Monk wince, since the content and fractured English clearly panders to readers seeking stereotypical stories of Black misery.

 

Watch Wright’s expression, in this scene, as Monk stands at the back of the hall. He slowly takes in the room, his gaze becoming ever more despondent, as he sees the audience hanging onto Golden’s every word. It’s a masterful moment of silent acting.

Deadpool: Gleefully revolting

Deadpool (2016) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for strong violence, gore, relentless profanity, sexual content and graphic nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.12.16

This is a flick for folks who felt the Kick-Ass movies weren’t violent enough.

And those who believe that Melissa McCarthy and Amy Schumer could be more potty-mouthed, if they worked harder at it.

Much to the disgust of companions Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand)
and Colossus, and moments before facing dozens of gun-toting thugs, Deadpool (Ryan
Reynolds) addresses his audience directly, to discuss precisely how silly everything
has been, up to this moment.

Which is to say, Deadpool is outrageously smutty, profane and gory: about as far from the usually family-friendly Marvel Universe movies as could be imagined. It’s another of those merrily anarchic Hollywood projects that makes ultra-conservatives fret about the end of Western Civilization as we know it.

It’s also rather funny at times, in a tasteless, dark-humor sort of way. But only at times; the shtick wears thin rapidly. Not even Ryan Reynolds can hold our interest with 108 minutes of nonstop mugging and smart-assery. Although — give him credit — he makes a game effort.

The character has an odd history in Marvel’s comic book world, having been introduced in the early 1990s as a villain in various X-Men titles. He gradually morphed into an amoral antihero with a back-story as an unscrupulous mercenary for hire, eventually granted the mutant power of accelerated healing at the cellular level.

Meaning, he can’t be killed in the usual sense. Bullets perforating his body, a knife to the head ... no problem. Hack off a limb, and it regenerates, like a lizard’s tail.

You can imagine what today’s unrestrained special effects wizards can make of that gimmick ... and director Tim Miller — a CGI/VFX designer/producer making his feature directorial debut here — is just the guy to orchestrate the requisite mayhem.

But messy invulnerability isn’t Deadpool’s primary characteristic; he’s best known for his refusal to acknowledge his role as a member of the tightly plotted Marvel Universe. Deadpool knows that he’s a comic book character; he frequently breaks the fourth wall and addresses the readers, or indulges in arguments with the writers who concoct his word balloons.

In that sense, Deadpool is a smug and sassy, 21st century update of Marvel's equally cynical 1970s icon, Howard the Duck. Deadpool also upsets the “regular” Marvel superheroes, who can’t be their usual, carefully scripted selves with this loose cannon shredding the pages.

I’m also reminded of Jasper Fforde’s marvelously whimsical novels, with heroine Thursday Next as a “literary detective” who can jump into classic books, interact with their characters, and even change the endings of stories we know and love. Except that, well, Deadpool is a lot nastier. And more callous. And unapologetically juvenile.

And ... you get the idea.