Movie Review: Deadpool and Wolverine - Reunited And It Feels So Good

It's been a crazy 15 years for Ryan Reynolds when it comes to superhero movies. He debuted as Wade Wilson in Hugh Jackman's first solo Wolverine movie with the promise of a Deadpool spin-off film. When that stalled, he jumped ship to DC to star in the Green Lantern movie but it failed to entice critics or fans. Years after that, "someone" leaked Deadpool test footage and the positive fan response lead to Fox finally moving production forward. And despite a limited budget given, the first Deadpool film became one of the most successful superhero films of all time, giving Ryan his first win in the genre and getting a sequel just as well received. Ryan would be hopeful for a third film where he would reunite with Jackman's Wolverine. But with Jackman's retirement from the role after "Logan" and the purchase of Fox by Disney, such a project would be in question. But if Marvel Studios has proven anything in almost two decades, it's that they know what the fans want to see. Ryan would bring Deadpool 3 to the MCU and he had Hugh Jackman along for the ride. The result was well worth the wait as "Deadpool and Wolverine" reunite for a pivotal film in both Marvel and (Fo)X-Men universes.

There was worry with Deadpool joining the MCU that the franchise would be toned down or "Disnified" to match the other films and shows. Well we are rest assured from the first action scene alone that Deadpool will be as violent, vulgar, perverted, and demented as before and possibly more so. Beneath all the gratuitous violence though is a story full of heart as Wade and Logan both go on emotional journeys. Despite their homicidal tendencies, they both prove to be true heroes when push comes to shove.
Intertwining the MCU and X-Men universes via the Multiverse Saga and Time Variance Authority (TVA) was done quite simply in the film, and they even play into recent troubles the franchise has been enduring. Thankfully the TVA is explained in a way that "Loki" isn't necessary viewing beforehand compared to how "Multiverse of Madness" and "The Marvels" follows up their preceding shows. It leads to a much more epic scale compared to the previous Deadpool movies. While I still think the first film is the best due to its unique style, "Deadpool and Wolverine" is a very close second. Plus, it's full of references and easter eggs that will have you pointing at the screen like the Leonardo DiCaprio meme half the time.

Out of the massive cast for the film, a big standout is Emma Corrin as the villainous Cassandra Nova, the pruned villainous twin sister of Charles Xavier. Corrin is a joy to watch as she portrays a sadist version of her brother with a love for control and dismemberment.

While it doesn't reach the levels of "Endgame" or "No Way Home", "Deadpool and Wolverine" acts as the send-off for both the X-Men film universe and Fox era of Marvel films altogether. Despite the ups and downs, tribute is given for their place in both Marvel and film history. The fact that even "Fant4stic" gets a nod shows there's (mostly) no ill will towards an outside studio holding on to character rights for so long.

"Deadpool and Wolverine" is entertaining from beginning to end, giving Marvel fans of all types much to love and proving the MCU isn't as dead as some would like to believe. Hopefully with "Secret Wars" just around the corner, we won't have to wait too long for Wade and Logan's next outing.

Movie Review: "Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths" - Worlds' End

 

At the end of "Apokolips War", Constantine convinced the Flash to reset the timeline to ensure Earth's survival. This resulted in the DC Animated Movie Universe being rebooted, both from a production standpoint and what would turn out to be in-universe as well. Named after the initial film "Superman: Man of Tomorrow", the Tomorrowverse would become the shared universe within DC's line of animated films. Initially put off by the change in animation style, I was impressed enough with "Batman: The Long Halloween" to give the rest of the universe a shot. The results have been mixed, ranging from pretty good to so bad that I completely lost interest by the third act *cough*Warworld*cough*. Given "Long Halloween" is the only movie of this universe I've covered, it's felt like such a downgrade from what came before that I can't even muster a post about the other five films. But now we've reached the end of the Tomorrowverse with "Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths." Arguably the biggest story in DC history, this warranted not just a two-part adaptation like what's come before, but three. On one hand, it doesn't feel like the Tomorrowverse adapting this story was earned, especially since the Arrowverse spent seven years building up to their version. And yet, they pulled it off spectacularly.

It could be considered a challenge to adapt "Crisis on Infinite Earths" within the context of both the 2020's and a pre-existing universe and still keep the spirit of Marv Wolfman and the late George Perez's original story. The Arrowverse did a good job adapting it in their own ways, paying off its own running plotlines and having tributes to past live action DC adaptations. But the Tomorrowverse hits all the significant points that made the original "Crisis" so memorable, even helping fill some gaps within its own films. The films are full of DC characters not just well known but feature many others that hadn't appeared before in the Tomorrowverse or the DC animated movie line in at all, paying tribute to DC's long history just as the comic did. A good chunk of them have no speaking lines, but there's a good portion who get some significant spotlight. This helps add some weight to the emotional moments and the character deaths. While it's hard to feel anything for death in superhero comics these days (especially when you have characters like Kamala Khan dying and coming back within three months), death has meaning in these films and feels as impactful like they did back in the 80's and early 90's. I think Wolfman and Perez would be proud.
There's a sense of epicness these three films have compared to the rest of the DC animated movie line. All three go well past the 90 minute mark that's usually the cap for these films, somewhat making them more feature length by comparison and result in a nearly five hour combined runtime. It's a true film trilogy in the sense of "Lord of the Rings" and has a comic book event feel compared to "Infinity War".

There are minor problems, from certain story elements and what I feel can be attributed to some behind the scenes politics. Going back to what I said about initially feeling adapting the story felt unearned, keep in mind these are the eighth through tenth films of the Tomorrowverse (and seventh story when you combine these three films and the Long Halloween two-parter). There's a sense they were kind rushing toward the end.
I would say "Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths" is the most ambitious animated DC project in recent memory, and it seemed like it had to be. Not only does this mark the end of the Tomorrowverse and the DC Animated Movie Universe, but the DC Universe Animated Original Movie line of films that began all the way back in 2007 altogether. As James Gunn works to consolidate all forms of media for his rebooted cinematic DC Universe, the animated movie line seems to have reached its conclusion. That's not to say there may not be stand-alone animated films anymore, but just not as frequently. If so, adapting "Crisis on Infinite Earths" allowed them to go out with a big bang.

And in case anyone was curious about my Tomorrowverse Rankings:
1. Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths
2. Batman: The Long Halloween
3. Justice Society: World War II
4. Green Lantern: Beware My Power
5. Superman: Man of Tomorrow
6. Legion of Super-Heroes
7. Justice League: Warworld

Lastly, I'd be remiss to say that this film marked the final performance of Kevin Conroy as Batman before he passed away in 2022. This moment ended up being a perfect sendoff (especially compared to a certain video game) and somewhat fitting because the animated movie line began after the conclusion of "Justice League Unlimited" and the original DC Animated Universe that began in 1992 with "Batman: The Animated Series". You'll never be forgotten, Kevin.

What if John Cena and Batista Didn't Switch WWE Brands in 2005?

"What if?" isn't just a question to flesh out in total works of fiction. The world of professional wrestling and sports entertainment can also have lingering questions of how things could have turned out had creative decisions gone a different direction or outside forces hadn't interrupted well laid plans. With this post, I'm going to try a thought experiment and take us all the way back to 2005.
Before I talked about their comic book inspired appearances, John Cena and Batista walked parallel paths as rookie wrestlers in WWE that lead to both winning world championships at WrestleMania 21 in 2005. Two months later with the annual draft in perhaps the biggest shake-up to the brand separation yet, John Cena (and by extension the WWE Championship) was moved to Raw while World Heavyweight Champion Batista became the top star on SmackDown. However, what if these superstars and their championships remained where they were and how would this impact the WWE? For the sake of this experiment, I'm going to cover the pay-per-view events following the 2005 draft up to WrestleMania 22, which is kind of like the season finale to a year's worth of WWE programming.

To start, there's the question of who would fill Cena and Batista's draft spots. I believe the change would be John Bradshaw Layfield going to Raw while Chris Jericho would go to SmackDown. Not only were these the rivalries that played out in actual events, but JBL going to Raw would save us from another few months of his rivalry with Cena which already culminated in their "I Quit" match at Judgment Day 2005.
Going into the SmackDown exclusive Great American Bash, Cena would defend the WWE Championship against Jericho, but would end in disqualification for a Jericho victory. This would lead to a No Holds Barred rematch at SummerSlam where Cena would retain the title. At the same event, Batista would retain his World Heavyweight Championship against JBL.

Batista would then enter a rivalry with Kurt Angle over the World title that would last up until November. Their match at the Raw exclusive Unforgiven would end in a DQ in Angle's favor, Shawn Michaels would enter the fray for a triple threat match at Raw's Taboo Tuesday event where Batista would win, and Batista would finally put away Angle at Survivor Series.
Over on SmackDown, Cena would retain the WWE title against Eddie Guerrero at their No Mercy event (which would also be Eddie's last PPV before his untimely death). After that, Cena would become involved in the Raw/SmackDown feud that had been brewing in the last quarter of the year. Much like Batista did at Taboo Tuesday, Cena would face Raw announcer Jonathan Coachman in a Street Fight. Following that, Cena would lead Team SmackDown against Team Raw in a 5-on-5 Classic Survivor Series tag team elimination match, which the former would win. Another interpromotional match would occur at SmackDown's Armageddon event where Cena and Rey Mysterio would face Big Show and Kane in a tag team match but ultimately lose.

Going into 2006 with Raw's New Year's Revolution event, Batista would retain his World title in a grueling Elimination Chamber match. But much like the real event immediately after the match, Edge would cash in his Money in the Bank contract he won at WrestleMania 21 that guaranteed him a world championship match at any time of his choosing. Edge would defeat the weary Batista easily to secure his first ever world championship.

Aside from the JBL and Jericho draft picks, you've probably noticed much of this is just swapping Cena and Batista for where they were on the other show. But here's where things get murky and I get a little more creative. In actual events, Batista was injured in a cage match with Mark Henry in January 2006 and had to vacate the World Heavyweight Championship which Kurt Angle would win in a battle royal; Batista wouldn't return to in-ring action until July of that year. For the sake of this post though, and the fact that he's competing against a different set of wrestlers in this scenario, we're going to keep Batista around as if the injury never occurred.

We now head into the Royal Rumble event and the road to WrestleMania 22 beginning. Similar to the actual event, Batista would regain the World title from Edge while Cena would defeat Mark Henry to retain the WWE title. However, in my biggest deviation to events yet, Randy Orton would win the Royal Rumble match to earn a world championship match at WrestleMania.
Now I realize in actual events that Rey Mysterio winning the Rumble was a big moment on his road to winning the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania in honor of Eddie Guerrero's memory, being one of his best friends. On the WWE title side though, John Cena retained against Triple H, who got the title match after winning a number one contender's tournament. In this scenario of events, I wouldn't want to do a rematch between him and Batista immediately one year later; their rivalry played out the year before and I think it would take away from their eventual rematch years later at WrestleMania 35. I thought about Batista facing another person involved in that tournament, but each of them were already involved in a match at WrestleMania 22. For the sake of something different, I'd have Orton win the Rumble and move to Raw so he can challenge Batista for the World title; it does help that this was a match kicked around by creative before Batista's injury. And don't worry, Rey would still earn a world title match; he'd just probably win his own number one contender's tournament at SmackDown's No Way Out event for the WWE Championship match at WrestleMania.
Also at No Way Out, Cena would retain the WWE title against the Undertaker, partially due to interference from Raw's Kurt Angle.

And so WrestleMania 22 arrives and while much of the matches remain relatively the same, here's where my course of events would bring differences:
* After costing him the WWE title at No Way Out, Undertaker would set his sights on Kurt Angle and the two would have an interpromotional match that would be comparable to their bout at the actual 2006 No Way Out, but with Undertaker winning and continuing the streak.
* At the actual event, Shawn Michaels was in a feud with Vince McMahon and defeated him in a No Holds Barred match. But with Triple H out of the world title picture in this scenario, he would become involved in the feud and this would instead lead into a tag match with Michaels and Triple H against Vince and his son, Shane. As the two had been enemies for years at this point, Michaels and Triple H would go into WrestleMania seemingly as reluctant partners. But at the event, the two would surprise most everyone by coming out as a reunited D-Generation X (just imagine the crowd pop as the theme music would hit), something that wouldn't actually happen until the summer of that year. DX would go on to beat the McMahons in their grand return.
* As explained earlier, former Evolution teammates Batista and Randy Orton would go head-to-head for the World Heavyweight Championship. Batista ultimately wins as behind the scenes, Orton wasn't deemed ready for another world title run yet.
* Rey Mysterio would then take on John Cena for the WWE Championship in the main event for what I think would be a good match between friends that would also be in honor of Eddie. Rey would win the title and while it ends Cena's year long reign as champion, the two celebrate along with the crowd as the night ends.

And that's how I think things would have happened. At the very least, I think it would have made an already good WrestleMania even better. I had some fun thinking this through, so let me know if you agree with my creative choices or if you're happy with how things actually turned out.