Cinema Dispatch: Deadpool & Wolverine

Deadpool & Wolverine and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by Shawn Levy

Everyone’s sick of the MCU until they aren’t, and if the box office is anything to go by, then it looks like Marvel Fatigue has officially ended as this is making quite a pretty penny for Disney. Then again, both these characters were major stars well before Disney got a hold of them, so the success of this movie came as no surprise to anyone; even those who’ve declared the MCU to be over a dozen times already. Still, were they right to be skeptical about Deadpool entering the MCU, or does his third outing deliver on what makes this character great along with bringing in truckloads of cash? Let’s find out!!

It’s been six years since the last Deadpool movie, and it seems that Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) has spent that time doing everything except being Deadpool. He’s got a new job, he’s broken up with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), and he’s even moved in with his landlord (Leslie Uggams) who’s still doing a lot of drugs while Wade has gone straight-edge. This odd change in the status quo hasn’t gone over his friends’ heads, but before they can really confront him about it at his birthday party, he gets kidnapped by none other than the Time Variance Authority (TVA) who believe him to be a valuable asset and want to move him to a different universe before his own gets destroyed. Not exactly a great birthday present if you ask me, and Wade seems to agree as he runs off and recruits a Wolverine from another universe (Hugh Jackman) to help him fix whatever has gone so disastrously wrong and save all his friends in the process. Can the sullen and taciturn guy with the claws help Deadpool save the world, especially when he’s so thoroughly irritated by Deadpool’s jokes and goofy attitude? What led to Deadpool putting up the tights for so long, and can he find a way to fix himself as well as the universe he calls home? Seriously, do these two actually hate each other, or is this just some elaborate form of foreplay?

“Is that a bullet in your kidney, or are you just happy to see me?”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Deadpool & Wolverine”

Cinema Dispatch: Logan

logancd0

Logan and all the images you see in this review are owned by 20th Century Fox

Directed by James Mangold

Dude has been playing this character since the turn of the millennium.  It’s no wonder he looks so damn tired in this!  For many people, the first X-Men (as well as Blade in 1998) can be pointed to as the start of the modern superhero genre as a mainstream endeavor instead of the one off success stories like Batman and Superman.  Sure, Superheroes have ALWAYS been a part of the film industry (There only maybe a dozen or so fewer superhero movies made in the nineties as in the decade that followed) but with X-Men it proved that more modern and varied superheroes had a shot at connecting with a wider audience; especially with powerhouse actors like Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and Hugh Jackman on hand to sell it to them.  I mean say what you will for the X-Men film franchise in general, it’s managed to have a decent amount of staying power with a solid decade lead on the MCU.  For all its ups and downs, it’s stayed pretty popular to this day and that’s double true for Jackman’s portrayal of Wolverine.  However, all good things inevitably come to an end, and this movie is here to remind us all of that fact as Hugh Jackman swears this is the last time we will see him in this role.  So is it a proper send off for the role that started a global phenomenon, or has all semblances of life and effort left his franchise a long time ago like it has to the main character in this movie?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Old Man Logan (Hugh Jackman) barely scraping by as a limo driver who ALWAYS seems to run into assholes wherever he goes.  Maybe those Adamantium claws of his are magnetized to attract douche bags or maybe it’s because he parks his fancy ass car in gang territory.  Either way, he’s living the Max Payne dream of self-loathing, self-medication, and self-assurance that nothing is going to get better no matter what.  At the very least, he IS managing to take care of Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) who’s stuck with him after some incident about a year ago that no one is too keen to bring up and to make matters worse he seems to have a degenerative brain disease that is making his powers unstable as well as his memories.  With a stable job and the responsibilities of taking care of Charles, somewhat helped by a new friend of theirs named Caliban (Stephen Merchant), he’s at least managing to put off putting an Adamantium bullet in his head from the time being, though I’m pretty sure the OTHER X-Men movie confirmed it WOULDN’T kill him if he did that.  However, if everyone else is still okay with pretending that one didn’t exist, then so am I.  Of course, things can’t stay that way for long as a little girl named Laura (Dafne Keen) enters the mix and throws all their lives into chaos.  See, apparently mutants stopped being born a few decades ago, and most of the ones who are still alive have died off for one reason or another.  Laura though is herself a mutant, and not just any mutant to boot.  Her powers are almost exactly that of Logan’s and there are a lot of people that want her dead.  And so the chase is on with Logan reluctantly dragging both Laura and Xavier (Caliban isn’t so lucky) through the United States to find some sort of refuge in Canada from the evil organization hunting them down and to possibly find some shred of redemption for the life that he led.  Can Logan complete this one last mission before finally finding the peace that has eluded him for so long?  Where exactly did this girl come from, and how is she a mutant in a world where they are effectively extinct?  Seriously, does every Dad FigureTM nowadays have to have those beards!?

logancd1
It’s not even like he needs to find a razor to shave it!  Even if he cuts himself with his Adamantium claws, it’s not like he wouldn’t heal right away!

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Logan”