I have loved the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) over the years, but since the Infinity Gauntlet Saga ended with Avengers: Endgame, the once-dominant box office juggernaut has struggled to maintain its relevance.
While Marvel has had some recent hits, like Loki, other projects like the Captain Marvel sequel The Marvels and the Disney-plus series Secret Invasion failed to strike a chord with audiences.
Unfortunately, Marvel was just pushing out too much content, with three or more movies and Disney-plus series a year.
In all honestly, Marvel and the mouse-house pushing out that many projects led to two major issues; poor quality and superhero fatigue.
Between 2021 and 2023, three years, Marvel released 25 titles, including the much-maligned She-Hulk: Attorney at Law which was criticized for its poor special effects, though I will be honest, I actually enjoyed that one.
Over the last couple of years, the Marvel projects have taken such losses for the company that late in 2023 it was announced that the company would be revising its release strategy for 2024, only releasing four titles total, one on the big screen and three on the small screen.
While I have yet to catch up on the small-screen offerings – my other half and I are still watching the slow-burn Secret Invasion – we decided to jump the queue and take in this year's silver-screen offering, Deadpool & Wolverine.
Deadpool & Wolverine pleasantly surprised me; with the hype surrounding the film, I was dubious as to whether or not the film could live up to it, particularly with it being the Merc with the Mouth's first outing in the MCU.
To me anyway, the film exceeded all expectations, though a word of warning, it is most definitively a Deadpool movie.
A fan of the previous movies created under the previous Fox banner will most definitely be a fan of Deadpool & Wolverine.
On the other hand, those who are easily offended by foul language and sexual innuendo or are squeamish at gratuitous violence should probably give this movie a miss, though I will note that my wife, who is not a fan of extreme amounts of bloodshed in film had no problem with this one.
Something to keep in mind with Deadpool & Wolverine is, that despite it being a Marvel film, it is also a solid R rating.
One thing I did like about the movie was that while having a knowledge of the MCU, particularly the Disney-plus series Loki, and what has come before was beneficial, it was not completely necessary for you to enjoy it.
While I am not going to get into spoiler-territory, I would say that with some of the cameos in the film, a knowledge of the Fox-era superhero films might be even more important than the knowledge of the MCU, though really, I would say the only required watching pre-this movie are the first two Deadpools.
I loved Deadpool & Wolverine, and if this is a sign of what the future of Marvel's new release strategy has to offer, I'm all in.
-Kevin Sabo is the editor of the Stettler Independent and a journalist for Black Press Media.
