So here we are, 25 years into the superhero boom. Audiences are losing interest, everything is a convoluted multiverse story filled with Easter Eggs for the fans, superheroes are in a rut. We need Deadpool to do a wisecracking comedy where he keeps talking to the audience about those very things. Or, someone could just make a good superhero movie, but let’s be serious here, that ain’t gonna happen.

I’ll say upfront that I went into this with an attitude, expecting to absolutely hate it, and I ended up liking it more than I expected. Most of the jokes land. I literally L’dOL at least 10 times. Ryan Reynolds, an actor who I have never enjoyed in anything other than these films, is an absolute star when he’s playing Deadpool. But WHY in the NAME of GOD is this over two hours long???

It’s not just the length. It’s that when we reach the third act, after they’ve spent 90 minutes mocking these movies, we’re expected to be invested in the climax. They actually make us go through the whole final battle and emotional denouement as if it were “a real movie.” It’s like an SNL sketch where the joke was funny for maybe a minute, but it has to keep going for five to finish its arc.

And actually, along those same lines, that fucking “Time of Your Life” montage at the end has the same cake-and-eat-it problem, ironically referencing the use of this song in sentimental montages (as it has been used since the Seinfeld finale), while also expecting you to feel sentimental about it. (To be fair, the target audience for this stuff is at least 15 years younger than me, so maybe it works better if those movies were actually a part of your youth). Poor Billy Joe Armstrong, his nice little sad song saddled with all this corniness by pop culture.

And all that might have been ok if I felt like this was a fun little diversion before the next great superhero movie, but I watched all the trailers they played before it, and that’s just not how it’s gonna be. Also, the CGI blood splatters will always look like shit.

Still, a 4:00 show where we were the only people in the whole theater is a great way to get out of the heat for two hours. Four stars for that!