Late Stage Capitalism: The Movie. I feel like I fell out of the coconut tree reading the insanely glowing hyperbolic reviews of this flick - I have to remember Deadpool & Wolverine exists in the context of all in which the MCU lived and whatever the heck came before it . . . actually, no. This barely hints or connects to the previous Deadpool films and besides old Wolvie (who isn't even the 20th Century Fox Wolvie) it has no bearing or connections to ye' old foxy X-Men. Don't let that emotional oddly out-of-place end montage fool you, it's a 0% goodbye to the initial X-Men film franchise.

I'm 100% the demo' this is geared towards. I grew up on X-Men comics (my Mom just sent me all my old boxes of them from the homestead), and I've also been consistently fascinated/entertained by the MCU theatrical/streaming soap opera experiment - - but this forced fuck fun left me feeling empty, and used. I'm not trying to piss in anybody's Kellog's Corn Flakes, I want any 'n all who enter the big screen arena to leave with a big old smile on their face and to feel entertained, I just didn't, and that's ok.

Don't let the R rating trick ya' this one is aimed squarely at the kids' set, and 12-year-old me woulda lappppeedd this Disney pasteurized milk all the way up. As an adult, it gave me a bit of exhausted indigestion. Its meta-ness (which makes the Scream franchise sequels seem nuanced and subtle) isn't satirical nor spoof (you can be neither if you are just witlessly narrating what is happening onscreen). Its "heart" or earnestness is contrived and never meshes with the fourth wall breaking. HAHAH, penis! HAHAHA, Marvel sucks cause incels told me so! HAHAHA, there's that thing from that other thing but it's not even that thing!

This isn't a narrative film; it's a souvenir program, a reprogram, a cheekily winded lament, an ugly rushed CGI self-flagellation orgy of nada, a hollow exit strategy, a random series of pointless dedications. A movie made solely for opening night to get 'em easy jeers and eyes off previous jeers. The best movie I could compare this to is Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. A comic-con fan flick montage, not an actual story, it's meant to be a hug towards certain folks. Easy slurpy soup. That's ok as well, just frustrating seeing this get applause when we've had two of the best projects Marvel Entertainment has ever done (X-Men '97 and season 2 of Loki) recently released and glazed over.

The two stars do what they've always done and keep the written on-the-day-of script afloat, their performances range from serviceable to gnarly. There are some fun easter eggs for fans but if you have never visited this IP . . . get out.

The entire movie is a messy metaphor and tribute (?) to two giant media conglomerates converging and saying their bygones; the void being Disney, the "anchor beings" being two giant overpaid stars. Frankly, I have no desire to cheer on corporations for creating a feature-length unnecessary apology for not bending over and catering sooner to Annie Wilkes levels of fandom terrorism. A ravenous fandom stuck in arrested development wanting nothing to change, variety to be still, genre expansion to cease, and true representation of our diverse world to be limited. If they truly want the MCU to continue to grow, maybe they need to stop stunting its growth.