Deadpool & Wolverine review: Could Wade Wilson actually be Marvel's messiah?

However, the MCU’s fortunes have faltered since 2019 and the $2 billion heyday of Avengers: Endgame. Audiences and takings are down, with last year’s The Marvels barely making $200 million and already announced titles delayed by years.

Deadpool & Wolverine is the only MCU film out this year, so the notion that Ryan Reynolds’s lewd, rude Merc with a Mouth will be Disney-Marvel’s saviour is not a ludicrous one.

Indeed, Reynolds spells it out with typical fourth-wall-smashing gusto from the start, when he declares himself the 'Marvel Jesus' after being enlisted to help the Time Variance Authority with their multiversal problems.

Followers of the Loki TV series will already know about the TVA and its mission to protect the Multiverse by trimming failing alternate realities.

But when Wade Wilson (aka Deadpool) realises TVA agent Mr Paradox (played by Succession star Matthew Macfadyen) is threatening the lives of his friends and his lover (Morena Baccarin), he decides he will need muscular assistance from iconic X-Man the Wolverine (a welcome return for Hugh Jackman).

But, hold on. Wasn’t Logan in 2017 the final chapter for Jackman’s ageing mutant mauler? Well, yes and no, as we see from the bloody, all-action opening when Wade revisits Logan’s final resting place in the hope his healing factor might have kicked in.

Let’s just say Wade must look elsewhere in the multiverse, so we get the chance to check out a range of Wolverine variants that will be familiar to many a longtime comic book fan.

Eventually, it’s a bitter, booze-guzzling Logan – "the worst Wolverine" - who is persuaded to help, and then this very funny, action-packed romp hurtles into its own as the pair bicker and battle with each other and nearly everyone else they meet after they are dumped into The Void, an inter-dimensional dumping ground ruled over by psychic psycho Cassandra Nova (The Crown’s Emma Corrin).

Here, the self-aware send-ups come thick and fast – the duo fight in the rubble of the 20th Century Fox logo – as do some genuinely gob-smacking cameos and callbacks to Marvel’s cinematic history.

The wanton slice-and-dice violence, expletives on tap and throwaway gibes at the likes of Kevin Feige and the Furiosa film quell any concerns Deadpool may get Disneyfied.

Admittedly, the in-jokes and quickfire banter may not travel so well for the uninitiated punter, but like Airplane!, there is enough pithy patter and gags (deftly delivered by director Shawn Levy) to leave you smiling or laughing out loud.

Meanwhile, Reynolds is at his impish best, and he has the perfect foil in a suitably gruff Jackman, who provides timely gravitas among all the mirth and mayhem.

Time (and billion-dollar box office targets) will tell if Deadpool is indeed the saviour of the MCU and can get lots of bums onto lots of seats.

Or will this third outing be just a filip before the release of Captain America: Brave New World in February 2025, which will see Anthony Mackie take on the mantle of the star-spangled Avenger? Roll on next year.

Deadpool & Wolverine is out now.

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