Film review: Deadpool & Wolverine is for fans of inventive carnage and lashings of gore 

Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman's new film is easily the most irreverent superhero movie to date 

Ryan Reynolds is irrepressible as the foul-mouthed Deadpool and Hugh Jackman is good value as the grizzled Wolverine. Picture: Jay Maidment

• Deadpool & Wolverine
• ★★★★☆
• Cinematic release

Odd couple movies usually generate their fair share of bickering and mutual animosity, but when the odd couple are Deadpool & Wolverine (16s), the enmity quickly takes on a lethal quality, despite both heroes being essentially unkillable.

Having discovered that the Time Variance Authority (TVA) plans to wipe out his universe to preserve ‘the sacred timeline’, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) finds himself obliged to resurrect his old nemesis Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to do battle with the TVA’s Mr Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) and Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), the fearsome queen who rules over the Void where unwanted and outdated superheroes are dispatched to live a purgatorial existence.

All of which, of course, is merely an excuse to unleash the anti-superhero Deadpool and his knowing, sarky commentary on the excesses of the superhero genre, and in this the movie doesn’t disappoint, with Deadpool, the self-proclaimed ‘Marvel Jesus’ appointed to save the multiverse from itself, in scabrous form once more.

Easily the most irreverent superhero movie to date, the story – co-written by Reynolds, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, with Shawn Levy directing – pushes too hard against the fourth wall at times, and can feel smugly self-congratulatory.

That said, if you’re a fan of inventive carnage and lashings of gore, Deadpool & Wolverine delivers in spades.

Hugh Jackman is good value as the grizzled Wolverine (or a version of same), Ryan Reynolds is irrepressible as the foul-mouthed Deadpool, and there’s a whole host of cameos filling out the roles of minor and forgotten superheroes.