*SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*
Your experience with Deadpool & Wolverine will vary wildly depending on your expectations.
If you’re craving a strong story comparable to the upper half of MCU fare, albeit with more jokes, you’re likely going to have a middling time at best.
If you’re instead looking for R-rated violence, self-aware meta humor that often satirizes the MCU, and fan-servicing cameos aplenty, then you’ll be very happy.
The challenge for an MCU Deadpool was always going to be two-fold: one, would Disney allow an unabashedly R-rated character to exist in its universe? I can safely report that the Deadpool we get this time out is every bit as raunchy and profane as the one we saw in the Fox outings.
Two, how do you incorporate a character like this into an existing cinematic universe that (She-Hulk aside) does not break the fourth wall? Will the tone work, and, probably more importantly, does Deadpool as a character “break” the MCU? Here, the results are inconclusive.
After watching She-Hulk, my final verdict was that the Disney+ show was watchable, but, despite crossovers with existing core MCU characters, it would basically need to be treated as non-canon. To some extent, I wound up in a similar place watching Deadpool & Wolverine, but the film side-steps the issue a bit by having Deadpool interact almost exclusively with Fox Marvel characters. His only extended interaction with an “Earth-616” character comes in a scene with Happy Hogan.
This scene makes little sense, by the way, as there’s no clear explanation for how Deadpool is even able to reach Earth-616 in 2018, aside from the assumption that Cable’s gadget from Deadpool 2 did the trick. But that gap in the plot speaks to the larger point about this movie: the story really isn’t that important. Nor is it intended to be particularly tight (and, trust me, it is not). Deadpool is absurd by design, and the jokes work best as standalone meta comedy, rather than James Gunn-style, story-based humor.
As such, Deadpool & Wolverine winds up less as Deadpool’s bridge to the MCU (it really isn’t, in fact!) and more of an expletive-filled love letter to Deadpool fans, as well as a surprisingly sincere farewell to Fox’s now-dead Marvel universe.
The jokes are too numerous to mention, but my favorite actually comes in the opening scene. While Deadpool takes cover behind a fallen treed, A TVA trooper gives a little speech informing Deadpool that he’s under arrest. As the speech unfolds, Deadpool groans and says “Ugh. Death by day player.”
Other favorites included Deadpool’s commentary on Gambit’s dialect coach, Elektra not lamenting the death of Daredevil, and Deadpool inexplicably wasting time by taunting Logan with gags through the window of the security door in the climactic scene.
Bringing back a host of Fox characters and actors was also a treat, especially Chris Evans, Jennifer Garner, Wesley Snipes, and Channing Tatum (finally getting to play Gambit). Most of all, Dafne Keen returns as X-23 to provide tonal assistance to Hugh Jackman, who does almost all of the heavy lifting in this movie, acting-wise.
Ultimately, where you rank this film in the Deadpool franchise will depend on how much you value the “I-can’t-believe-Disney-let-them-do-that” aspect of many of the jokes, including barbs that gently criticize the current slump of multiverse-mired MCU films. If that scenario sounds especially appealing to you, this entry probably winds up at #1. Reynolds is a comedic home run, Jackman is a superb actor as always, and his constant annoyance with Deadpool is very entertaining.
For me, the original Deadpool is still the best. It was not only very inventive, but it also had a much more complete story. As noted, the story in Deadpool & Wolverine is an afterthought—basically a delivery system for more fourth-wall-breaking bits. The story doesn’t really “fit” with any existing canon, but it’s probably not supposed to. Example: Logan explicitly took place in 2029, but, for the sake of the “using Logan’s corpse to kill TVA troops” gag, it all implicitly happens in or before 2024.
Not only that, but the entire idea of an “anchor being” is painfully contrived, even by superhero movie standards. However, without that contrivance, I suppose the movie can’t happen.
There’s also no real reason that Paradox pulls Deadpool out of his native reality in the first place. He vaguely tells Deadpool he’s “special,” and that he’ll add him to the “sacred” timeline (616), but there’s no explanation beyond that. This problem could have been fixed very easily by telling Deadpool that he has some kind of “meta-consciousness” that allows him to perceive events and realities beyond the one he occupies.
This would not only explain why Paradox wanted to save Deadpool from his universe’s destruction, it would also clarify the origin of Deadpool’s fourth-wall breaks in a way that makes sense and fits nicely within the existing MCU. In a nutshell, Deadpool has the ability to intuit that there is a larger reality / other realities and reacts to that in real time. To the other people around him, he simply looks slightly insane. All of that would take care of the second problem I described above.
Given its minimal interaction with the mainline MCU, unless you count the TVA from Loki, I would even go as far as to say that Deadpool still hasn’t really joined the MCU. We’ll probably have to wait until the next Avengers movie to see Deadpool truly join the MCU. If nothing else, though, Deadpool & Wolverine was a funny, fitting send-off for the Fox Marvel universe. And that’s more than enough.
A few hours after Election Day 2020, with the notion of a “stolen” vote already the hottest topic in politics, I 
[**Spoilers**]
Christopher Nolan is my favorite director. He is one of the few filmmakers whose name alone is enough to get me to the theater. In fact, he may be the only one.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
It has taken me eight-and-a-half years, but the cinematic odyssey that began in early 2014 has come to a close.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
The Axis of Ego 
2024 Election Spoiler Alert!
It’s a beautiful thing to witness, isn’t it? Filled with civic pride and patriotism, I’ll cast my ballot today here in Virginia, waving to my fellow citizens as I enter and exit my polling place. Wishing them a great day, I’ll smile and exchange a knowing nod with Americans whose own partisan preferences pale in comparison with the feeling of shared cultural norms and commonality during this most “holy” of secular rituals.
Ok, maybe that’s not exactly true, but let’s get down to brass tacks: who’s gonna win this thing?
I have some thoughts. Five, to be specific.
1. Polls matter, but not when they’re this close. Count me among those who question the reliability of polls in recent cycles, but I don’t reject polls per se. What I mean is—I totally accept the science of statistical analysis and polling. It’s just that every poll showing a virtual tie or a one-percent margin to either side doesn’t tell us much. So, yes, we can say confidently that Harris is going to win Illinois and Trump is going to win Ohio, but polling alone isn’t helpful in indicating the ultimate outcome in the states that will determine the election.
2. Other, more marginal indicators (“tells”) do matter, I think. Something new is happening in 2024. I haven’t seen Democrats run toward Trump in any of the prior “Trump” election cycles, from 2016 through 2022. Until this year, Democrats have always run away from Trump (and demonized him), rather than tying themselves to him or using him in a positive way. But Bob Casey and Tammy Baldwin are doing just that. To be clear, many Democrats (especially Harris) are obviously still running “Orange Man Bad” strategies. But if these swing-state Dems in close Senate races thought Trump were a net negative, they wouldn’t dare invoke his name in anything resembling a favorable light. That’s why I think Trump will win both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, albeit narrowly.
3. “Trump,” as a political concept, has been largely normalized. Even his critics would probably (begrudgingly) agree that the the median voter is now desensitized to the stylistic chaos and bluster that surrounds Trump. I would go so far as to say that a decent percentage of voters who couldn’t stomach voting for him in 2016 now, eight years later, are either willing to hold their nose and do so, or actually find him amusing or likable and will enthusiastically support him. Most of what seemed shocking in 2015 or 2017 or even 2020 has now been habituated by the American public. Further undermining the apocalyptic warnings about Trump is the fact that we already have four years of data of him as president! All of that matters, as the cries of “Trump is Hitler” don’t carry as much weight as they did in prior years—except to zealots and would-be assassins, I guess.
4. Media influence is at an all-time low. This is not to say it’s nonexistent. The media’s pivot from “Biden should drop Kamala” to “Kamala is a good candidate” as soon as she ascended to the nomination resulted in a significant popularity surge. But people largely distrust the media, with even Democrats’ trust level slipping to 54 percent. More importantly, independents are at a mere 27 percent (Republicans are down to 12). This matters because slanted framing or blatant bias has less influence on voters than it did even just a few years ago, which helps Trump.
5. Social media suppression is less prevalent. The well-documented suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election rightfully raised the ire of many. And both the public and the companies involved learned an important lesson about trusting “experts” and suppression of speech. Moreover, the purchase of X (formerly Twitter) by Elon Musk, coupled with the admission (and regret) by Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook’s role in content removal, have created an environment in which it is much more difficult for outside forces to suppress narratives unhelpful to their cause. Just recently, the New York Times attempted a last-ditch effort to get YouTube to silence or punish heterodox / conservative content creators right before the election, using “evidence” of “misinformation” as the basis. To its credit, YouTube didn’t bite. I think the outcome would have been the reverse in 2020.
With all of the above in mind, I think Trump wins the election. He overperforms in certain tight states (e.g. Nevada) and wins enough swing states to secure the Electoral College victory. I’m not sure he’ll win the popular vote, but I am sure that this is the best chance he’s had to win it in his three bids. This is the map as I see it:
What jumps out to me is how narrow Harris’ path is. Trump could win a number of different swing-state combinations and prevail, while Harris more or less needs a sweep. For example, Trump could actually lose Wisconsin or Pennsylvania in the above scenario and still win the election. Likewise, if he wins both of them, he could absorb an upset loss in, say, North Carolina, and lose Nevada or Arizona, and still prevail.
For Harris, barring upsets in places like Georgia, she would need to carry Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. And even that combination only gets her to 270 on the nose, with no margin for error elsewhere.
I have one final, bonus thought. I sincerely hope I’m wrong about this part, but . . . depending on what happens over the next few days (weeks? months?!? God help us.), prepare yourself for a deluge of hypocrisy and flip-flopping by some of the loudest political voices on a variety of issues.
First, if Harris somehow wins the Electoral College with Trump winning the popular vote, expect all of the calls for abolishing or “reforming” the EC to abruptly vaporize as the politicians and academics who support such a move miraculously and simultaneously “re-think” their decades-long opposition. For some reason!
More seriously, if Trump does win, many of the people who have been lecturing politicians and the public about “election denialism” for the past four years will suddenly revert to the posture they had when Stacy Abrams lost in Georgia in 2018, or when they tried to influence electors to change their votes and called Trump “illegitimate” when he won in 2016.
Election denial or undermining results may once again be framed as noble and virtuous. Hypocrites will swiftly discover “credible” reasons why a victorious Trump either isn’t eligible to be president or didn’t actually win. The media will dutifully amplify and corroborate these arguments.
They will also helpfully “retcon” much of what has been said on that topic over the past four years to make the hypocrisy more resemble a consistent, principled stance—similar to how they retconned the assertion that Harris ever had the unofficial role of “border czar” (perhaps “gaslit” is the correct term).
If that doesn’t work, aggrieved Regime members will likely craft a new narrative once Trump in office as to why his victory owes to “illegal” or “impeachable” conduct of some kind. Rinse and repeat.
But, for many of the reasons stated above, I don’t think most of the public will buy it.
Good luck out there, my fellow Americans!
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