The first reviews for Deadpool & Wolverine are in, and it’s not promising

A still from Deadpool & Wolverine.

Deadpool & Wolverine is just days away from its theatre release, and the first reviews on Metacritic are in. We’re sorry to tell you, though, it’s not looking too promising.

Starring Ryan Reynolds as the Merc with a Mouth and Hugh Jackman reprising his role as everyone’s favourite angry mammal, Deadpool & Wolverine sees the pair going up against Emma Corrin’s villain, Cassandra Nova.

But with the Marvel Cinematic Universe a shadow of its former glory, some critics who have already seen the film fail to believe that X-Men joining the MCU is the answer to their superhero movie prayers.

At the time of publishing, Metacritic determined that Deadpool & Wolverine has achieved a review score of 55, which is equivalent to a “Mixed or Average” result. Ouch. 

The Observer dubbed the film “every inch a post-peak Marvel movie, a parade of crowd-pleasing pops with practically no substance, guaranteeing a billion dollar return and a shelf life of about five minutes”, while the BBC said fight scenes “are about a sophisticated as watching kids in a playground, and they rely heavily on slow motion as if that will instantly create tension”.

Vulture even said they aren’t “even sure it is a movie”, but added that the film is “so determined to beat you down with its incessant irreverence that you might find yourself submitting to it”. Meanwhile, Screen Daily wrote that Jackman’s “fine Wolverine” is “otherwise dragged down by convoluted multiverse logistics and drab fan service”

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In one of the more savage reviews, The Telegraph said: “The film is so myopically gripped by the idea of Marvel as endlessly fascinating corporate soap opera that in five years time, you wonder if it will make any sense at all.”

Polygon echoes the outlet’s sentiment by saying: “It’s hard to buy this movie as a love letter to anything but Marvel Studios’ corporate conquests.”

But as the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure and a different early first reaction of Deadpool & Wolverine told how the movie is set to “reignite the MCU”.

IGN’s Matt Purslow branded a 35-minute long segment of the film shown, “funny, crass and violent as you’d expect of a Deadpool project,” before adding that the 34th film in the MCU carries a “weightier sense of purpose” and that “the journey to reclaiming the MCU’s former glory starts here.”

So, it’s anyone’s guess as to how the Metacritic User Reviews for Deadpool & Wolverine are going to turn out.

Deadpool & Wolverine is set to hit cinemas on 25 July in the UK and on 26 July in the US.

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