The emperor’s new clothes. “Disney’s acquisition of Fox is the perfect culmination of the comic book industry’s 20-year obsession with destroying franchise after franchise in pursuit of instant gratification.” But are we just watching a farce? Are Marvel Studios’ attempts to rehash past glories, much like the X-Men’s endless cycles of nostalgia, merely a ruse to distract us from the rot and decay that lies beneath? In short, are we simply playing pawns in a larger game, much like the hapless Logan variants in “Deadpool & Wolverine”?
“Deadpool’s” Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine have somehow survived the Disney-Fox acquisition debacle, only to be plopped into a movie that reeks of desperation. Like the latest variant of the X-Men franchise, we find ourselves stuck in a multiverse of mediocrity, with a cameo-filled, plot-thread-ridden mess masquerading as a cinematic experience.
This farcical exercise in futility is, at best, an uneasy marriage of tone, where irreverent humor clashes with sentimental mawkishness, while big-name cameos try to cover for the lack of genuine story development. Will we laugh? Perhaps, though it’s more likely that our initial amusement will be short-lived. Do we care? Hardly.
Deadpan humor aside, can this movie be saved? Or has its fate been sealed by Disney’s pursuit of profit over substance? Marvel’s latest cash grab has arrived, but what exactly has arrived? Is this mere pop culture detritus to be discarded like yesterday’s issue of the Daily Bugle or is there something more, some twisted, meta-joke masquerading as entertainment?
Take a peek under the covers; you might find yourself surrounded by the same tired, half-dead mutants from yesteryear. For, let us be honest, Disney has proven all too willing to resurrect even the most festering corpses for a few extra bucks at the box office.
After all, in a universe controlled by Disney’s puppet-masters, who’s to say how many more tired X-Men reboots are destined to plague us? Is Marvel’s latest misstep an endless cycle of nostalgia-fueled malaise or just the first phase of a larger, universe-ending existential crisis?
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