This article contains major spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine.
In a movie full of mindless pandering, the most mindless of all might have been the bit where 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Deadpool & Wolverine has Wesley Snipes' repeat an iconic line with a twist. "Some motherf***ers are still trying to ice skate uphill," Snipes says with a smirk, mid-battle. It's a reference to the climactic fight scene from the original Blade, in which Snipes says that same line, but without the "still," which the good folks at Marvel added to indicate the passage of time.
He Said The Line!
This is key to the MCU movie formula at this point — especially in movies like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spider-Man: No Way Home where the key appeal is seeing old characters return through the magic of the multiverse (which is, in reality, because of real-world studio deals or acquisitions). But Deadpool & Wolverine is a particularly egregious example. The movie's big set pieces are mostly moments where characters you recognize appear on screen, prompting you to point and clap.
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Deadpool & Wolverine does have a story, but it's not one that has aꦆny impa🤪ct on the MCU
Repeating iconic lines from old movies is an essential part of this brand of fan service. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Flash had a similar moment, with Michael Keaton intoning, "You wanna get nuts? Let's get nuts," a memorable line from Tim Burton's Batman.
But this is just one small portion of the lega-sequel formula. While waiting for Deadpool & Wolverine to start, the marketing for another Keaton project, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, reminded me of some of the other key lega-sequel ingredients. A younger character discovering the significance of the events of the previous film. A new character fanboying over a legacy character ("Is your mom Lydia Deetz?... She's a legend"). And the return of those older, legacy characters (including Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O'Hara) to pass on their hard-earned lessons to a new crop of characters.
Revisiting The Lega-Sequel Formula
This is the formula that J.J. Abrams established with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars: The Force Awakens (a movie I like quite a bit). In that case, the reverence felt more warranted. These were Harrison Ford, Mark Hammill, and Carrie Fisher returning to the roles that made them stars 32 years after Return of the Jedi. Talking about any IP in hushed tones is ultimately silly, but with Star Wars, you kinda get it. It's arguably the most important piece of American pop culture to date, and a worldwide phenomenon that spans movies, TV, video games, comics, toys, and more.
Those characters returning to continue a story that held great importance for millions of people all over the world is one thing. But Beetlejuice? 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ghostbusters? Elektra? That's quite another. The absurdity of reverencing this stuff is so much more obvious when the foundations are built on a movie about a perverted ghost, a slacker comedy about dudes hunting ghosts, and a superhero spin-off which notoriously bombed on release (with no ghost connection, R.I.P. rule of threes). This is a creaky house of cards on which to build big-budget entertainment.
And when a cornerstone of the whole lega-sequel enterprise is just old characters saying lines people remember, it lays bare how thin the whole concept is. Movies can be so much more than this. They can excite and move us on their own terms, rather than deriving their emotional impact from something you watched 20 years ago. Even franchise films and, yes, even legacy sequels. Top Gun: Maverick was a stellar action movie in its own right and, like I said, I'm a fan of The Force Awakens. But there's nothing nourishing about nostalgia for nostalgia's sake. It can make us feel good, for a moment, but it's ultimately empty calories.
If You Want An Open-World Deadpool Game, You're Wrong
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