Deadpool & Wolverine is a triumphant, bloodily balanced return to both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Deadpool’s boundary-less tomfoolery. After the death of the Fox X-Men universe’s Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and years after Deadpool 2, Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) now lives a quiet life as a car salesman. Divorced from his past filmic love interest Vanessa Carlysle (Morena Baccarin), Wade now spends time with her as a friend alongside the rest of the original crew—until the MCU’s Time Variance Authority (TVA) knocks on his door. Paradox (Matthew Macfayden), a mysterious TVA authority figure, reveals Deadpool’s Logan as the time anchor of his universe, thus leaving it to wither upon his death. In exchange for survival via entrance into the central timeline, Deadpool is requested to prune his home universe quicker than the few thousand years it has, killing everyone and everything he knows. He refuses—promising to bring a variant of Wolverine back to fix his universe. Once found, the two embark on a calamitous journey through the edges of time and space, only to discover far more sinister plots along the way by Wolverine’s mentor, Professor X/Charles Xavier’s multiversally banished twin sister Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin). The duo must stop at nothing to save not just Wade’s loved ones but everyone.

D&W is everything the MCU needs: a compact story brim-filled with dark and humorous multiversal subplots centered around two protagonists with boatloads of Marvel history pitted against a fearsome new element in Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin). Though there’s tons of exposition—especially given Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) being a variant of the X-Men and Logan version—the third Deadpool adventure confidently strides through it with arguably the most vile and self-aware jokes the infamous mouthed-merc has unleashed. Using the decayed but still adamantiumized corpse of his universe’s Logan as a shield against TVA agents is the least offensive joke he splurges—and a prime setup for how most of the film sifts through its hefty plot without losing face.

Through this strategy, Deadpool & Wolverine expands on the multiverse in the most thrilling way thus far, establishing new rules and regions of chaos like the undiscovered inhabited areas of the Void initially introduced in Loki on TV. Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova is bone-chilling in her calmly unstable presentation, filling Professor X’s family with a terrifying new member. Her increasing madness demonstrates the scale of the multiverse most effectively; it is simply too large for even a mutant mind to fully comprehend. Her aims, in addition to the various cameos, D&W’s aesthetically vying visual spectrum, and countless jokes about the multiverse and even Marvel’s handling of them—“welcome to the MCU. We’re entering at a bit of a low point,” Wade tells Logan in the TVA—making this a complicated, engrossing narrative about the true nature and capacity of the MCU multiverse. 

There are also hundreds more Deadpools. That’s fun.

D&W is strengthened by its central duo both because of their development here and their legacies. Wade initially appears past his prime: he wears a wig, has a regular job, and shuns his past. However, his selfishness still drives his actions; upon receiving the multiversal news, he embarks on proving his worth as an Avenger and hero for glory and a self-esteem boost. Enter variant Wolverine, a drunken, regretful ex-X-Man, who “when [the X-Men and world] called out, I walked away. I always stay out of it.” His world was destroyed; he got the blame and was thus titled the worst Wolverine of all the variants. Unlike Wade, Logan remains haunted by (in his case, a false sense of) similar self-absorption—contrasting an effectively grave tone to Wade’s gruesomely vulgar humor and selfish motivations. Though they conflict, sometimes violently, they reveal each other’s weaknesses and eventually aid in finding what it takes to be heroes and, more simply, better people. Regardless of the film’s other factors, both Wade and Logan stand firmly because of their butting personalities and collective legacy—and the prowess of their actors.

This is also the bloodiest and most unrelenting film in the MCU. Combining Deadpool’s borderless vulgarity with the MCU’s pre-established quippy connectivity makes for widely ranged humor and world-building. Pile that on top of gory violence, and the MCU finds itself at an identity shift. Deadpool harnesses the once-famous quip-and-quander energy Marvel Studios’ franchise partly grew famous for, only this time with less respect-oriented restrictions. If the MCU continues in this direction, even on a PG level, it could return quality-wise to the juggernaut it once was. 

The only major issue D&W suffers is a sidelining of the Deadpool series’ original storylines. While past characters and plot lines are still there and acknowledged, respectively—we love you Peter!!—they are either sidelined or entirely abandoned. The most painful of them is Wade’s relationship with Vanessa, which ended years prior off-screen. It’s disappointing, as she was Wade’s core throughout the first two films, and though she is still his primary motivator, the lack of her presence is a bit obtuse. Another minor issue is that this film’s multiverse cameos are the most obscure yet, adding to a general overreliance on viewers’ franchise familiarity. Unless you’re a Marvel super fan and know in-depth details about franchise behind-the-scenes dramas for both Fox’s X-Men and the MCU, you won’t get the references or surprises as much. Fortunately, these cameos prove more vital to D&W’s narrative than other films like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, making them fun additions with or without that extra knowledge.

Overall, Deadpool & Wolverine provides stellar entertainment value, complex characters and narratives, and the reignition the MCU needed to continue. So long as they take their time on projects as they used to and did here, instead of churning out a new project every two months, Marvel holds potential for a strong return—and presents the best Deadpool outing thus far.

Opens Friday, 7/26 in theaters everywhere (though the Hassle recommends the Somerville Theatre or your local independently-owned multiplex)