Hugh Jackman’s performance is the heart of Deadpool & Wolverine

Deep beneath all the layers of sarcasm and meta-jokes, the Deadpool films’ greatest strength has always been their emotional sincerity. That is also the biggest missing element in the latest installment, Deadpool and WolverineBut what Deadpool lacks in heart this time, Hugh Jackman more than makes up for as Wolverine.

Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) displays a winning vulnerability in his first two films, even if he hides it under a layer of sarcasm. He loves his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). He values ​​his friends. He has compassion for Russell (Julian Dennison), a lonely boy with mutant powers. His heart carries the Deadpool films and makes them more than a series of gags. The main joke of the films is that while all of this is clear, Deadpool himself would never actually say any of it out loud, preferring to hide it under a mountain of sarcasm. In his first appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, however, the surface cynicism is as profound as the character.

Sure, technically the movie is about Deadpool trying to save his timeline so he can save his friends. But that motivation feels more obligatory than like a real character motivation. He talks about his friends when the plot calls for it, but the in-between moments are too crammed with irreverent banter and franchise IP jokes to leave room for Deadpool to have any real emotion—or even a fleeting mention of Why

Photo: Jay Maidment/20th Century Studios, Marvel Studios

But for all paths Deadpool and Wolverine Although The Movie strips its main character of the emotions he once had, director Shawn Levy and the writers (including Reynolds) aren’t completely allergic to feelings. Instead, they simply attribute them all to Wolverine. And Hugh Jackman takes full advantage of that responsibility.

Jackman has played Logan for 24 years now and has done pretty much everything the live-action version of the character could. He’s starred in silly time travel movies, survived at least three different attempts to reboot the universe, led a superhero western, and passed the baton to the next generation of heroes – or at least tried to. And through every variation of the X-Men universe and every false start, Jackman has remained a rock, consistently delivering the best superhero performance of any universe. His MCU debut is no exception.

Photo: Ben Rothstein/Fox

Deadpool and Wolverine brings Jackman into a slightly different version of the character than he’s ever had the privilege of playing before: a Wolverine freed from the pressures of heroism by his own failures. Everyone he loves and cares about is dead, and he wasn’t there to fight for them, so all that’s left is despair. It’s a grim vision of the superhero genre’s most stabilizing force, and Levy and his colleagues are willing to exploit it for all the drama it’s worth. Thanks to Jackman, this decision is one of the Deadpool and Wolverine‘s saving grace.

Jackman is a born showman, and he’s great at translating particularly big emotions into particularly big monologues. The film repeatedly lets the Tony winner and Oscar nominee loose to fill the film’s emotional void with stories of his grief and loss. This is clear bragging and a complete shift in tone from the rest of the script. But with Jackman selling so well, it’s hard not to buy, no matter how clearly and blatantly the script manipulates the audience.

When Jackman’s loser Wolverine sits on a tree trunk to use his criminally under-used Logan Story partner X-23 (Dafne Keen) brings the whole film to a halt with a performance so sincere that it momentarily feels like it is breaking the rules of the film. The scene is only a pale imitation of what Logan great, but remarkable nonetheless – a sudden burst of emotion in what would otherwise have been just a hollow exercise in mocking oneself for the sake of making cool points.

Image: 20th Century Fox

But that’s the strength of Jackman’s Wolverine: a lurid performance that sings on screen and makes the audience believe that this muscle-bound killing machine feels every second of his own semi-immortality like a fatal knife wound. He’s cruel, kind and heartbreaking all at once, and even his silliest lines feel woven into the fabric of the performance rather than like incongruous additions.

It’s the same pathos and pain that Jackman brought to the character for 24 years, and the reason he survives every version of the live-action X-Men. It’s simply impossible at this point to imagine taking Wolverine’s live-action character out of Jackman’s very capable hands. And for all Deadpool and Wolverinee’s mistake, at least it gives Jackman a fitting encore and victory lap after the character’s perfect curtain call in Logan.

Deadpool and Wolverine is now in theaters.