Deadpool 2; Super Duper Cut (and Once Upon a Deadpool): Time to beat the dead horse that's beating several dead horses again

See, I was tempted to make a joke in the title about this being a "family picture", due to one of the opening lines of the movie saying it was, but the X-Men Origins review got enough comparisons to the Nostalgia Critic, even though I reviewed the first three movies before he did, that I'm not going to take one of the jokes he actually came up with that isn't just making a mockery of something in the movie itself.

Time to wrap up Marvel catchup month once again, by looking at another one of Fox's successful movies with mutants, Deadpool 2. I'll be reviewing the Super Duper cut of the movie, but I also want to at least address Once Upon a Deadpool, a toned down cut of the movie that was released... even though I haven't seen it myself. I've seen the Super Duper Cut, it's why that's the one I'm officially reviewing, but you'll see why I want to address it later.

Spider-Man; Into the Spider-verse: Spider-Man 4 as you always imagined it.

Alright, let's start from the beginning one last time. My name is Liam Sanders, I wasn't bitten by a radioactive spider, and for the last five years, I've been making content for this site. I hope you know the rest, but probably don't, but even still I'm not continuing on with this joke.

Logan: Watch as a group of kids are more violent then any of the X-Men could be.

It's nice to see a movie come around that goes so far against espectations that it can't help but be admired. As I said before, I had lost interest in the X-Men movies as they went further on, and I think I'm not the only one who wasn't expecting much from Logan. Origins was awful, The Wolverine was ok at best, and while this had the advantage of being rated higher compared to them, thanks to the success of Deadpool, no one thought this was going to be as good as it was. How did this happen? How did a trilogy that started off so badly stick the landing this perfectly? Well I think one reason is going to be repeated this Wednesday when Endgame comes out here. For now though, let's look at Hugh Jackman's last run as Wolverine.

Venom: We... are getting motion sick

And you thought Bayformers was hard to keep track of...

Ahh, Sony. Always one for jumping on bandwagons, yet always getting cold feet when doing them. You do love you Symbiotes don't you? Like I said at the end of the Amazing Spider-Man 2 review, I wanted Venom to fail. Not because it looked bad, because the trailers only looked unfinished, even to the point of showing scenes before the CGI was even implemented. The reason I wanted Venom to fail is that Sony has a habit of overdoing things when it comes to this style of movie making. Why just make one movie that might not be a success, but you can plan out the next 20 cause the character means it will be a success. Yes, that is the MCU formula now, however, there is still a set standard of quality, and with Sony, that quality isn't there. To use a gaming comparison, EA can make all the claims in the world that they're getting better, I'm not going to believe them until they show consistent quality. Excuse me if I sound bitter about this, but because this was a hit, I now have to keep an eye on a Kraven the Hunter movie, a character who I honestly question if anyone cares enough about to warrant a solo movie, but then again we are getting Dora the Tomb Raider and "Not The Killing Joke in live action", so what would I know?

The Wolverine: I hope you can understand Japanese

While I won't be going into them this year, as it will be better to them all next year, Fox's timeline for the X-Men took two distinct splits. The Wolverine trilogy, which is being covered this year, set in the same time as the original trilogy, and a second timeline with almost a whole new cast. Why? Because I'm guessing X-Men Origins: Jimmy did well enough to try and keep this thing going, which leads us to The Wolverine. Is it better than Origins? Yes, but that ain't saying much.

The Wolverine: Now with less Japanese

While I won't be going into them this year, as it will be better to them all next year, Fox's timeline for the X-Men took two distinct splits. The Wolverine trilogy, which is being covered this year, set in the same time as the original trilogy, and a second timeline with almost a whole new cast. Why? Because I'm guessing X-Men Origins: Jimmy did well enough to try and keep this thing going, which leads us to The Wolverine. Is it better than Origins? Yes, but that ain't saying much.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Stuffed with content is not always a good thing.

If there's one thing that the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all of its imitators have taught us, it's that rushing things like world building and sequel baiting is never a good idea. There are times when it works, a nod here, a cameo there, but stopping the movie for the sake of sequel bait never works, especially if the sequel isn't in active development yet. Build it up slowly, and people will be willing to accept it because you could tease a movie that is years away and people will happily accept it because they know it's going to happen. But if you, for example, tease the appearance of a team of six villains by forcing three of the potential candidates into one movie, and have scenes teasing the others, including ones that people know can hold their own movies, especially in a sequel to a less then critically acclaimed film... At least this wasn't the Dark Universe?

X-Men Origins: Jimmy. Out of all the names, why Jimmy?

So after the commercial success of the three X-Men movies, a logical thing to do would be to give a spin-off to one of the most recognizable members of the team, Wolverine, giving him a backstory that was barely told in X-Men 2... and jumping the gun a bit here, barely told in this movie as well. People hated this movie, and can't say I blame them, though I at least have a few more personal things to add to the story, such as somehow ending up with a leaked, unfinished version of it on my R4 when I was younger, so I have the distinct "pleasure" of saying I've watched a full movie on my DS... no, I am not reviewing that one. It doesn't need it.

I swear, take the title out of that and I'd believe you if you told me this was a poster for X-Men 3

The Amazing Spider-Man: Some chosen one...

Sony: "You were the chosen one! It was said you would make us money forever, not fail so hard we had to give you up!". Look, I've been wanting to make a parody of that for years, was waiting for the right movie to do it.

With the breakout success if Iron Man, the moderate success of The Incredible Hulk, and promises of movies like The Avengers in the works, it should come as no surprise that both Sony and Fox were intimidated by the sudden competition, and quickly tried to replicate the success themselves. While Fox’s attempts involved bringing the old director back and throwing in time travel, Sony’s was more… destructive. Spider-Man 4 was not turning out the way they wanted and was taking longer to make then they had hoped. As a result, a reboot was in order and once they could finally cancel Spider-Man 4, The Amazing Spider-Man was fast-tracked to better align with Sony’s goals for the IP. How well did it go? Well, Spider-Man is now under joint custody between them and Marvel Studios so you can imagine that it didn’t go well. Welcome to the prequel of MAYvel Phase 2, where we see what Sony has done with the IP post-Avengers, what Fox began doing post-Avengers, and also looking at the movie with some red asshole in it because he won’t shut up… No the Fox one!

Bumblebee: The one movie no one can agree on.

Before getting started, due to the upcoming removal of the Google API, there may be a change in the display names for who wrote the posts. Assuming I'm right, this will be posted under the name "Blaster". It's not a different writer, it's the same person as the vast majority of the content here. It's just that this site is no longer going to be connected to the Google Plus account I keep forgetting is tied to it... Also no, the name Blaster didn't come from Autobot Blaster, I started using it before I saw the Generation 1 cartoon, and that Blaster has not appeared in movies or tv shows since the G1 cartoon.


"It's a prequel!"
"It's a reboot!"
"It's a prequel!"
"It's a reboot!"
"Well, this person said it's a prequel!"
"Well, that person said it's a reboot!"
"I'm not supporting this movie because it's a prequel!"
"I'm going to support it because it's a reboot"
 Bloody hell, we could probably start the Cybertronian Civil War with the status of what this movie is!

It's funny sometimes how closed minded some people can be when it comes to media, and I do count myself in that statement too. So consumed with learning everything there is to know about a movie, going to war over it's importance to a franchise and to the world as a whole, but ignoring other aspects to it, such as differing views for more than just a black and white mindset. I bring this up because, during the marketing push for Bumblebee, everything was picked apart in the debate over what it was, if it was a prequel to the 2007 movie or a reboot due to the diminishing returns on the first five Live action films.

My stance on the matter back then? "It was both, because right now Paramount is looking for a safe revenue generator to let them keep funding movies", and the continued debate on the matter, thanks to conflicting statements (to which I say "Paramount, what are your marketing and PR teams doing? It's their job to keep stories straight), the announcement of both a Bumblebee 2 and Transformers 6, and the (to put it mildly) conflicting reports on the "Hasbro Cinematic Universe" have only reinforced this belief for me. I wouldn't deny any claim that this movie struggled in the production side due to the conflicting story angles. It is very likely that this started life as a proper prequel, but was forced to course correct during development into a hodgepodge of the two, it's a sign that they don't know what to do. However, I'm not here to talk about the production side of the movie. I'm here to talk about the movie itself, the end result of its troubled life. How is it? Well, I'll put it this way, I get the feeling I'm not going to make some friends in the die-hard side of the fandom with this one (but what else is new at this point? Why do you think I haven't tried reviewing another fan game... Sonic Mania technically doesn't count). Absurdly long intro aside...