We don't really have a motto here, official or otherwise, but if we had to choose one then 'I watch films so that you don't have to' would certainly be in contention. Then again, these days it sometimes feels like 'I watch films even if nobody else does' might be a better choice, given the routinely low attendance at most of the screenings I go to these days. (I don't routinely advertise my schedule so it can't just be a case of people trying to avoid me.) You can almost hear the cinema managers praying for another Barbenheimer-style weekend – though the best they seem likely to get this year is Gladicked in November, when Ridley Scott's sword-and-sandal sequel comes out the same weekend as an Oz-adjacent musical. In the meantime, though, hopes are resting with Shaun Levy's Deadpool squiggle Wolverine, which is forecast to be the year's biggest film (amongst the over-13s anyway).

Of course, it's also being billed as an acid test of whether people are still genuinely interested in going to see superhero films in general and Marvel Studios films in particular – a lot of folks may tell you a firm no, but I suspect that most of these guys never liked them even when Marvel films were routinely posting billion-dollar receipts and dominating the box office. Marvel's recent troubles have been well-documented and much picked over, but I suspect there is life in the undertaking yet, not least because they have some great cards still to play.

This is because. . . well, here we have to have a bit of a history lesson for the uninitiated, but I promise it does relate to this week's film, honest. There were ten years of Marvel movies before Marvel Studios itself came along (twenty if you count Howard the Duck) – Universal made a Hulk film, Sony made five Spider-Man films, Fox made a lot of X-Men and Fantastic Four films, and that's before we get into the weeds with things like the Daredevil, Blade, Punisher and Man-Thing movies. When Disney bought Twentieth Century Fox about five years ago, this opened the door to the X-Men and the Fantastic Four finally turning up in Marvel Studios films (which, as the attentive will know, has already started to happen in a small way).

And along with the X-Men came Deadpool. It's been a while since the last Deadpool movie, apparently because they couldn't think of a good enough idea, but then. . . well, the new movie opens with Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds, as usual, who also produces and co-writes) applying to join the Avengers (there's a cameo) but being turned down for not being selfless enough. This sends him into a bit of a spin and some years later he is working as a second-hand car salesman – he has given up doing superhero-type stuff and his girlfriend (Morena Baccarin, doing surprisingly little to justify being fourth billed) has left him.

Then he is grabbed without warning by agents of the Time Variance Authority (basically the continuity police), whose leader Mr Paradox (Matthew McFadyen) offers him a free transfer to the main Marvel Studios universe, largely because the X-Men movie universe (which is the one Deadpool has lowered the tone of in his appearances to date) is soon to be discontinued. (Yeah, this is very meta – but also neatly metaphorical.) But it turns out that one man can save Deadpool's home reality – unfortunately, it's Wolverine, and he's been dead since Logan (2017).

Cue a relentless onslaught of comic-book references, movie and movie-business in-jokes, obscene and bad-taste gags and some quite astoundingly gory violence considering this is only a 15 certificate movie in the UK. This is the sort of thing you're either going to get or you're not – once you strip away all the self-aware post-modern stuff with the fourth wall being broken – pulverised would be a better word – what you end up with isn't that different from a 'standard' Marvel Studios film. I've seen it suggested that Deadpool squiggle Wolverine is really just a parody of the sort of thing Marvel have been doing for the last 15 years or so.

Certainly there are some very good, very impudent jokes here – our anti-heroes end up in a sort of dustbin dimension (ruled over by Emma Corrin's slightly underdeveloped villain), inhabited solely by things which have had their time and no longer serve any useful purpose. Of course one of the first things they see is the old Fox logo, half buried in the sand. But it doesn't feel like satire with teeth – more the kind of leg-pulling that comes from a place of genuine affection, and not just for Marvel Studios and its films. Many other inhabitants of the old pre-Marvel Studios Marvel-based films have also ended up in the dustbin dimension, mostly played by the original actors, and they are treated really rather well – I never expected to see [spoiler redacted] or [spoiler also redacted] again, and while there's a degree of good-natured mockery they also get one last chance to shine. Hopefully Deadpool squiggle Wolverine may get younger viewers checking out some of those films from around the turn of the century.

Central to all this is an exceptionally game Hugh Jackman, whose primary function is to stand there exuding a mixture of incredulity and contempt as Ryan Reynolds capers around him doing his usual schtick. He may technically be playing a different version of Wolverine (this was one of his provisos before he agreed to return) but it's essentially the same performance, only swearier, and as someone for whom Logan didn't quite do the job, I thought it was certainly nice to have him back for what is presumably a valedictory appearance – he brings some gravitas and heft to what might have been an exhausting circus-show of a movie.

I really do mean that – one of my regular issues with the previous Deadpool films, and indeed anything which breaks the fourth wall, is that the moment you do that you're undermining any sincere emotional attachment your audience has with the story – you're effectively saying 'it's only a movie, so why should you care?' There's something very nearly miraculous about the way that Deadpool squiggle Wolverine, after nearly two hours of jokes about how the Marvel Studios franchise is in a bit of a lull, and [spoiler redacted again] not realising he's been recast by Kevin Feige, the climax manages to be uplifting and very nearly moving even so (the choice of the right song on the soundtrack helps a lot).

This is not a vision of the future of Marvel, and it does have some of the same flaws as other recent movies from the studio – if you haven't seen the Loki TV show, it'll probably take you a little while to catch up with what's happening in a few scenes – but, if you're in on the joke, this is a tremendously enjoyable film. The question is one of how many people are in that fortunate position. In some ways it reminded me a little of last summer's The Flash, from the Distinguished Competition – long-gestating film, reappearance by a big-name superhero actor after a long break, general sense of in-jokiness and obscure call-backs. Now I liked The Flash, but it lost Warner Brothers somewhere in the region of $200 million – if Deadpool squiggle Wolverine tanks that badly, we may well start to see superhero empires a-toppling in earnest. But somehow I doubt it will. Either way, this is a slick, funny, irreverent film, which also manages to work as an adventure and a surprisingly sincere tribute to just how and who made the modern superhero film such a big deal. I thought there was a lot to enjoy here.

Awix

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