15 | ★★★★★

The demise of Marvel has been much written about and discussed. And this latest film from the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe for those moviegoers who are uninterested in what has kept cinemas open over the past decade) does nothing to diminish what seems like the inevitable decline of a franchise that is burning itself out as surely as a sun depletes its own fuel. Yet the latest Deadpool might be the bright supernovae before everything goes dark.

Pairing Ryan Reynolds’s wise cracking Deadpool with Hugh Jackman’s scowling Wolverine is the headline here. And there are other casting slam-dunks with Emma Corrin playing mutant villain Cassandra Nova who has the power of a God and the terrifying creative sadism to use it. Then there is Matthew Macfayden’s Mr Paradox who works in the TVA (a time-line policing Time Variant Authority for those who haven’t seen Tom Hiddleston’s Loki series) who has decided to kill all universes but his own.

Because Deadpool is the kind of superhero who knows how to pose like a porn star, Paradox assumes the flawed hero can be conscripted into his cause. But Deadpool’s moral compass points closer to north than he would like to admit. And just like Loki, when it comes to it, he not only want to save his friends, is prepared to make sacrifices to that end. Who knew? Well, everyone. There is not an idea in this film that is new to the MCU.

What stops the yawns however is that Shawn Levi’s film is so achingly self aware the target of its genuine wit is the very franchise on whose survival the film depends. Reynolds gets a screenwriting credit in a way one assumes Matthew Perry did with Friends. There was something so particular about Perry’s timing and delivery and the intelligence behind that performance, he turned out to be an asset in the writers’ room. I am guessing the same is true of Reynolds.

The result is like watching a condemned man who can only delay his death by beating himself up. Wolverine is the straight man in this comedy duo, the Abbott to Deadpool’s Costello, or the Wise to his Ernie.

Superheroes unite: Ryan Reynold's Deadpool with Hugh Jackman's Wolverine

Everything here exists to serve Deadpool’s wisecracking stream of consciousness which is so constant you wonder if his true superpower is that he breaths through his ears. A thrilling ride that one suspects is the hardest act yet to follow.