By all indications “Deadpool & Wolverine” looks to be the massive moneymaking blockbuster the laboring Marvel Cinematic Universe desperately needs. After a run of big budget flops in theaters and on streaming, Kevin Feige and Disney have looked to a movie that caters to the easiest targets. And from the looks of things their not-so-risky “gamble” is about to pay huge dividends.

“Deadpool & Wolverine” is a movie filled to the brim with fan service which it uses, along with an assortment of gimmicks, to draw in a variety of fans. There are those who love Ryan Reynolds’ schtick. They get plenty of it here. There are others who are giddy for more R-rated superhero movies. This one works REALLY hard to earn its R rating. And of course there is the ultimate act of fan service – paying Hugh Jackman a boatload of money to return as Wolverine. But that only scratches the surface of this movie’s pandering for reactions.

I’m not knocking anyone who is drawn to those things. But for me, Reynolds’ routine can be exhausting and a little of it goes a long way. And I don’t think I’ve ever rooted for a movie to have a specific rating (whatever fits the film). But since its beginning, many have embraced the Deadpool series for its R rating as much as anything else. As for Wolverine, Jackman’s character arc reached a perfect conclusion in 2017’s “Logan”. Yet the MCU creatives play the cheap multiverse card to bring him back (and more importantly, to sell more tickets).

Then there’s Deadpool. I’ll always prefer the early version of the character that existed before Marvel Comics started using the crutch of “mature content” to sell his books. The movies have leaned heavily into the ultra-silly and endlessly foul-mouthed version and it’s no different in “Deadpool & Wolverine”. New director Shawn Levy (who recently worked with Reynolds on “Free Guy” and “The Adam Project”) teams up with a total of five (!!!) screenwriters. What they give us is a series of Deadpool skits, stitched together by yet another bad MCU story.

From the very beginning the filmmakers go for the nostalgia jugular, hitting us with endless waves of meta gags, surprise appearances, and absurd needle-drops. There are countless callbacks to Fox’s Marvel era. And of course it spends a ton of time lampooning superheroes, superhero movies, and pretty much anything else that comes to mind. In essence it’s the same Deadpool movie formula, only cranked up to 11 and now with MCU baggage to lug around.

Yes, Deadpool is now part of the MCU, grafted in through yet another multiverse convenience. I have no idea how such an exaggerated and self-aware character will fit with the other Marvel films. But since “Avengers: Endgame”, I’m not sure the MCU heads have put much thought into things like continuity or cohesion. And as this movie proves, there’s not much interest in plot either.

Good storytelling was never a strength of the first two Deadpool movies. But there was a semi-intimacy between Wade Wilson and his friends that at least kept their stories focused. “Deadpool & Wolverine” is hampered by one of the laziest scripts I’ve seen in a superhero movie. So much of the story feels patched together. Things routinely happen with no real explanation, and the quintet of writers seem perfectly content with skating by on comic mayhem and the buddy chemistry between Reynolds and Jackman.

After a silly but funny opening credits scene, Levy waste no time throwing us into Marvel’s multiverse, almost immediately bogging the movie down with vaguely defined and uninteresting mumbo-jumbo about the Sacred Timeline, plot contrivances such as “anchor beings” and a contraption called the “Time Ripper”, and so on. It’s almost as if there are two movies fighting for time – an obsessively bloody and vulgar Deadpool rehash and another messy MCU post-“Endgame” misfire.

While celebrating his birthday with his friends, Wade Wilson (Reynolds) is apprehended by the Time Variance Authority (TVA) who take him to their leader, Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen). Paradox informs Wade that his timeline is rapidly deteriorating. Why is it deteriorating you ask? Because the timeline’s “anchor being” has died and apparently timelines die as a result (don’t ask any questions because the movie doesn’t offer many answers). It turns out that the “anchor being” who died from Wade’s timeline was Logan aka Wolverine.

Desperate to save his friends, Wade swipes a gadget that lets him travel the multiverse. His plan: find and retrieve a suitable replacement Logan from another timeline and bring him back to his world. He settles for a grizzled drunken Wolverine (Jackman) and returns to the TVA only to discover that he has broken a few rules. As a result, Paradox (who has nefarious yet paper-thin plans of his own) banishes them to a place called the Void. Once there, Wade and Logan fight, we get some cameos, they fight again, we get more cameos, and so on.

This time around, Reynolds pushes his wisecracking semi-sociopathic anti-hero farther, mechanically churning out one-liners and on-the-nose profanity in nearly every breath. Jackman falls in line. Chiseled, moody, and forced to drop f-bombs on cue, he brings a certain grit and gravitas the movie needs. It’s too bad he spends so much time being the straight man to the scene-gorging Reynolds. Even worse, it’s tough to see the supporting cast from the previous Deadpool films relegated to the sidelines – replaced by attention-getting cameos and new less interesting characters.

We do get one particularly fun surprise appearance, a couple of good though nonsensical action sequences, and occasionally a joke will hit its mark. But much of it starts to feel like recycled material. Meanwhile the story is clearly a secondary concern. We get no menacing villains, absolutely no suspense, scenes of boring exposition that don’t say much, and plot holes that are impossible to miss for anyone slightly looking. It eventually leaves “Deadpool & Wolverine” resembling a fan service cash grab from a cinematic universe in desperate need of a big box office hit. Well, it looks like Disney has one.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

Where 2016’s “Deadpool” was just fresh enough to be entertaining, its 2018 sequel “Deadpool 2” can’t say the same. Still, that didn’t stop it from making a ton of money and becoming 20th Century Fox’s highest grossing X-Men connected movie. That’s quite an accomplishment for a feature that’s more committed to getting an R rating than telling a worthwhile story.

“Deadpool 2” clearly follows the same blueprint as its equally successful predecessor. New director David Leitch and returning writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick inundate us with an endless cavalcade of juvenile humor, forced profanity, and CGI violence. But among its biggest problems is that fewer jokes land this time around. And the attempts at melding vulgar humor with gory action had me numb by the halfway mark.

Ryan Reynolds (in full Ryan Reynolds mode) returns as Wade Wilson aka Deadpool, delivering a carbon copy performance from the first movie. Wade and his girlfriend Vanessa (a returning Morena Baccarin) celebrate their anniversary by deciding to start a family. But once again their dreams are shattered, this time when a hitman’s bullet misses Wade and strikes Vanessa, killing her.

While in mourning, Wade attempts to blow himself up, but his healing factor keeps him alive. His old friend Colossus (Stefan Kapičić) finds him and takes him to the X-Men’s mansion to heal. While there, Colossus convinces Wade to finally join the X-Men which he does to honor Vanessa. It eventually leads him to a volatile mutant named Russell Collins (a painfully bad Julian Dennison) who Wade pledges to save after a couple of weird out-of-body encounters with his dead girlfriend.

Meanwhile, a cybernetic soldier from the future named Cable (Josh Brolin) travels back in time to kill Russell for reasons that never feel as impactful as they should. It all leads to a haze of tiresome recycled gags and glaringly digitalized action sequences. Good luck finding anything beyond that. Leitch and company try to squeeze in a few moments of heart. But when everything around it comes off as self-gratifying and over-the-top, it’s hard to take seriously any attempts at sincerity.

“Deadpool 2” caters to a big audience, most of whom have no problem gorging themselves on what amounts to cinematic junk food. But if you’re hungry for something with a slight bit of substance, you’ll want to look elsewhere. Again, the filmmakers are so absorbed in delivering one-liners and meeting f-bomb quotas that they toss aside basic things like good storytelling. There are countless narrative shortcuts which are routinely excused by Deadpool making jokes about them. It’s clever the first time or two, but we eventually see through it. There’s also the terribly underdeveloped antagonists who mainly exist to boost the body count in the film’s lame climax.

Even after nearly six years and a recent revisit, “Deadpool 2” still leaves me scratching my head. How does a movie with this many flaws get so many passes? How does a movie that proudly touts its irreverence and mayhem come across as so calculated? How do people find so much connection to something so empty? I could go on but I don’t want to be that kind of guy. Of course it’s okay to enjoy “Deadpool 2” for whatever reasons you do. But for me, no amount of self- awareness or comic chaos can plug the gaping holes in this unfortunate retread.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

Before Disney gobbled them up, 20th Century Fox had quite a run with its X-Men universe. Surprisingly, of the thirteen X-Men related films, the highest grossing were the two Deadpool movies. 2016’s “Deadpool” was a spin-off from the X-Men films and a big departure from the PG-13 brand of superhero movie. It was a film deliriously dedicated to obtaining an R rating through a force-fed diet of over-the-top violence and pointless profanity. To no surprise, it wooed and won over a lot of people.

First time director Tim Miller, co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, along with producer and star Ryan Reynolds, take a later iteration of the Deadpool character from the comics and ramp up everything, from the “mature” content to the relentless silliness. Through most of the movie they go out of their way to poke fun at everything superhero related, soaking us with goofy banter, routinely breaking the fourth wall, and peppering the film with absurd needle drops.

“Deadpool” is essentially an origin story and not a particularly original one. But its hope is that you’ll be so involved in the comic mayhem that you won’t care. Reynolds plays Wade Wilson, a wisecracking tough guy who works as mercenary-for-hire, helping the city’s weak and needy. He meets and falls for an escort named Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), and just as their warped storybook romance is about to take off, he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Rather than let her watch him die, a devastated Wade leaves Vanessa.

Now that sounds like pretty heavy stuff and for a few brief minutes or so “Deadpool” lightly tugs at your heartstrings. But its gag-a-second proclivity and origin story constrictions makes it hard to take even its most heartfelt moments seriously. Baccarin is especially good considering Reynolds’ act sucks most of the air out of every scene. Not only is she a good match, but she’s pretty much the only character who doesn’t feel like she’s doing a comic routine.

One day Wade is approached by a mysterious man who tells him of an experimental treatment that will not only cure his cancer but potentially grant him super powers in the process. Though hesitant at first, the prospect of reuniting with Vanessa drives him to accept. But after he’s sent to a laboratory ran by the film’s paper-thin villain, Ajax (Ed Skrein), Wade learns he’s little more than a lab rat for a torturous experiment meant to trigger mutations within the subject.

The agonizing procedure leaves Wade horribly disfigured but grants him healing factor, super strength, and agility which he uses to escape the laboratory. Fearing his appearance will scare Vanessa away for good, Wade makes it his mission to track down Ajax in order to find a cure. But before doing so, he creates his own super-powered vigilante he names Deadpool. Anti-hero hijinks ensue.

The astute among you may ask the obvious question, why doesn’t Wade’s newly acquired healing abilities heal his disfigurement? It heals gunshots, it heals broken bones, it even grows back severed limbs. There’s a very convenient explanation in the comics about his normal cells forever battling the cancer cells. But the movie never addresses it. And that’s pretty much how it approaches most of the questions that arise from its patchwork story – don’t ask.

“Deadpool” tosses numerous other side characters into the mix, the better ones being a solid-steel (and solely CGI) Colossus (Stefan Kapičić), Wade’s roommate Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), and Deadpool fanboy Dopinder (Karan Soni). Like everyone else, they’re only there to spit jokes but their’s are some of the funnier one. As for the jokes, just enough of them land to keep things amusing. And while the film’s gimmick grows old, there was still a freshness factor that helped “Deadpool” overcome its annoyances.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS

Written and directed by Christy Hall, the terribly titled “Daddio” is built upon the simplest of concepts – two people in a car talking. That’s the movie from start to finish. It’s a self-imposed limitation that keeps things intimate and focused while allowing the two stars (Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn) to be the centerpieces. At the same time, it’s a limitation that demands a sharp and engaging script that keeps the audience locked in and involved. And that’s where “Daddio” sometimes struggles.

Johnson plays a young woman who arrives at JFK International Airport after a late-night flight home from Oklahoma. She hops in a cab with a driver named Clark (Penn) who sets out for her apartment in Midtown. As they travel through the New York City night, the shamelessly chatty Clark opens up a series of conversations that go from paltry and crass to intimate and personal. And that’s “Daddio” in a nutshell.

As you would expect, we learn a lot about the young woman and the cabbie over the course of their drive. We learn the crude and oblivious Clark has no filter and doesn’t mind saying or asking anything that comes to mind. We learn he has driven a cab for 20 years which apparently has turned him into some kind of gritty, tough-minded sage. Over that time he has formed a variety of pessimistic (and frankly warped) views on life, love, and being a man. And he’s not afraid to share them (as we quickly discover).

As for the young woman, she’s a computer programmer returning from a trip to see her half-sister. A lot of pent-up pain comes to light that’s directly related to her family history. Much of her story comes out through her boyfriend who we mostly get to know through a series of lewd and perverted texts that she receives throughout the cab ride home. And the more she and Clark open up to each other, the heavier her revelations get.

“Daddio” isn’t built upon the most original idea. But strong, lived-in performances from Johnson and Penn make this a mostly competent two-hander. Still, they can only do so much, and the film’s ultimate undoing is the script. Aside from essentially going nowhere, there’s a level of implausibility with it that’s hard to get past.

For example, call me skeptical, but would a broad probing conversation like this ever really happen in a taxi? Who knows – maybe there are professional cabbies who also moonlight as deep-thinking psychologists and philosophers. Even more out there, I find it hard to imagine that any woman would willingly stay in the car with a man this bawdy and invasive. Perhaps I’m too skeptical, but these things are dubious enough to make us question what we’re seeing.

“Daddio” may be worth seeing for the performances alone. Johnson only gets better with each new role (we will pretend “Madame Webb” never happened), and Penn has long shown a confidence and sturdiness when given the right material. But Hall has a hard time maintaining a steady sense of drama and she stretches her story out for a little too long. She smartly leans on her two more than capable stars, but doesn’t always give them what the need to make her movie click. “Daddio” is now playing in select theaters.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

I realize that the Western genre has fallen out of fashion (case in point – just check out some of the early reactions to Kevin Costner’s upcoming frontier epic “Horizon” which just premiered at Cannes). Sure, there are those rare exceptions. But they often consist of cynical deconstructions or genre mashups. As for the more traditional Westerns, they just aren’t in demand these days and frankly that’s a shame.

I’ll admit to being a little picky when it comes to them, but I really enjoy a good Western. And Viggo Mortensen gives us a good one with “The Dead Don’t Hurt”, a uniquely intimate and heartfelt drama set within the margins of an old-fashioned movie Western. Mortensen stars, writes, directs, produces, and even composes the score for this distinctly character-driven feature that manages to embrace the old while still feeling quite new.

Mortensen opens his film on a shocking note that gives us a candid look at where things are heading. We see an ailing woman named Vivienne (Vicky Krieps) lying on her deathbed, sharing her last words with her husband, Holger (Mortensen). It’s a somber beginning that adds an air of tragedy to the story about to be told. From there Mortensen transports us back to the moment the couple first met, and for the rest of the way he employs this flashback/flashforward technique, uncoiling his story in a way that challenges his audience yet rewards them as well.

Set in pre-Civil War 1860, Danish immigrant Holger Olsen sits on a dock in San Francisco where he had ventured to see “the end of the world”. There he catches the gaze of Vivienne Le Coudy, an unassuming yet independent French Canadian woman who just happily gave the boot to her rich and insufferable fiancé (Colin Morgan). The modest but playful Vivienne is immediately drawn to the quiet and ruggedly handsome Holger. Their mutual attraction soon turns into a full-blown romance which Mortensen handles earnestly and grounds in authenticity.

As their relationship grows, Vivienne agrees to ride away with Holger and start a life together at his remote Nevada cabin which is notable only for how strikingly plain it is. “This is the place you chose?” Vivienne asks in a playfully prodding manner (one of many wryly funny lines that Krieps absolutely nails). In one of several flashbacks within a flashback, we learn that Vivienne was a florist and she wastes no time putting her skills to use, planting, sowing, and bringing her own vibrancy to their homeplace.

But their tender love story takes a fateful turn when Holger, almost on a whim, answers the call to join the Union army. As he heads off to war, Vivienne is left alone to tend to their home, all while haunted by memories of her father who left in a similar way and never returned. She gets a job at a saloon in nearby Elks Flats, a small frontier town ran by its corrupt mayor, Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston). In reality, he’s nothing but a lapdog to a greedy land baron named Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt).

But the film’s biggest villain is the baron’s psychotic son, Weston (Solly McLeod). With his father constantly turning a blind eye to his violence and cruelty, Weston terrorizes the townsfolk and eventually takes a fancy to Vivienne. The horror that follows draws Holger’s impulsive decision to enlist more into question and makes the revelations awaiting him once he finally returns even more visceral. Surprisingly, these weighty events never quite lead to the kind of emotional reckoning you might expect. It doesn’t damage the ultimate payoff, but their feelings upon reuniting are still a little confounding.

Mortensen’s character-focused script works well with his patient and tactful direction, resulting in a movie that embraces elements of the classic Western but never makes them its focus. His nonlinear narrative can make things a little harder to follow than necessary, but it also cleverly contrasts multiple compelling facets of his story. On the screen, Mortensen steps aside and makes Krieps the centerpiece, surrounding her with the picturesque lensing of cinematographer Marcel Zyskind. Krieps steals the show, bringing grace, fervor, and spirit to a type of powerful female role we don’t often see in movie Westerns. “The Dead Don’t Hurt” releases in select theaters on May 31st.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

The recent passing of Roger Corman has sparked a new wave of interest in the career of the independent film icon and trailblazer. Known by such monikers as the “King of B-movies” and the “Pope of Pop Cinema”, Corman helped kickstart the careers of numerous young directors including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, James Cameron, and Jonathan Demme. He also helped launch such stars as Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Diane Ladd among many others.

Corman began his career in 1955 directing and producing over fifty movies. In the 1970s he moved to almost exclusively producing. In May 1970, he and his brother Gene co-founded their own independent production and distribution studio, New World Pictures. They were perhaps known best for their many exploitation films that put countless directors and actors on the map. But New World Pictures also distributed an array of foreign films from such celebrated filmmakers such as Fellini, Bergman, and Truffaut.

“Death Race 2000” fits snugly into Corman’s exploitation era of producing. Directed by Paul Bartel, this satirical action film was based on a 1956 Ib Melchior short story titled “The Racer”. The movie has all the markings of 1970s grindhouse cinema – a low budget, an anything-goes style, bursts of gratuitous violence, and at times shamelessly sleazy.

The movie is set in the year 2000 (posing as the near future) and takes place in a dystopian America. After what’s referred to as the “World Crash of ’79”, a totalitarian regime took power in the remains of the economically ravaged United States. To offer some solace to the suffering people, the government under ‘Mr. President’ (Sandy McCallum) instituted an annual Transcontinental Road Race – a grueling and violent trek from New York to Los Angeles.

Broadcasted live, the race is known for its flamboyance and brutality. It features five racers, each with their own over-the-top personas and souped-up custom-themed cars. In addition to finishing first, the drivers can also earn bonus points for hitting pedestrians they encounter along the way. Women are worth more points than men, children even more, and the elderly earns the most. It’s a sadistic twist that speaks to the movie’s glaringly obvious satirical edge.

There’s an undeniable wackiness to the entire premise that begins with the racers themselves. There’s the two-time champion and proverbial fan favorite Frankenstein (David Carradine hilariously decked out in a black leather bodysuit, cape, and mask). There’s also the blustering Chicago mobster, Joe “Machine Gun” Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone in one of his earliest credited roles), the tough-as-nails cowgirl, “Calamity Jane” Kelly (Mary Woronov), the proudly racist Neo-Nazi, Matilda “The Hun” (Roberta Collins), and a wannabe Roman gladiator, Ray “Nero the Hero” Lonagan (Martin Kove).

As the drivers and their ride-along navigators tear out across the continental United States, the race is covered by play-by-play announcer Junior Bruce (played with an unhinged enthusiasm by famed Los Angeles disc jockey Don Steele). But while most of the country is locked onto the race, Thomasina Paine (Harriet Medin), descendant of founding father Thomas Paine and the leader of the American resistance, has cooked up a plan to sabotage the event, taking special aim at the beloved Frankenstein.

Vehicular violence and mayhem ensues as the racers fight against each other and against Paine’s loyalists who set up an assortment of traps all along their routes. Weird groupies, priestly political figures, and self-promoting media types give shape to the world and offer screenwriters Robert Thorn and Charles B. Griffith plenty of opportunities for sociological satire. Director Paul Bartel squeezes all he can out of the film’s modest budget, putting together some thrilling race sequences and visualizing a dystopian future that admittedly looks cheap at times but also shows insightful imagination.

And then you have the Roger Corman influence. Corman wanted a violent futuristic sports film in the similar vein as “Rollerball”. He made sure his was particularly brutal, adding plenty of pasty fake blood and crushed bodies. Bartel would later talk about how Corman removed the bulk of the comedy which was a key part of the director’s vision. But there are still hilarious lines delivered with a deadpan seriousness that make them even funnier. It all coalesces into something delightfully campy and just as twisted – a wildly entertaining B-movie that fits snugly into Roger Corman’s eclectic filmography.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS