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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9432091" data-attributes="member: 7035894">Yes, I understand that, because I'm not an idiot. 4th wall breaks do not mean the story has to be incoherent. They go back at least as far as Tristram Shandy or perhaps the Canterbury Tales in English literature alone, and encompass a healthy chunk of the literature of the past five decades. You can have a meaningful story and character development with a postmodern structure. The first Deadpool film, for example. At a highbrow level, the novel The Sympathizer, which I just finished.Story-wise this film attempts to have its cake and eat it, too. The first two Deadpool films manage to break the 4th wall while still having a coherent story (more or less...less in the case of the second film). This third entry tries to both be part of canon and completely farcical at the same time, with the result that it isn't really a coherent story so much as a series of wacky scenes, with some serious ones thrown in for...contrast, I guess? Someone compared it to Airplane, but I don't think it's that, exactly, because it's trying to be more than pure farce.For example, Deadpool being aware that he is in a movie and aware of the other movies might affect how he feels about Logan, but we are told repeatedly that that version of Wolverine is a hero in Deadpool's entire world. Is everyone in that world aware that they are in a movie, and aware of the other movies? Are they aware that their setting is simultaneously a near future dystopia but also not really, and that Colossus is both dead but also hanging out with Deadpool or at the X-Mansion with the rest of the gang, who are also both dead and not dead at the same time? Is everyone in on the joke? We are given no evidence of it. Ultimately, the stance of this film is basically, "none of this makes any sense; just go with it and laugh at the dick jokes and cartoon violence." Which are mostly good enough that, fair enough.Overall, it suffers from the same problem I have with almost all of the recent MCU films and television shows: I can't get seriously invested because the story is incoherent and so none of the relationships really mean anything.It's basically a bad film elevated by star power. It's a testament to how good Reynolds and Jackman are that I had a fun time in spite of the pointlessness of the film, so that puts it ahead of most of the phase 5 stuff. But it doesn't give me much hope for the MCU going forward.MCU films used to have content. They need to get back to stories with meaningful stakes.Edit: here's what I mean by meaningful stakes. Avengers: Endgame has meaningful stakes. But not because the universe is in peril, because we know that it isn't, not really. We go in knowing Thanos will lose and the MCU heroes will be restored. No, it has stakes because we are heavily invested in the character arcs of our heroes, and especially Steve and Tony, and we don't know whether they are going to make it or not. And one of them doesn't! But even though he doesn't get what he wants - a happy ending with his family - Tony gets what he always needed, a life that transcended his enormous ego to finally really mean something. He died a worthwhile human being. And Steve, by learning to be just a little bit selfish, gets what he truly needed, as well, the love of his life. That's the difference between a good story and whatever Marvel has been doing lately. Nothing in Deadpool and Wolverine means anything, and so the best it can be is high quality thrills and low quality, but effective, laughs. Which is not nothing! Overall, I give it a thumbs up because I had fun.But it could be a lot more. When Scorsese made his "thrill ride" criticism of Marvel movies, I disagreed with him. I thought they were more than that. I don't think that about the current ones.</blockquote>

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