McConaugheMay Day 16: Deadpool & Wolverine

Sincerely, I don’t hatewatch movies. I don’t watch movies knowing I’ll hate them or get excited about talking shit, generally. I think there’s something to learn from every movie, even if it’s just instructive as a bad example. And while this month-long challenge does seem like a very performative act of self-harm (it’s… not not that, I guess), it does lead to discoveries I wouldn’t have found otherwise. I’ve enjoyed a couple films this month and it feels sometimes like I’m on the cusp of some greater revelation. Like this might mean something, somehow. Morgan said I’m “Martyrs-ing” myself and she’s probably not wrong, but maybe it really will lead to some enlightenment. I don’t know. I don’t know anything.

I know that I didn’t want to see this movie when it came out, and of all the movies on the list, the thought of watching a movie I actively didn’t want to engage with just to see an uncredited voice cameo for the sake of completionism left a foul taste in my mouth. But it felt cowardly to avoid it, too. Maybe I could find something here.

I didn’t. The movies that I love, the films I try to program and share with people, are sincere. They’re usually low-budget because that fuels creativity, because having a barrier to entry just makes it all the more inspiring when you can see someone vault over it anyway. I think it’s life-affirming to see a film made by someone who wants to share some part of their inner world with everyone else. To be that vulnerable for a greater cause is terrifying and inspiring. There’s truth in that and I admire it greatly.

There is no truth here. There’s no sincerity. Just an endless parade of references, constant swearing to distract a viewer from how bland and weightless the dialogue is, flat and boring landscapes populated by regurgitated images and characters made by people years ago. Absolutely meaningless AI-driven soundtrack. What does any of this mean? What’s the point? 

I heard about the Wesley Snipes as Blade cameo and it just made me sad. His is a story of a Black man in Hollywood constantly told no, who had to build a career at odds with the system, so utterly charismatic and talented that he forced his way in right before the system chewed him up and spat him out. If you can look at the facts involved with the tax fraud case and come away with the belief that he was just an idiot who thought he could trick the IRS, I don’t know what to tell you. Those anecdotes of his “crazy behavior” on the set of Blade: Trinity that Patton Oswalt and David Goyer love to parrot make a lot more sense when you look into why Snipes was suing the studio for breach of contract and on-set racism. They were, provably, trying to replace Snipes—by all accounts the main creative driver of the character and the trilogy—with Goyer and Ryan Reynolds.

The latter bringing Snipes out as a cameo to goose tickets of his spiritually empty superhero trilogy feels simply gross. There’s nothing here. Blade was a mainstream comic movie, but it was originated by Snipes’ desire to make a Black Panther movie and when that failed, to adapt a Black superhero no one would care enough about to stop him. The character came from his interests, was molded around the actor. Trust me, I’ve read the comics, no one cares about the original Blade and there’s barely any trace of it left. The character of Blade is Wesley Snipes, less adaptation and more original creation. Bringing him back just to hackily “say the line, Bart” in the brand management movie genuinely made me depressed.

If you like this movie, whatever, just please don’t talk to me about it. Keep that shit to yourself.