“Deadpool & Wolverine” divides the audience – with humor and story often being cited in the discussion. FILMSTARTS editor Björn Becher is particularly bothered by the action… and hopes that an upcoming Marvel film will do better.
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As you can see from our overview of the many different and widely differing opinions in the FILMSTARTS editorial team on “Deadpool & Wolverine”, I’m a little torn. I think the film is mediocre. I laughed out loud, but I also found a lot of it irrelevant. What really bothered me, besides the visual lack of imagination, was how little was made of the action set pieces.
The opening scene still has a few ideas and there is a longer one-shot during the Deadpool fight. But that’s it. The constant stabbing of the two title heroes is incredibly boring for many reasons. That’s not just because it doesn’t matter because quasi-immortal super beings are ramming blades into each other’s stomachs. Unfortunately, it’s poorly staged. The action is completely cut up, and there is hardly any stringent choreography. There is no dynamism.
I found it even worse during the big storm on the fortress of villain Cassandra Nova. Deadpool and Wolverine are supported by a few other heroes (who I won’t mention here for cameo spoiler reasons) and a big fight against all the mutants in Cassandra’s service is looming. But it never really happens. There are repeated cuts to a character slicing through enemies, but not a single scene is memorable. There is a lack of dynamism and impact here. There is blood splattering, but it doesn’t feel brutal. It just trickles past you – the death knell for an action scene.
“Thunderbolts*”: Please do better!
I hope that future Marvel films will be better at the action. I have high hopes for one project in particular: “Thunderbolts*”. At Comic-Con last weekend, the first scenes from the film were shown, featuring Marvel characters such as White Widow (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian (David Harbour), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), US Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). They give me hope. A fight scene between US Agent and White Whidow as well as a sequence in which Florence Pugh jumps from a skyscraper were met with great enthusiasm.
The industry magazine Deadline already comes to the conclusion that “Thunderbolts*” offers “dark-colored action” that “looks very different from that of other superhero films.”
Lead actress Florence Pugh also put the action in the foreground during the stage presentation and especially praised the stunt team for their great work. She also said that the film was “wonderful and bizarre”.
With action expertise from Germany
This fuels my anticipation for “Thunderbolts*”, which I have had for a long time – especially because of the stunt team that Pugh praised so much. The team from the German studio Real Deal, led by fight choreographer Can Aydin, is responsible for the action choreography. She works hand in hand with legend Heidi Moneymaker. The stunt coordinator was the double for “Black Widow” Scarlett Johansson for years. Her sister Renae Moneymaker not only supports her in planning the stunts, but will also be doing a lot of work in front of the camera. She is doubling the aforementioned Florence Pugh as White Widow.
The Real Deal team and the Moneymakers already know each other very well. In the action film “Plan B: Screw Plan A”, which Real Deal also produced as a showcase for their skills, Heidi Moneymaker even has a cameo appearance for a spectacular fight scene.
“Plan B – Screw Plan A” on Amazon Prime Video*
The people at work on “Thunderbolts*” are some of the best in the action genre. Of course, this is no guarantee of success. In the end, action choreographers, for example, have only a limited influence on how good a possibly first-class fight will ultimately look in the cinema.
A different selection of takes and perspectives or decisions in editing can ensure that we may not perceive a first-class choreography as such in the end. But Even though it is not certain that “Thunderbolts*” will offer us great action, the people involved make me optimistic.
“Thunderbolts*”: Not in cinemas until 2025
For the aforementioned team from the German action studio Real Deal, this is their first involvement in the MCU after numerous Hollywood projects such as the “John Wick” series and other genre films such as “Bullet Train”, “Violent Night” and “The Fall Guy” as well as the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series. But we’ll have to wait a little longer before we get to see this action collaboration. German cinema release of “Thunderbolts*“ is on April 30, 2025.
By the way, if you’re wondering what the asterisk in the title means: Many fans believe that perhaps before the film’s release, or at the latest during the course of the film, the anti-heroes involved will give themselves a new name: “Dark Avengers”. You can find out more about this here:
Is this MCU blockbuster actually the next “Avengers” film? This is what’s behind the current Marvel speculation!
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