“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a difficult time.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When the apostle Paul was describing how the church works best, he chose more than once to use the illustration of a human body. A human body is healthiest when all the parts properly play their part. No two parts are the same, and all of them are necessary for the fullest and best functioning. This is the case with the body, it is the case in the church, and, as we are going to see, it is the case in a movie. The best movies feature a team of different actors all playing unique parts. If everyone plays their part well, the movie works. I was reminded of this fact this week as I finally got to watch Deadpool & Wolverine when it made its streaming debut on Disney+. Let’s talk about what worked, what didn’t, and how even in an excessively gory, foul-mouthed, irreverent, and sacrilegious movie, the Gospel is still present.

It took me a long time to watch the first Deadpool movie. It wasn’t part of the MCU, and I don’t really have any attachment to or love for Deadpool’s character in the comics. I was always more a fan of the actual good guys than the amoral characters who were just there for laughs. But since it was the highest grossing R-rated movie since The Passion of the Christ, I finally broke down and watched it. It was fun. It wasn’t great. I’m glad I didn’t pay anything to watch it in theaters. The same goes for Deadpool 2, which I finally streamed on Disney+ a few months ago. As far as Deadpool & Wolverine goes, it stayed in pretty much the same lane. The humor factor was better, the shameless fan service was well-received, the story was still filled with gaping plot holes, and the villain was just as worthless. But it was fun.

And, honestly, that’s about all these movies are supposed to be: fun. On that score, they are winners. Now, to be able to really enjoy the fun, you have to be willing to ignore or otherwise look past lots and lots of gratuitous violence that is all comic book style and meant to be humorous, lots and lots and lots of bad language, a heavy dose of sexual innuendo (although thankfully no actual sex), and in the case of Deadpool & Wolverine, rank sacrilege, but if you can do that, you’ll have a great time.

Oh, and you have to have watched at least the first season of the Loki series.

And the original Marvel-produced Fantastic Four movies. And all of the X-Men movies (especially Old Man Logan).

And the MCU movies in phases 1-3. And the Blade trilogy.

And the awful Elektra movie with Jennifer Garner (with at least a passing familiarity with Ben Affleck’s Daredevil movie).

And have been sufficiently tuned into online geek culture to know that Channing Tatum was once going to make a Gambit movie that never got off the ground.

And be enough of a comic book nerd to have even heard of Professor X’s twin sister, Cassandra Nova.

And know that Disney bought Fox a few years ago and that they were the original producers of the X-Men universe movies (including the first two Deadpools).

But if you have all that background in place along with the ability to get passed all that objectionable content, then you’ll have a ton. Apparently enough people did because the movie was a summer box office smash and is now the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time. It thankfully eclipsed Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker film which I not only never saw, but never wanted to see, and was apparently so utterly ruined by the unbelievably awful sequel that it deserved to lose its top spot.

The story of the film…really doesn’t matter. The short version is that the TVA comes to get Deadpool’s help with a MacGuffin of a problem that is utterly contrived, and Deadpool teams up with Wolverine in order to solve it and to tie the Disney and Fox superhero universes together. And I don’t say that last part because it’s a hidden subtext of the film. Thanks to Deadpool’s unique ability to break the fourth wall, it’s right out there in the open for everyone to see. That ability to break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience including comments that make clear he knows he’s a character being played by a particular actor (Ryan Reynolds) is what makes the character so unique and fun.

The whole movie is a joke, and the audience gets to be in on it. What’s more, the audience and Deadpool are the only two who are in on it. Literally every other character in the movie plays their part like they would if there was no fourth-wall-breaking going on. In fact, in one interview I read, Hugh Jackman (who plays Wolverine) talked about his wanting to get to break the fourth wall some too, but coming to the realization with the help of Reynolds and director Shawn Levy, that Deadpool is the only one who can do that. If anyone else does it, the effect loses all of its effectiveness. The rest of the cast got this message and played their roles as seriously as they could. Jackman in particular was excellent. He’s been playing Wolverine for almost 25 years now, though, so it should really be no surprise that he plays the character so very well.

The Deadpool character in the films is an interesting one. The thing that drew all the fans in is that Reynolds promised (and mostly delivered) to keep him true to his comic book origins as a totally amoral mercenary assassin who is constantly making awful and inappropriate jokes about everything and breaking the fourth wall. There is practically nothing that is sacred in the movies. Just about nothing is off limits. If it can be made into a joke, no matter how raunchy, it gets made into a joke. But, honestly, none of it would be possible without Reynolds. Reynolds is Deadpool. The character would not exist in film without him, and I can’t think of a single other actor who could do the character justice. The same goes with Jackman’s Wolverine or RDJ’s Iron Man. The success of both Deadpool the character and Reynolds the actor are tied together. That role has left him at the top of the Hollywood A-lister pile like Tony Stark did for RDJ.

I’m not so well-versed on Deadpool in the comics, though, so I don’t have much in the way of loyalty to him. If you’re a big fan and I’m wrong here, tell me. But it seems to me that for all the shtick, the Deadpool in the movies isn’t really as amoral as the one in the comics. In the movies, while he has the reputation of being as much, that’s not what we ever see. Yes, he’s willing to kill in ways someone like Captain America wasn’t (although Cap’s body count is awfully high if you watch carefully), but he only kills the bad guys and never does so at random.

More than that, though, he is relentlessly committed to his friends and chosen family. In fact, all three films are really just about his doing whatever it takes to save them from harm in some form or fashion. Yes, he saves the rest of the world in the process (at least in the second and third), but they’re the ones he cares about most. In the climax of this third film, he’s willing to sacrifice his own life in order to save them. I believe it was Jesus who said something about love having no greater example than a willingness to lay down one’s life for friends.

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, once noted that a friend loves at all times. A brother is born for difficult times. Deadpool is a friend and a brother in all of his movies. Yes, he’s rude and crude and totally irreverent, but he’s also committed and loyal and self-sacrificing. He sees the best in the people he brings into his inner circle, and works to call that out of them. He calls himself Marvel Jesus for most of the film and even proclaims himself as risen at the end, which is totally sacrilegious and probably blasphemous at least in someone’s mind, but in many ways, he embodies the Gospel story.

That story is powerful. It has changed more than a few lives over the last 2,000 years. As we have talked about before, that story lies at the heart of so many of the stories we tell still today. Sometimes you have to dig a bit to find it, but it’s almost always there. It is here even in a movie like Deadpool. If you don’t like this kind of humor, don’t bother to see it. You won’t enjoy it. But if you do, you’ll likely laugh as hard as I did and enjoy the ride. And if you do, congratulations. Money talks, this money spoke rather loudly, and there are already plans for another. So, enjoy the movie, and don’t forget to take the lesson: sacrificial love is pretty powerful stuff. Jesus’ changed the world. If you are willing to receive it, it’ll change your life.