Hugh Jackman’s performance is the only sincere one in Deadpool & Wolverine

Deep beneath all the layers of sarcasm and meta-jokes, the Deadpool movies’ greatest strength has always been their emotional honesty. And that’s the biggest missing element in the latest installment, Deadpool and WolverineBut what Deadpool lacks in heart this time around, Hugh Jackman more than makes up for as Wolverine.

Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) has a winning vulnerability in his first two films, even if he hides it under layers of sarcasm. He loves his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). He values ​​his friends. He has empathy for Russell (Julian Dennison), a lonely boy with mutant powers. His heart carries the Deadpool films, making them more than a series of jokes. The central joke of the films is that, while all this is obvious, Deadpool himself would never actually say any of it, preferring to hide it under a mountain of sarcasm. In his first Marvel Cinematic Universe outing, though, the surface-level cynicism is as deep as the character goes.

Sure, the movie technically revolves around Deadpool trying to save his timeline so he can save his friends. But that motivation feels more obligatory than actual character motivation. He talks about his friends when the plot requires him to care, but the moments in between are too filled with irreverent jokes and franchise IP in-jokes to make room for Deadpool to have any real emotion — or even a passing mention of it. Why he loves the people around him. Now that he’s Disney’s Deadpool, he saves people because that’s what a Disney hero does, not because he actually loves them.

But for all ways Deadpool and Wolverine strips the main character of the emotions he once had, director Shawn Levy and the writers (including Reynolds) aren’t completely allergic to feelings. They simply assign them all to Wolverine. And Hugh Jackman makes the most of that responsibility.

Jackman has been playing Logan for 24 years now, and he’s done just about everything the live-action version of the character can do. He’s starred in zany time-travel movies, survived at least three different attempts at universe reboots, helmed a superhero Western, and passed the baton to the next generation of heroes—or at least tried to. And through every iteration of the X-Men universe, and every false start, Jackman has remained steadfast, consistently delivering the best superhero performance in every universe. His MCU debut is no exception.

Photo: Ben Rothstein/Fox

Deadpool and Wolverine casts Jackman in a slightly different version of the character than he’s ever had the chance to play before: a Wolverine freed from the pressures of heroism by his own failure. Everyone he loves and cares about is dead, and he wasn’t there to fight for them, so all that’s left is despair. It’s a bleak take on the superhero genre’s most stabilizing force, and Levy and co. are willing to milk it for all the drama it’s worth. Thanks to Jackman, that decision is one of Deadpool and Wolverine‘s saving grace.

Jackman is a born showman, and he excels at translating oversized emotions into oversized monologues. The film repeatedly lets the Tony winner and Oscar nominee loose to fill the film’s emotional void with stories of his grief and loss. It’s obvious showboating, and a complete tonal shift from the rest of the script. But with Jackman selling, it’s hard not to buy, no matter how blatantly and blatantly the writing manipulates the audience.

When Jackman’s failed Wolverine sits down on a log to have a discussion with his criminally underused Logan story partner X-23 (Dafne Keen), he brings the entire film to a standstill with a performance so sincere, it feels like it’s breaking the rules of the film for a moment. The scene is just a pale imitation of what Logan great, but it’s still notable: a sudden outburst of emotion in what has otherwise been nothing more than a hollow exercise in IP making fools of itself for cool points.

Image: 20th Century Fox

That, though, is the strength of Jackman’s Wolverine: a performance that sells it to the cheap seats, that sings on screen and makes the audience believe that this muscular killing machine feels every second of his own semi-immortality as a fatal stab in the arm. He’s cruel, kind and heartbreaking all in one breath, and even his most inane lines feel built into the fabric of the performance rather than extraneous appendages.

It’s the same pathos and pain that Jackman has infused into the character for 24 years, and the reason he survives every iteration of the live-action X-Men. It’s simply impossible at this point to imagine taking Wolverine’s live-action character out of Jackman’s very capable hands. And for all Deadpool and Wolverinedespite e’s faults, at least it gives Jackman a fitting encore and lap of honor after the character’s perfect applause in Logan.

Deadpool and Wolverine is now playing in theaters.