Around the midpoint of Deadpool & Wolverine I had a rather chilling realisation during this exchange of dialogue between Elektra and Deadpool.
ELEKTRA: Every time one of us has gone up against her, they die. The Punisher, Quicksilver, Daredevil.”
DEADPOOL: “Daredevil? I’m so sorry.”
ELEKTRA: (with an indifferent shrug) “It’s fine.”
So let’s unpack this joke. Here is everything you, the viewer, need to know for this gag to land.
- This is Elektra, played by Jennifer Garner.
- Garner first played this role over twenty years ago, in the critically reviled Daredevil, and then again in the practically unseen spin-off Elektra.
- In Daredevil, she was the love interest of the title character.
- Daredevil was played by Ben Affleck.
- Garner and Affleck married shortly after making that film.
- They subsequently underwent an extremely public and acrimonious divorce.
- Hence, Elektra is not particularly cut up about Daredevil dying.
And virtually every joke in this thing is that kind of inside baseball uber-specific nerd bullshit that seems positively tailormade to appeal to me, a 40 something male who had comics instead of friends growing up. And yet…this thing made €1.8 billion dollars. This is as mainstream as movies get now.
Super niche nerd culture is no longer niche. The war is over. Everyone is a massive nerd now.
Total domination.
And I now find myself in a very difficult position as a movie critic.
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I laughed my ass off from start to finish.
And yet, when I read, say, Donald Clarke howling in sackcloth outside the sinful Gomorrah that is the modern movie industry, I can’t help but nod along.
This movie isn’t a movie. It’s heroin. It’s very good heroin. And I very much enjoyed it.
But…I should probably be ingesting food instead.
(more…)
unshavedmouse 