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

polygon.com:

Deep beneath all the layers of sarcasm and meta jokes, the Deadpool movies’ biggest strength has always secretly been emotional sincerity. That’s also the biggest missing element from the latest installment, Deadpool & Wolverine. But 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 movie outings, even though he disguises it under layers of snark. He loves his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). He appreciates his friends. He has empathy for Russell (Julian Dennison), a lonely kid with mutant powers. His heart carries the Deadpool movies and makes them more than a series of gags. The movies’ most important joke is that even though all of this is clear, Deadpool himself would never really say any of it out loud, preferring to disguise it under a mountain of sarcasm. In his first Marvel Cinematic Universe outing, however, 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 like a true character motivation. He talks about his friends when the plot demands he care, but the intervening moments are too stuffed with irreverent banter and franchise IP jokes to make room for Deadpool to have any real emotions — or even a cursory mention of why he likes 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 the ways Deadpool & Wolverine strips its main character of the emotions he once had, director Shawn Levy and the writers (Reynolds among them) aren’t completely allergic to feelings. They just assign them all to Wolverine instead. And Hugh Jackman absolutely makes the most of that responsibility.

Jackman is 24 years into playing Logan at this point, and he’s done just about