Here is the thing: Deadpool & Wolverine, the sole theatrical outing for 2024 by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is a near-impossible thing to review. In many regards it is a very poor film: the story is a bare-bones excuse to make a lot of jokes, so any review that goes into much detail about it is going to spoil the humour for the audience. It is also a story that requires an awful lot of insider knowledge for viewers to actually appreciate those jokes. The very definition of ‘inside baseball’, Deadpool & Wolverine demands not just prior knowledge of Deadpool and 20th Century Fox’s extended X-Men franchise but a lot of other Marvel-inspired cinema as well. I cannot in good conscience even write what films the audience will need to have seen, since that would spoil the effect of half the jokes in the movie when the viewers come to them. There are even jokes – some of the very best ones – that require an understanding not just of the movies but of behind-the-scenes gossip and trivia; even the private lives of the actors that play these popular characters.

In essence, Deadpool & Wolverine is a film for dedicated superhero film enthusiasts. The more excited you are about a new Marvel feature, the funnier it should be for you. Beyond the story, the film is plagued by oddly cheap-looking visual effects, unconvincing locations, and a sort of hollow ‘shot on the backlot’ vibe that makes entire cities feel deserted, and yet if I claimed to have not enjoyed myself immensely I would be lying. While director Shawn Levy is not a natural action director, he has an excellent handle on comedy.

I have not laughed so hard in a movie theatre in what feels like years. The comedy on display is solid gold for comic book nerds. The structure supporting that comedy should be careful not to screen next to Twisters in the adjacent theatre, since a brief gust of wind is all it would take to collapse the entire enterprise.

It is rather wonderful how Ryan Reynolds doggedly took the Deadpool character, famously ruined it its first big-screen outing (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), and launched what would become 20th Century Fox’s highest-grossing superhero character. He is in his element here, as is Hugh Jackman – who fits back into his Wolverine performance as easily as putting on a shoe. Some may wonder how this new film navigates re-opening a story that closed pretty definitively in James Mangold’s Logan. The answer is that it does so with deliberate indelicacy. It would seem disrespectful were it not so gleefully funny. Supporting actor Matthew MacFadyen does a serviceable job in a serviceable role. Emma Corrin is over-the-top as a theatricalised villain; your mileage is going to very, but I found her a little bit too much despite the film’s overall tone.

It is possible to have too much of a good thing. This third Deadpool runs long – almost intolerably so – and risks losing its irreverence in the process. It also uses its own premise of parallel universes and alternate versions of characters to mock the MCU’s own pre-occupation with the ‘multiverse’, which grates a little. I had a similar issue with the conclusion of Marvel’s streaming series She-Hulk: it is all very well to mock poor storytelling, but it feels remarkably cheap when you are both the one doing the mocking and the one telling bad stories. Deadpool‘s sense of biting the hand that feeds it only works as long as the viewer does not notice how safely the film separates this adventure from the MCU proper.

Ultimately the biggest surprise in Deadpool & Wolverine is its heart. While it may not actually bring its titular characters to the MCU as promised, it does act as an unexpected tribute to the pre-Marvel Studios era of Marvel movies. The 20th Century Fox X-Men series died with a whimper: this is the heartfelt, unexpectedly sincere tribute you never knew you needed.