Oh Brother
Real brothers, Reel Talk: Dan & Mike Smith cover film, TV, & artist interviews 🍿📺🎤
My brother Mike and I launched the “Oh Brother” podcast in 2020. The show’s primary objective is to share our enthusiasm for film and cinema in an informative and entertaining way. We also enjoy interviewing artists with diverse backgrounds in film and television who work both in front of and behind the scenes.
We invite you to join us each week and follow the podcast so you never miss an episode. We’d love to hear from you, so email us or text us some fan mail to share your feedback on the show!
Oh Brother
Deadpool and Wolverine: Triumphs and Tribulations
Ready to discover whether "Deadpool and Wolverine" lives up to the hype? Join us as we navigate the film's journey from development to box office triumph, uncovering the behind-the-scenes magic crafted by director Sean Levy and the dynamic performances of Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. We promise you'll gain a fresh perspective on how watching all the X-Men films prior added depth to our viewing experience, and you'll hear our candid take on the movie’s ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb.
Tune in for a lively discussion filled with contrasting opinions and thoughtful critiques. We'll share our thoughts on the film's humor, action, and visual effects while debating its heavy reliance on the multiverse concept. Compare its reception to "Furiosa" and explore whether financial success truly equates to quality. Plus, don't miss our take on Wolverine's iconic yellow outfit and the chemistry between Reynolds and Jackman, as we dissect what worked—and what didn't—in this much-anticipated film.
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Welcome to the O'Brother Podcast with hosts Dan and Mike Smith, brothers from the same mother with different opinions on movies, tv, video games and more, plus celebrity interviews. Get ready, get set. It's time for the O'Brother Podcast. Welcome to the O'Brother Podcast. I'm your host, dan Smith. Alongside me is always my brother from the same mother, mike Smith. Good to see you. Dan is my brother from the same mother, mike Smith. Good to see you, dan. Good to see you, man. We're back. We're going to do a review on yeah, this is one of those episodes.
Speaker 1:We almost didn't happen but, as of this recording, a few months back we did a first look on Deadpool and Wolverine. Yeah, we had good things to say about it in the first look. If you go back and watch that first look that we did. So this came out July 26th two hours and eight minutes runtime, directed by Sean Levy. Of course, he has a relationship with both Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman through, like Free Guy and Real Steel, which I never saw. Have you seen that with Hugh Jackman? I've never seen it with a robot.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It's kind of multiple writing credits here. You getyan reynolds, you know, uh, ret reese, paul wernick levy, uh zeb wells. So there's multiple uh credits there and then the cast just won't run down the whole cast, of course, but we can talk about it. Uh, ryan reynolds, of course is deadpool hugh jackman reprising his role as wolverine. Right um, you've got emma cor who plays Cassandra Nova. Matthew, is it McFadden?
Speaker 2:McFadden, mcfadden, okay.
Speaker 1:From Succession. We loved him in Succession. Daphne Keene, who, of course, played X-23. Is that right? And she was in Logan. She was in Logan. Jon Favreau makes an appearance as Happy Hogan, marina Baccarin, who you you know, one of your favorites, uh. And Rob Delaney is back as Pete. Now I'd mentioned the first look we did was just a few months ago. In that short span of time, I've seen every single X-Men film there is. That includes the new mutants, which was absolutely atrocious.
Speaker 2:You didn't see the new mutants. I do. I own it.
Speaker 1:I'm sad. Wow, I, you know, I have all of them. It's a complete. I don't think I've watched.
Speaker 2:I also have sonic one and two behind me that will never get played. I don't know why I bought them, but I'm a video game guy, so I had to buy them previously.
Speaker 1:We just did an episode on furiosa right and we were very split on that film, and what was interesting is that was, of course, uh, by box office receipts, a complete flop, right, yeah? Um, now here you've got a film that is the highest grossing r-rated film of all time. I think at this point yeah and what was the other record it's set so far, do you recall?
Speaker 2:um it's, it broke into the marvel top five is that what?
Speaker 1:okay, yeah, as of this recording, it has garnered worldwide 1.2 billion dollars, uh, the estimated budget of about 200 million dollars. So you know it's no small, no small chunk of change there. It opened more than Furiosa has made worldwide to date. Correct, $211 million opening weekend, which is just astonishing.
Speaker 2:And in the first look you literally said this is going to make buckets of money. That's right. And you were not wrong. I was not wrong?
Speaker 1:no, however, you heard it here.
Speaker 2:However, we're not on a limb I think furiosa set the stage for us being way apart. I think this is going to bring us back together, like deadpool and wolverine and themselves exactly uh, deadpool and friend, as this was originally titled.
Speaker 1:But uh, the original title leaked online around when they showed the first teaser, I think during the super bowl. This the title was going to be deadpool and friend and it leaked. Really poor response from the fan base to that.
Speaker 2:So, like the next next day, it became Deadpool and Wolverine Right now for the first time, and you just watched all the X-Men films and the one constant in every film is Wolverine. Is Wolverine?
Speaker 1:Exactly Not in the yellow suit and I felt I told you I felt very accomplished having watched all those films. Now, it took 20 years for me to start that right. X-men came out in 2000, yeah and uh. So it's, it's amazing it's taken me this long. I had never seen a minute of any of those films and I was thoroughly enjoyable to go through and I binged them in less than a week quick yeah, yeah, very quick and lucky.
Speaker 2:You did before this film, because if you hadn't seen logan, lucky. What are you talking about? I I said it's good that you did. Oh, lucky that I did, yeah, before this film, because there's things in it. Yeah, you would get lost if you didn't see certain films, or shows right, right I.
Speaker 1:I don't think it would have ruined it, but it certainly helped and I was glad in retrospect that I did go and binge the franchise Again for what it's worth. We always say that on the podcast. But let's just look at the two ratings that everybody refers to, which, of course. First, Rotten Tomatoes 78% rating as of right now from the critics, 95% from the audience.
Speaker 2:And I think very little of Rotten Tomatoes.
Speaker 1:But let me mention this IMDb. It has a meta score of 56, more than 20 points below Furiosa.
Speaker 2:And I don't agree with that. But I agree with the score. The meta score, I think, is right on.
Speaker 1:Okay, so where do we want to start? Do you want to start commenting on again? It's kind of a flip of Furiosa right, a movie that I thought was good but tanked, and a movie that you think rightly tanked, versus this film where you had sort of teased over the last several weeks. I kind of knew you didn't love this film, dead, yeah, and wolverine and um, but we're talking, you know, other than maverick Wade Wilson.
Speaker 2:You know Deadpool is constantly jabbing Disney more than we do. I kept thinking of myself after I saw it because I heard nothing but good things. Every review was great, positive. I watched Kevin Smith, who I respect as a director and an actor and and just a creator. He, he. I watched a 40 minute review of his. That was positive but Although it was positive, in his words, his body language, his tone said this isn't good. Yeah, but he knows everybody in this universe, in the comic universe, so he's not going to rag on it. And I thought is it just me? And I'll read one, because I had to read a couple of reviews to think, to see if somebody was on the same way you got some quotes.
Speaker 2:Okay, I just have one quote. And who's this? From la times? Okay, must we be served gruel and pretend that it's nourishing? That's the perfect quote of this movie. Now I know why it's doing big box office because people are going back and seeing it, because there's all these easter eggs, there's all these hidden things from the comics, from the other shows, like I didn't even catch the hulk and I guess he was in it like for a glimpse. He was just in it. Uh, you want me to give the setup of the movie Very briefly, please. Okay, basically, deadpool, who's living a civilian life, now gets approached by a character Paradox and he's told your universe will be destroyed unless you bring Wolverine into it. It turns out to save Deadpool's universeverine needs to be into it, but he brings the wrong one in, so hence they go on this adventure right, and and your little stutter step there.
Speaker 1:Therein lies the problem with this film.
Speaker 1:Okay, now one of the problems well, the main, the main issue, in my opinion, is now. Let me first say, though, I enjoyed all the deadpool stuff, like that's what I'm expecting and that's what I want and I got all that I love. You know, there's always these very, very creative special effects, heavy sequences, that open these films, just like this one. I found that highly entertaining. It was funny way over the top with the violence and everything, everything again you'd expect in a deadpool film. But right from the jump, almost here we go again. Now it's funny.
Speaker 1:Deadpool is poking fun at this through the fourth wall, like you said, against disney and this and that with the multiverse shit. And here we go right down the fucking multiverse rabbit hole again, and that's why this film suffers. Now it's funny. Here we are going to argue this when it's made, you know, over a billion dollars. But like that quote you just read, which I think is so brilliant, right, it's like. Well, that doesn't mean that it's a great film, right, correct? And from the jump, like 2022, we're going back. Right, they had no story. They didn't know what the hell the story was going to be the amount of it out.
Speaker 2:The iterations this went through right is second to none and almost like up to the day cameras started rolling yes, they had no idea.
Speaker 1:It's a very different film and a different time it seemed to me, until hugh jackman decided to pick up the phone and make that phone call they. I don't know what this would have been. I have no idea what this would have been and and you know, where were the marvel characters?
Speaker 2:right, you know, spider we got three Spider-Men. We got every villain Way too much, Too many mouths to feed. That's what was wrong with that film. This one they brought back. You know, don't tell your friends the cameos. The cameos were stupid. Elektra Blade although Wesley Snipes looks great, God love.
Speaker 1:Wesley Snipes. He looks great, fantastic. Shout out to wesley snipes but why like cut out of a wesley snipes film, just for the record exactly I was in passenger 50 set. You know you weren't in it, but spent a day running down you could have been in it, yeah yes, I should have been so anyways the problem I agree that the multiverse storyline, the the characters they brought back that I could have cared less about, right I I did surprisingly find channing channing tatum's character gambit funny like it was that's so stupid, but right, but who cares that?
Speaker 1:never got made, I know, and only hardcore loyalists are gonna be down gonna know that and the cassandra nova character. I'm sorry, I just didn't care. I thought it was weak lazy like you've seen loki no, right, see like that had to.
Speaker 2:You had to be lost through the time.
Speaker 1:Right travel stuff and no, it's no. In some ways it's weird because I know levy. I think he's quoted as saying, like they made this welcome to the old brother podcast me host dan smith. Alongside me, as always, my brother from the same mother, mike smith. Good to see you, dan, good to see man. We're back. We're gonna do a review on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is one of those episodes we almost didn't happen, but, as of this recording, a few months back we did a first look on deadpool and wolverine. Yeah, we had good things to say about it in the first look. If you go back and and uh and watch that first look that we did so. This came out july 26th, two hours and eight minutes runtime, directed by sean levy. Of course he has a relationship with both ryan reynolds and hugh jackman through Free Guy and Real Steel, which I never saw. Have you seen that with Hugh Jackman? I've never seen it with a robot. Right, there's kind of multiple writing credits here. You get Ryan Reynolds, rhett Reese, paul Wernick, levy, zeb Wells, so there's multiple credits there, and then the cast just won't run down the whole cast, of course, but we can talk about it. Ryan Reynolds, of course, is Deadpool Hugh Jackman reprising his role as Wolverine Right, you've got Emma Corrin who plays Cassandra Nova. Matthew, is it McFadden?
Speaker 2:McFadden, mcfadden, okay yeah.
Speaker 1:From Succession. We loved him in Succession. Daph okay, yeah, from succession. We loved him in succession. Um. Daphne keen, who of course, played x-23 is that right from um? And she was in logan. She was in logan. Uh, john favaro makes an appearance as happy hogan. Uh. Marina baccarin, who you, you know, one of your favorites, yeah. And rob delaney is back as pete. Now. I mentioned the first look we did was just a few months ago. In that short span of time, I've seen every single x-men film there is. That includes the new mutants, which was absolutely horrible atrocious.
Speaker 2:You didn't see the new mutants. I do, I own it. I'm sad wow I, you know I have all of them it's a complete. I don't think I've watched I also have sonic one and two behind me that will never get played. I don't know why, bottom, but I'm a video game guy, so I had to buy them previously.
Speaker 1:We just did an episode on furiosa right and we were very split on that film, and what was interesting is that was, of course uh, by box office receipts, a complete flop. Right yeah, Now here you've got a film that is the highest grossing R-rated film of all time. I think at this point yes, and what was the other record it's set so far, do you recall?
Speaker 2:It broke into the Marvel top five Is that what?
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, as of this recording, it has garnered worldwide $1.2 billion, the estimated budget of about $200 million. So you know it's no small chunk of change there. It opened more than Furiosa has made worldwide to date, correct $211 million opening weekend, which is just astonishing.
Speaker 2:And in the first look you literally said this is going to make buckets of money. That's right, and you were not wrong?
Speaker 1:I was not wrong, however. You heard it here first. However, it went out on a limb.
Speaker 2:I think Furiosa set the stage for us being way apart. I think this is gonna bring us back together like deadpool and wolverine and themselves exactly uh, deadpool and friend, as this was originally titled.
Speaker 1:but uh, the original title leaked online around when they showed the first teaser, I think during the Super Bowl. The title was going to be Deadpool and Friend and it leaked. Really poor response from the fan base to that.
Speaker 2:So, like the next day, it became Deadpool and Wolverine, right now for the first time, and you just watched all the X-Men films, and the one constant in every film is Wolverine. Is Wolverine?
Speaker 1:Exactly Not in the yellow suit and I felt I told you I felt very accomplished, having watched all those films. It took 20 years for me to start that Right. X-men came out in 2000. Yeah, and so it's amazing it's taken me this long. I had never seen a minute of any of those films and I was thoroughly enjoyable to go through and I binged them in less than a week, quick yeah, yeah, very quick and lucky.
Speaker 2:you did before this film, because if you hadn't seen logan, lucky. What are you talking about? I said it's good that you did. Oh, lucky that I did, yeah, before this film, because there's things in it that you would get lost if you didn't see certain films or shows.
Speaker 1:Right, right, I don't think it would have ruined it, but it certainly helped and I was glad in retrospect that I did go and binge the franchise again for what it's worth. We always say that on the podcast, but let's just look at the two. You know ratings that everybody refers to, which, of course, first rotten tomatoes 78 rating as of right now from the critics, 95 from the audience and I think very little of Rotten Tomatoes. But let me mention this IMDb. It has a Metascore of 56. More than 20 points below Furiosa.
Speaker 2:Very interesting and I don't agree with that. But I agree with the score, the Metascore, I think, is right on.
Speaker 1:Okay, so where do we want to start? Do you want to start commenting on, if we? It's kind of a flip of furiosa right a a movie that I thought was was good, uh, but tanked, and a movie that you think rightly tanked, versus this film where you had sort of teased over the the last several weeks. I kind of knew you didn't love this film Deadpool and Wolverine but we're talking other than Maverick.
Speaker 2:here's another billion-dollar box office smash, so I went back and after I saw this I thought, okay, I'm missing something, because you know, throughout the film, wade Wilson, you know Deadpool is constantly jabbing Disney more than we do. I kept thinking to myself after I saw it, cause I heard nothing but good things. Every review was great, positive. I watched kevin smith, who I respect as a director and an actor and and just a creator. He, he, I watched a 40 minute review of his. That was positive. But although it was positive, in his words, his body language, his tone said otherwise, like this isn't good. Yeah, but he, he knows everybody in this universe, in the comic universe, so he's not gonna rag on it. And I thought is it just me? And and I, I'll read one, because I had to read a couple of reviews to think, to see if somebody was on the same way you got some quotes okay, I just have one quote.
Speaker 2:And who's this from la times? Okay, must we be served gruel and pretend that it's nourishing? That's the perfect quote of this movie. Now I know why it's doing big box office because people are going back and seeing it, because there's all these easter eggs, there's all these hidden things from the comics, from the other shows. Like I didn't even catch the hulk and I guess he was in it like for a glimpse. He was just in it.
Speaker 2:Uh, you want me to give the setup of the movie very briefly, please, please, okay. Basically, deadpool, who's living a civilian life, now gets approached by a character Paradox and he's told your universe will be destroyed unless you bring Wolverine into it. It turns out to save Deadpool's universe, wolverine needs to be into it, but he brings the wrong one in, so hence they go on this adventure.
Speaker 1:Right, and your little stutter step there. Therein lies the problem with this film. Okay, now, one of the problems. Well, the main issue, in my opinion, is now.
Speaker 1:Let me first say, though, I enjoyed all the Deadpool stuff, like that's what I'm expecting and that's what I want, and I got all that. I love it. You know, there's always these very, very creative special effects, heavy sequences that open these films, just like this one. I found that highly entertaining. It was funny, way over the top with the violence and everything, everything, again, you'd expect in a deadpool film. But right from the jump, almost here we go again.
Speaker 1:Now it's funny, deadpool is poking fun at this through the fourth wall, like you said, against disney and this and that with the multiverse shit. And here we go right down the fucking multiverse rabbit hole again, and that's why this film suffers. Now it's funny, here we are going to argue this when it's made, you know, over a billion dollars. But like that quote you just read, which I think is so brilliant, right, it's like well, that doesn't mean that it's a great film. Right, correct, and from the jump, like 2022, we're going back. Right, they had no story. They didn't know what the hell the story was going to be.
Speaker 2:The amount of the iterations this went through. Right Is second to none and, almost like up to the day, cameras started rolling. Yes, they had no idea.
Speaker 1:It's a very different film at a different time it seemed to me, until hugh jackman decided to pick up the phone and make that phone call. They. I don't know what this would have been. I have no idea what this would have been and and you know, where were the marvel characters?
Speaker 2:right, you know. Spider-man we got three Spider-Men. We got every villain Way too much, Too many mouths to feed. That's what was wrong with that film. This one they brought back. You know, don't tell your friends the cameos. The cameos were stupid. Elektra Blade, although Wesley Snipes looks great.
Speaker 1:God love Wesley Snipes. He looks great, fantastic, shout out to Wesleyley snipes but why like cut out of a wesley snipes film, just for the record?
Speaker 2:exactly, I was in passenger 50 set.
Speaker 1:You know you weren't in it, but spent a day running down you could have been in it, yeah yes, I should have been so anyways, the agree. I agree that that the multiverse storyline, the, the characters they brought back, that I could have cared less about, right I? I did surprisingly find channing, channing tatum's character gambit funny like it was that's so stupid, but right, but who cares that? Never got made, I know, and only hardcore loyalists are gonna be down gonna know that and the cassandra nova character. I'm sorry, I just didn't care.
Speaker 2:I thought it was weak lazy like you've seen loki no, right, see like that had to you had to be lost through the time.
Speaker 1:Right travel stuff and no, it's no. In some ways it's weird because I know levy. I think he's quoted as saying like they made this to almost stand alone and yeah, I think to a degree you could still enjoy the film. But, like you said, ok now I got to know Loki. I got to read the novels I got. It's like Star Wars, like they keep doing that to us, right, unless you're in the secret club, you can't enjoy it. You got to know the secret handshake.
Speaker 2:Correct and there was a lot of comic stuff and we've said this many times I like Marvel films and I went back and I watched all four of the Russo brothers films. They're all great. Thor Ragnarok is great and I watched all of the post Endgame films, except for maybe Eternals. I just couldn't do it. They weren't that bad as I thought originally. They weren't great, they weren't good. I wouldn't have changed my rating, but this one is definitely the third best Deadpool movie.
Speaker 1:I got to agree with that. I got to agree with that. I think I agree with that.
Speaker 2:And one thing, dan, I got to say. Very rarely during a Marvel film do I get bored, do I start wandering thoughts? I got bored when Wolverine and Deadpool, startpool start fighting. Now what is their superpower? They can both regenerate right so what is the point of having a fight where they're stabbing each other, breaking each other's limbs?
Speaker 1:well, 20 minutes because it allows them to go. I was bored. It allows them to go to that extreme I mean I thought again, it's ridiculous but I thought all that and it went on too long I thought it's funny. I like the the bit in the beginning with the when he was trying to track down wolverine and that's when you get the henry cavill cameo and you get all of that.
Speaker 1:The the little little wolverine was pretty funny, daughter, right, no, no, the little wolverine, the guy in the bar, and you think it's like, oh right, right. And then he gets off the stool and he's, like, you know, really short, uh. And then the jokes like with the when the claws wouldn't come all the way out and he says, oh, you know, whiskey, dick of the claws or whatever they right, I, I the humor and all the deadpool stuff. I enjoyed all that over the top stuff you're talking about. I just thought the storyline was weak. It was really more like a greatest hits or a type of thing, like they were just trying to um pander to the people that you know have watched loki and know the gambit story and all of that sort of stuff. While I'm over there scratch my head going, I don't, I don't really like if you hadn't seen.
Speaker 2:Because this was the wolverine from logan. I found myself bored a couple times. I didn't find myself bored. I went back and looked at how many trailers there's like 17 trailers for this, what I think. If you've seen the trailers, you've seen the best of this movie.
Speaker 1:I mean they? You know they were saying this was going to be in the vein of like a 48 hours or planes, trains and automobile, like I see where they were trying to get that between these. And the interplay between jackman and reynolds is great, I mean they're, they make it right. And one thing I really did love not being a comic person, at least not deep knowledge of it I did think it was cool to see first of all Wolverine in that outfit Outfit right.
Speaker 2:Famous from the comics and the animated show.
Speaker 1:But especially when he pulls down the mask. That was. It was pretty cool. It's pretty cool and I'm sure people that are hardcore fans of that comic character love that right, there was all kinds of um reaction to the first shots of him in the yellow get up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, but I haven't heard anyone be critical of this, and I don't know that, and there's a lot to be critical of.
Speaker 1:I don't know if there's anybody that's going to agree with our assessment on this. Maybe not, we may be, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, look at im that's going to agree with our assessment on this, maybe not. We may be, I don't know. Well, look at IMDB. But you just said bingo.
Speaker 1:True Right, and that's a more trusted source, but you clearly have more issues with it than I do, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I felt like I saw the best of it at home. You know what I mean. I felt like I saw the best of it at home. You know what I mean. I felt like the best jokes they ruined.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why couldn't they keep it more steeped in reality? That's you know, and two characters that you know. I mean Wolverine gets a little out there, but yeah.
