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With a superhero film franchise as unorthodox as the Deadpool films, it’s important for them not to overstay their welcome. As much charm as Ryan Reynolds’ delivery brings to the character in motion, as hilarious and meta as the writing tends to be, it would have gotten old quickly if not for the great spacing between films. While 2018’s Deadpool 2 was a fun surprise after a short two-year wait, Deadpool & Wolverine caps off the trilogy after six years in development hell. It’s not a perfect movie by any means, but in a way, the film serves as the perfect Deadpool movie. Now that the character is owned by Disney’s Marvel Studios (as are the X-Men and the Fantastic Four among others, but more on that later), Deadpool has a lot more room to play around and break comic book movie conventions far more faithfully than ever before. Playing into long-time rumors, dreams, and iconic moments throughout the Marvel franchise’s cinematic history, Deadpool & Wolverine makes the most of the empire the titular characters spend the movie’s runtime disrupting.

With this new installment, the creative team behind the trilogy is firing on all cylinders. Despite the ownership being transferred to Disney from Fox, the film’s writing is emblematic of Deadpool in his prime with no corners cut, with the absence of cocaine being the exception. It’s an all-star writers’ room for a Deadpool movie, with Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick returning as well as Ryan Reynolds himself. A new addition to the team is Zeb Wells, a seasoned Marvel comic book writer. This isn’t Wells’ MCU debut, having written on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and The Marvels recently. In addition, Wells is penned as the head writer on the upcoming Marvel Zombies for Disney+, the first TV-MA animated series for the franchise. To cap off the team, we have Shawn Levy, who also directed the film. Many know Levy as the director of Free Guy and The Adam Project, both of which starred Reynolds as well. In a sense, this movie’s release completes Levy’s own Reynolds trilogy.

While the film occasionally runs into modern Marvel’s problem of sloppy CGI/VFX usage (not that it’s exactly the VFX studios’ fault), it can often be excused as part of Deadpool’s charm. With how often the movie and Deadpool himself pokes fun at the current state of the MCU and its recent hiccups, I was honestly expecting a joke or two about that. However, fans of the franchise know Deadpool is at his prime when you can’t expect what will happen next. Case in point: the opening credits sequence. Each Deadpool movie opens with a subversive opening credits sequence that lets the audience know the movie’s gonna be a little different than the usual Marvel flick. The first film in the trilogy opens on a free-roaming still shot of Deadpool in a car fight, occasionally zooming into nooks and corners to show the names of the cast and crews. Deadpool 2 is a bit more traditional, with cast & crew title cards accompanying emotional and hilarious shots of Deadpool himself set to Celine Dion’s “Ashes”. Both of these title sequences poke fun at the cast & crew shown by referring to their other works, bashing them, or even just bringing up unrelated nonsense in their place. However, Deadpool & Wolverine (in its meta nature) takes these sequences THEMSELVES and flips them on their head.

The title sequence for Deadpool & Wolverine is traditional in the sense that it actually shows the names of the cast, crew, and production companies with no caveats. However, the sense of tradition ends here as these namedrops are intercut with footage of Deadpool himself passionately dancing to *NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” from 2000. As heads fly, blood spills, and bones break, Deadpool finds a way to interact with the name cards that show up throughout the fight and dance scene. Of the three movies, I find that this intro in particular best shows off what the merc with a mouth is all about the best, and that it works perfectly as the grand finale of the Deadpool title sequences.

We’re staying a bit hush-hush on the plot, understandably so. There’s so many cameos, references, and jokes throughout the movie that shouldn’t be spoiled but seen on the big screen as Wade would want you to. However, without giving away too much, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman’s history of the two title characters soars in how their chemistry makes for one of the most anticipated team-ups in cinematic history that stuck the landing and then some. Deadpool’s depiction in film has almost always been flawless. Almost. The energy Reynolds brings to the character transfers his comedy over from the comics super well, but also has its own unique flavor only witnessed on camera. However, Jackman’s portrayal of Wolverine has always been much more grounded, action-packed, and gritty, whether you think as far back as X2 to as great of a capper as Logan was. When you put two of these Marvel characters who should never be in the same room as each other in the same film as starring protagonists, it makes for a campy, bloody, love-hate dynamic that just makes all the sense in the world as much as Wade made it out to be back in 2016.

Deadpool & Wolverine is now playing in theaters worldwide.