The movie begins with Deadpool in a North Dakota forest, in some sort of crisis for which he needs Wolverine's help. He doesn't believe Logan really died at the end of his eponymous movie and is digging him up, assuming he healed from his injuries and has been lying quietly in his shallow grave ever since. He is wrong.

Then agents from the Time Variance Authority (from Loki) show up to take Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) into custody, and he uses Wolverine's adamantium-covered bones to take them out in a fight/slaughter joyfully choreographed to the NSYNC hit "Bye Bye Bye."

Flash back to Wade Wilson's birthday party, where he grimly wishes he mattered while longing for his ex-girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), who left him after he wallowed in self-despair after the events of Deadpool 2. She's now dating some guy named Dermot. Then the TVA shows up and hauls Wade to their home office, where the officious Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) tells him he's going to destroy his universe and everyone in it -- because Wolverine was, apparently, the "anchor" character in Deadpool's universe, and his death at the end of Logan made the universe unnecessary to Marvel's multiverse -- but offers Wade a way out for himself. Wade declines, and goes looking for a Wolverine -- any Wolverine, in any universe -- to help him out of his predicament.

Where we get ample fan service as the movie provides cameos of multiple Wolverines lifted from iconic comic-book covers over the ages. Fun! Deadpool ends up enlisting the aid of the "worst Wolverine," one who wallows in self-despair (sound familiar?) after failing to save the lives of the other X-Men in his universe.

Anything to get Hugh Jackman back in the role ... and this time, no less, in his iconic yellow-and-blue suit. And, of course, before Deadpool and Wolverine can make nice and save the day, they have to fight each other, and they do. Epically.

The movie takes the two feuding heroes into the Void -- also from Loki -- where they encounter a broad assortment of heroes and villains from a variety of past (and at least one unrealized) Marvel and Marvel-adjacent projects. Their primary antagonist is Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), Charles Xavier's evil twin, but they also fight or ally themselves with, among others, Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), Elektra (Jennifer Garner), Blade (Wesley Snipes), Gambit (Channing Tatum), Pyro (Aaron Standford), Sabretooth (Tyler Mane), and a variety of alternate Deadpools (who engage in a climactic mass battle that, frankly, is kind of silly, and at the same time is freakin' awesome).

The movie makes a case that the concept of the multiverse is an overused concept in the MCU -- while also demonstrating how the concept can work brilliantly. (Don't think too hard about the logic, however; while Garner's Elektra might make sense in the Void, given that she was later recast in the Netflix Daredevil series, it's harder to explain the presence of X-23 (Dafne Keen), who should be alive and well in the Logan universe -- which, by extension, is Deadpool's reality.

Deadpool & Wolverine contains the expected amount of self-referential humor (including mocking Marvel for buying the rights to the franchise), ultra-violence and good, old-fashioned cursin'. It's funny, and yet at times surprisingly poignant. It's also far more successful than I thought it would be, coming as it does under the auspices of Disney's MCU. (Kudos to Disney for giving Reynolds, director Shawn Levy and the creative team license to do what Deadpool has proven to be a winning formula.)

It remains to be seen how Deadpool, Wolverine and other characters who showed up here will play in the greater MCU, but at least this twisted branch of the franchise is still going strong.