“Deadpool & Wolverine” may not be the superhero slam dunk Marvel die-hards have been holding out for but, unlike many in the MCU, the banner’s first R-rated entry has enough backing from critics to at least make a case for its existence.

Starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, the flick premieres this week and so far boasts an 81% certified fresh rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. That’s the second highest score for a Phase Five MCU flick after last year’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” whose score sits at 82%.

Though the critical consensus deems the film “an irreverent romp with a surprising soft spot for a bygone era of superhero movies,” reviews seemed split over whether the action-comedy breathes new life into a stale genre or is just another cash-grab.

New York Magazine and Vulture settled on the latter assessment, noting, “Honestly, it appears to exist solely to make money.”

IndieWire graded the film a C+ and felt it “rescues something kind of beautiful from the ugliness that superhero movies have perpetuated for so long. Not visually, of course, but in several other key respects.”

Despite “uninspired direction … and hit-and-miss humor,” the Chicago-Sun Times found the film to be “great fun,” while The Daily Beast said that those who’ve enjoyed first two “Deadpool” movies “will be in bleeping heaven.”

Rating the film three out of five, The Guardian found the film “amusing and exhausting.” The Observer’s critic echoed the latter feeling: “I found myself as exhausted with this film as … with any other installment in the lackluster Multiverse Saga.”

“The film’s wisecracking tone is undercut by the baggage of having to adhere to the MCU’s ungainly overarching narrative,” said Screen International.

The Irish Times noted that contrary to the R-rating acting as a “supposed confirmation of mature content,” the film is “the most relentlessly juvenile entry in a sequence that has rarely been confused with Ingmar Bergman’s Faith trilogy.”

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