The Best Action Scene In Deadpool & Wolverine Recalls The Classic X-Men Arcade Game

This article contains spoilers for "Deadpool & Wolverine."

It's 1996 and one of your classmates is having a birthday party at the local roller rink. Sitting in the locker room, there's a stale scent of sweaty socks and recently used toilet stall lingering in the air, so you quickly shove your feet into your black and purple Variflex rollerblades with neon green laces and wheels, frantically trying to unbunch your too-thick white tube socks so you can hit the rink. As you make your way, you pass by the snack area where your friends are chasing each other in circles with overly syrupy slushies and corresponding brightly colored tongues.

The sugar high has inspired a symphony of roller-bladed feet clomping around, high-pitched screaming, and uproarious laughter that could pierce the sound barrier. Parents are chatting and flirting, sneaking mini-bottles of liquor into their fountain sodas in styrofoam cups and paying no mind to their precious little hellions running wild. You're about to finally step foot onto the rink floor as "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio and Kylian Mash blast through the speakers when you look to your left where the presents and cake are being stored ... and you see it.

Its sleek, purple, and dark blue frame and bright yellow letters catch your eye. You've never seen a game of this size before, and the siren's song of "Here Comes the Hero" calls out to you. It's the X-Men arcade game, and by god, you and five of your friends are going to feed this beast quarters until your fingers bleed.

It's a feeling many of us have been trrying to replicate for nearly 30 years. Fortunately, a hero has emerged in the form of the best action scene in "Deadpool & Wolverine," which plays out like a side-scroller fight sequence straight out of the video game — swapping out Sentinels for variants of Deadpool.

Action sequences are not easy to pull off, but when they're done right, they can completely define a movie. By and large, American films ... sort of suck at shooting action sequences. Sure, there are folks like David Leitch and Chad Stahelski who are ridiculously talented action directors, but the majority of big-budget action flicks (including both Marvel and DC) are too busy using quick cuts to hide stunt performers' faces in place of Hollywood A-listers to let a sequence breathe and showcase the true impact of a punch. Modern action scenes are often so choppy it's hard to follow, which makes a live-action, side-scrolling beat 'em up fight scene even more impressive to see. With the camera moving with the action without cutting away or shifting perspective, it's a glorious display of ass-kicking and name-taking.

The gold standard is The Corridor scene in Park Chan-wook's "Oldboy," which was shot in a single take and completely reshaped fight choreography forever. Films like "The Raid," "Snowpiercer," "Kick-Ass," and even "Kill Bill: Vol 1" were all very clearly influenced by this scene, and their own takes on the choreography are the stand-out sequences in each respective film. "Oldboy" wasn't the first, but it was definitely the longest and best to ever do it. "Bloodsport," "Blade II," and even "Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior" all feature extended shots in the style of a side-scroller included in the overall fight scene.

"Deadpool & Wolverine" doesn't go nearly as hard as "Oldboy" (which is a literal impossibility, to be clear), but a fight sequence with Deadpool and Wolverine tearing through what feels like a neverending roster of Deadpool variants evokes not Park Chan-wook's masterpiece, but the types of video games that inspired it — namely, the X-Men arcade game.

Wade Wilson and Logan tear through the limbs of Deadpools in a bloodbath down a city street, eventually crashing into a bus through the windshield, fighting a bus full of Deadpools until heroically busting out of the back window. As the two completely tear ass through the horde, sometimes their fight is pushed backward out of frame, not unlike a character being left behind of the group when playing the arcade game and needing to catch up to the screen before losing a life.

The back-and-forth movement of the frame really sells home the video game feel, and with Wolverine as one of the playable characters in the X-Men arcade game, it's a perfect homage. The scene immediately catapults you back to that roller rink arcade all those years ago, throwing Sentinels around a destroyed city until they exploded.

But since this is an R-rated Deadpool movie, the variants don't explode into clouds of fire before disappearing off-screen. They bleed. A lot. And because they all have the regenerative powers of Deadpool, they all get back up again. This is also the second time Marvel has paid homage to the X-Men arcade game this year, with the first being the incredible animated series, "X-Men '97." Considering the affinity so many have for these games, it's great to see "Deadpool & Wolverine" lean into nostalgia for Marvel properties outside of the Cinematic Universe or even the Fox-produced Marvel flicks. 

"Deadpool & Wolverine" is now playing in theaters everywhere.