Deadpool

The best way to describe Deadpool would be imagine if a major studio gave a bunch of 12-year-old boys a nearly $60 million budget, and told them to come up with a comedic vigilante superhero movie about a masked man who frequently thumbs his nose at everyone around him, and enjoys breaking the fourth wall, addressing the audience.  Oh, while you're at it, make that film a hard-R, with plenty of violence, and four letter words making up about 50% of the dialogue.  That description not only tells you what kind of a movie this is, but also as to whether you will enjoy it.

Yes, Deadpool is very crude, and that goes for both the title character and the movie itself.  But, it's also clever, and frequently hilarious.  The movie is not out to shock or offend.  If anything, the movie is more interested in having fun than shocking the audience.  It is aimed at adults, but its sense of humor is in the same league as the classic Looney Tunes shorts.  In fact, there are moments when Ryan Reynolds' performance as the costumed antihero seems to be channeling Bugs Bunny, such as when he is about to kill one of the bad guys, but suddenly turns to the camera, and says we really don't want to see what he's about to do.  He then physically moves the camera over to some onlookers on the sidewalk nearby, then walks off camera to kill the villain in a particularly gruesome way, judging by the reaction of the extras that we are watching as it happens. 

The character started out in comic books back in the early 90s.  He became popular enough to get his own series, but apparently the heads at Marvel Comics were not exactly paying much attention to it, giving the writers of the comic free reign to do whatever they wanted.  They created an anarchist antihero who exists in the same universe as the X-Men, and even shares their same Mutant powers.  However, he has no interest in joining their battles.  Deadpool is basically the guy who stands on the sidelines, making the obnoxious comedic commentary about the more serious superheroes and villains, and generally driving them crazy.  Reynolds understands this character, and does a great job of making him a comical badass.  He is what would happen if the comic relief in just about any other action movie somehow became more powerful than the main character, and got his own movie.  This movie was very personal for Ryan Reynolds.  Not only has he wanted to make this movie for years, but he's had a long history of appearing in other comic book movies that have bombed hard such as Blade: Trinity, R.I.P.D., and especially Green Lantern.  In fact, the star gets to have a bit of fun at his own expense.  When given the opportunity to gain mutant powers, his only request is that his super suit is not green or CG animated.

As is to be expected, this movie gives us the origin story.  Deadpool is actually Wade Wilson, a mercenary for hire with Special Forces combat training.  Wade comes across mostly as a sarcastic lone wolf, until he meets the love of his life - a stripper/prostitute named Vanessa (Morena Baccarin).  The two bond over sex and talking about the 80s Japanese anime, Voltron, and eventually are set to be married.  Just as that happens, however, Wade falls ill, and it's revealed he has terminal cancer with only months left to live.  That's when he's approached by a shady recruiter (Jed Rees), who offers Wade an opportunity to participate in an experiment that will not only cure him, but grant him super human abilities.  He signs up for the experiment without telling Vanessa, and soon finds himself at the mercy of the cruel Ajax (Ed Skrein) and Angel Dust (Gina Carano), who put Wade through a series of torturous tests of physical endurance designed to either bring out his dormant Mutant abilities, or kill him, whatever comes first.  It also turns out that they plan to make Wade a super powered slave, and then sell him off as a Mutant bodyguard to the highest bidder.

During the process of the experiments, Wade does develop super powers, including the ability to heal himself.  He also becomes horribly disfigured physically, which fuels his desire for revenge on those who did this to him.  When all is said and done, Wade escapes from the lab looking kind of like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings if he suffered third degree burns all over his body.  He hides his new appearance with his superhero costume, leaves his past behind, and becomes hell-bent on seeking revenge.  This is all standard stuff for the genre, but screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Zombieland) do an excellent job of skewering convention and cliches of the superhero genre at just about every turn.  There are some particularly clever gags here, such as how the movie will frequently play inappropriate 70s and 80s love songs during a lot of the more bloody action sequences.  The character of Deadpool also seems to exist in a completely different universe from everyone else.  The other characters (including two from the X-Men film franchise) seem to act and behave like they're in your standard Marvel cinematic tent pole film.  Deadpool, meanwhile, frequently talks to the audience, acknowledges that he's in a movie, and just doesn't seem to care much about what's going on around him except for his single-minded goal of vengeance.

In the wrong hands, I can see this getting annoying very quickly, but first time feature director Tim Miller knows what he's doing here.  No, not all of the gags land, but most do.  The movie is very self aware, but it also knows when to reign back a little.  It's not that the movie ever takes itself all that seriously, it just knows when to use it and when to hold back.  This movie also shows that the Marvel Studio is willing to have more than a bit of fun with itself, as Deadpool frequently makes jokes about characters from their other movies.  If it all sounds very silly, that's because it is.  But, there is an intelligence behind it all.  These are dumb jokes being told by smart people who know how to give it a bit of an edge.  The movie doesn't dumb itself down, and while the cast are obviously not playing this material straight for a second, they're also not obnoxiously playing for the camera or acting like this is supposed to be funny.  Like the best comedies, the actors play this stuff straight, and the laughs come from the absurdity. 

Deadpool has created a small bit of controversy over it's R-rating, and how many kids want to see it, since it's the newest Marvel superhero film.  All I can say is that kids should not watch this, no matter how many parental guardians they surround themselves with.  For adult comic book fans, however, this may be one of the funniest films they've seen in a while.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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