Movie Review: Deadpool

Deadpool

I didn't hate X-Men Origins: Wolverine as much as the rest of the world does. It wasn't a terribly good movie, but it was a good one. Of course, one of the biggest mistakes is undoubtedly turning Deadpool, one of Marvel Comics' most popular characters -- and one that I knew about even before I really got into Marvel Comics -- into, well, basically the anathema of what Deadpool should be.

See, Deadpool is supposed to be funny. He's supposed to be utterly psychotic, has a slight streak of good to the people he likes, cracks jokes, punches holes in the fourth wall, utterly psychotic, insane and utterly psychotic. And funny.

Not with his mouth sewed-up and turned into a mindless, quiet, unfunny final boss encounter.

See, even in Origins Ryan Reynolds was actually a decent Deadpool (sans fourth-wall-breaking), and I fanboyed a little when I realized who that wise-ass soldier was supposed to be. Alas, that Deadpool lasted for a grand total of one scene.

It has been a pet project of Ryan Reynolds to get a Deadpool movie going on, and now that he actually did, hoo boy, you can bet your ass that this movie shits on Origins: Wolverine's incarnation of Deadpool. And that Green Lantern movie. And Ryan Reynolds himself. Because why not? It's the kind of comedy that works with Deadpool, and it definitely does.

I won't go into too much detail about nice little Easter Eggs and whatnot because I'm not a big enough of a Marvel geek to get everything, and I'm sure there are a lot of sites out there that would be far more exhaustive, but this movie really, really loves to reference everything, and not just use one as a running joke. Even shitting on Origins Deadpool or Green Lantern were relegated to a couple of jokes each. 

I did want to say that Bob's cameo was hilarious. Why, yes, I know who Bob is.

The movie's plot is honestly your standard superhero movie. Deadpool gets an origin story that completely ignores everything in Origins: Wolverine and swaps out getting regeneration from Wolverine as something that was unlocked from his latent genes, and then because his face got totally fucked up he goes around on a one-man rampage to hunt down the villain that does this to him, in order to fix his face and return him to his handsome Ryan Reynolds face so he can get back with his girlfriend. Throughout the movie, we get Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead coming in to try and rein Deadpool in, a bunch of classic Deadpool characters (Weasel, Blind Al) helping Deadpool out, kidnapping the love interest, and a big big mutant power fight at the end.

Of course, the first half of the movie Tarantino's up the love/tragedy origin story with Deadpool hunting down Ajax in the present day, a stylistic choice that actually helps the movie a fair bit, I must say. It makes the movie far less straightforward, and, naturally, Deadpool has some fun with fast-forwarding and fourth-wall-breaking.

So yeah, plot-wise, there aren't anything special with it. I mean, action scenes are cool and all, but everything truly hinges on whether Deadpool's comedy style would work, and more importantly, if it will be faithful to the original character, the lack of which was what caused the fans to universally deride Origins Deadpool. And, well, it definitely worked! I enjoyed myself. In between a crapton of dropping the 'F' word, some general comedy themes like brick jokes or Deadpool fanboying over silly things like Voltron or Negasonic Teenage Warhead's name,  the insistence of using the name 'Francis' instead of Ajax* a fair amount of black comedy humour -- having a character that can recover from all injuries is great for that -- and, of course, a couple of fourth-wall breaking jokes. We got Deadpool lampshading why there are only ever two X-Men in the show like the studio can't hire more, which professor McAvoy or Stewart are they bringing him to... yeah. We get some hilarious scenes where this psychotic superhero is just hanging out and talking about love problems to a cab driver or arguing with his flatmate about IKEA. This movie is funny. It is crass, it has a couple of pop culture references which I honestly didn't get sometimes and it has a lot of sex and death jokes. But, y'know, that's how Deadpool goes with the flow. 

*Which gets my vote for the weirdest and most stupid supervillain codename ever.

And, really, Ryan Reynolds's Deadpool is really what made this all work. Reynolds is truly charismatic as Deadpool, getting the voice and the mannerisms right, he does not ever shut up in the entirety of this movie, which honestly isn't easy when most of the time the character is in a full body costume that doesn't even show Reynold's face. Y'know, CGI mask-eyes helped out a little but still. It is hilarious, it is definitely unique, and, well, it's not for children. Yes, this movie is definitely ever-so-slightly overrated, but that's okay. I still loved it.

Really, the weakest part of the movie is Ajax, a.k.a. Francis. Deadpool's insistence on hunting down 'Francis' is probably why he wiped out the entire organization without finding a clue of Ajax's wherabouts. Ajax and his crony Angel Dust (the third character to be called 'Angel' in the X-Men movies) are suitably creepy and horrifying in their cold-blooded oxygen torture of Wade in the origin scenes, and there's no doubt that Ajax is a competent fighter with those twin pickaxes and his inability to feel pain... but his big plan, selling super mutant slaves and all, ends up just as an excuse to fuck Wade up and is forgotten in favour of the two of them wanting to murder the other.

Weasel and Blind Al were... okay. They had scenes, they were memorable enough, but they exist mostly to bounce dialogue off of. They were fun. Vanessa is a generic love interest, though she does manage to shishkebab Ajax that one time. There was a memorable character, Cunningham, in the lab.

I actually liked the scene at the beginning where Wade was just being a bounty hunter for... well, threatening stalkers with PIZZA. I found that scene hilarious for whatever reason. The lady being stalked was apparently one of the X-Men, Pixie... and I bet the movie is filled with more traditional Easter Eggs beyond just Bob and Pixie.

The two X-Men that featured, however, were hilarious. I've always thought that Colossus was always under-used, barely getting more than a couple of lines or a couple of punchy-punch scenes in the three movies he's starred in... and this movie broke him out of the mould. He's still a heroic character, urging for Deadpool to be good guy delivered with great Russian accent. Colossus is easily the funniest of the non-Deadpool characters, mostly because he doesn't even try to be funny. Negasonic Teenage Warhead was apparently inserted into the movie simply because of her insane name (she even borrows the powers from someone else) and, well, I enjoyed her. She didn't get to do much beyond be sullen, hang around big brother Colossus and just get roped along with Colossus and Deadpool's antics, but she does prove a lot of awesome action scenes with her explody powers.

Speaking of action scenes... this movie really has well-crafted action scenes. Ajax versus Deadpool on top of the aircraft carrier, most absolutely that highway scene, Colossus fighting Angel Dust, Negasonic's mutant explosions, Deadpool's thirteen-bullets scene... it's brilliant.

Overall, yeah. It's definitely slightly overrated, and not all the jokes are funny. It's definitely not a movie for everyone and casual moviegoers might not get it. But it's a great movie. It's funny, it's got great action scenes, it's got a great lead, a great supporting cast... it is definitely really fun to watch. Just, um, maybe don't bring your kids along.