DEADPOOL – The Review

There comes a point in any movie when there’s too much of a good thing. Even though the “Merc with a Mouth” won me over right from the beginning with a hilarious self-aware opening credits sequence, the film itself comes dangerously close to wearing out its welcome. Thankfully though, I welcome this hard R take on the foulmouthed assassin thanks in large part to the devilishly charming Ryan Reynolds.

He’s talked about how he has tried to get this film made for seven years, and the enthusiasm Reynolds has for the character is evident in every second he’s on screen. Even when he’s hidden beneath the red and black spandex mask, Reynolds is bursting with energy and delivering the larger than life personality that the character demands. However, what might surprise those going into DEADPOOL expecting nothing but the tongue-lashing and butt-kicking that the title character no doubt delivers is the amount of heart that is at the center of the film. Sure, he calls Colossus a “chrome-plated cock-gobbler,” but he also has a genuine and loving relationship that makes DEADPOOL more than just Marvel’s R rated anti-hero.

Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is a mercenary who would rather look out for a girl being harassed than just killing for sport. But that’s not to say he doesn’t take great sarcastic joy in his sadistic work. When he meets Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) he has someone to provide light in his dark life. The light she brings starts to extinguish when Wilson is diagnosed with cancer. Through an experimental surgery that is supposed to help him, Wilson becomes physically disfigured but yet somehow granted extraordinary healing powers (why he can’t cure his burns all over his body is beyond me). He resorts to the moniker of Deadpool along with a red and black spandex suit so he can go after the men who did this to him while still hiding his ugly visage from his beautiful Vanessa.

I’ve seen my fair share of comic book styled action scenes already – even the more extreme sequences thanks to films like KICK-ASS and KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE. So what makes DEADPOOL stand apart is not the slow-motion blood spurts or impalings or shots to the head, it’s the elements that don’t necessarily rely on vulgarity that make this stand apart from the pack. The relationship between Ryan Reynolds and Morena Baccarin is unorthodox but remarkably sweet. Their first interaction is a perfect analogy for the film as a whole – it begins with highly inappropriate lines of dialogue, but once the shock wears off you are genuinely enamored with the characters.

What also helps to break the monotony of the Marvel formula that I recently felt with the insufferable ANT-MAN is the the use of a broken timeline. Intercut with a slow-motion ballet of mayhem on a highway overpass, is the backstory of our punchy title character. Typically, you get the pre-superhero scenes, then the tragic accident, then the slow transformation into hero, then struggle then fight then struggle, and finally capping it all off with an epic battle. Most of those beats are still all here, but shuffling the deck a little bit adds slightly more suspense as to what will be revealed next.

Fans of the comic will love that the character still talks through the panel, or in this case the screen as well as openly talking about pop-culture references, other characters, or the fact that you are watching a Marvel film with so small of a budget that they couldn’t get any of the real X-Men to show up. The level of which the self-aware humor working for you will depend on how much fanboy glee you get from him making fun of Wolverine or other such examples likes the sacrilegious version of the character that showed up in a previous film. DEADPOOL borders on trying too hard, but Reynolds’ commitment to the role and his dirty comments are occasionally clever and frequently charming. The one-liners come at an almost dizzying speed, but it’s when DEADPOOL slows down that we see that it is more than just obscene… it’s obscenely marvelous.

Overall rating: 4 out of 5

DEADPOOL is now playing in theaters everywhere