Deadpool is not just reinventing the superhero film genre, it is making it better!
Having a new Ryan Reynolds film, and that film being Deadpool gives me a feeling like an inverse papercut. It's like snuggling up to a lavender scented puppy tasting of angel delight surrounded by a pillow fort at John Legends house. This film truly is a delight for the senses, capturing the hearts of its viewers by the millions, smashing previous box office records for the month of February. Having said that, the film it beat to number 2, Fifty Shades of Grey is currently in contention for a number of Golden Rasberry Awards. This film is Fox's strong and unequivocal answer to those who question them for not selling the rights to some of Marvels more illustrious characters back to them.
It has taken me quite a while to figure out what made this film such a delight to watch. When I saw the test footage for Deadpool drop last year, I genuinely got excited, a proper spine-tingler. I don't care who dropped it. Ryan Reynolds, I'm looking at you. Then I realised it is the long road to making this movie that has given it the appropriate amount of character necessary to pull the dust cover off the superhero genre then graffiti all over it. Parallels can be drawn with other films such as Avatar, Apocolypse now and The Shining to name but a few that have also shared in production issues, only to tear up the box office years later.
This film essentially is an inside joke aimed at the comic book industry and the global fanaticism surrounding modern superhero films. Oh and Hugh Jackman, lots of Hugh jokes. Poor Wolverine. *Sad Face* It aims to satisfy the devout comic-crazed nuts, the people who have followed the sardonic, self-aware merc with a mouth since his conception in 1991. But you really don't have to be an expert on the source material to keep pace with the story because there really is no pretense with Deadpool, no deeper meaning other than having hyperfluorescent, attention deficient, unadulterated fun.
In both the comics and the new movie, Deadpool arrives on our screens with one purpose to exist. To point out how lame superheroes can be whilst they turn the baddies into human sushi, and he has a point, to all of Marvels credit for the phenomenon that is the Marvel cinematic universe, Captain America still has the personality of my pencil sharpener. They even used the phrase "political thriller" in the marketing in the build up to Captain America: Winter Soldier. Conversely, director Tim Miller doesn't have any pressure on him to visualise how "deep" Deadpool is. In fact, the marketing for Deadpool involved a romantic rom-com style trailer for boyfriends to show their other halves in desperation not to be dragged into the latest pile of dog shit with Zach Efron in this Valentines Day.
Miller instead has embraced the kind of hero the audience can get behind, an anti-hero if you will. They unabashedly embrace everything that modern superhero films seem to be doing their best to tone down, or balance out - ridiculous violence, wry one-liners and a hero that isn't bound by the disappearing line of morality that is creeping into bigger budgeted superhero films. Fans of Deadpool know the character as a rude, lewd figure who has completely and utterly shattered the 4th wall of cinema and routinely exploits his status, this movie has completely captured that essence about him.
But even though it acts as a self-parody, that doesn't mean it does not function as a superhero film on its own because it does, so very well. Objectively looking at its plot, for example, provides the evidence that it could well act as a reconstruction of a classic superhero film rather than the deconstruction I have rabbited on about.
Deadpool, a.k.a Wade Wilson (Reynolds), is a highly skilled assassin who has no direction in his life; he doesn't care about anything else apart from his next hit. Everything changes when he finds true love in the form of Vanessa played by Morena Baccarin - but then life hits hard with his diagnosis of late stage cancer. When his newfound powers acquired from rigorous torture kick in and disfigure him into "an avocado fucked by another avocado" he seeks vengeance on Ajax (Ed Skrein), the man who he believes can reverse the change.
If I have one issue with the film it is to do with the supporting cast. Deadpool's fellow superpowered heroes in Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) mostly stay out of his way and intervene when necessary for the story to advance. Providing some magnitude to the final fight, and to obviously set up the subsequent X-Force movie this Deadpool movie has reportedly set in motion. T.J.Miller is effective in providing comic relief in a heavily comedy based film, which if I'm honest is very hard to do. But saying that he is pretty much playing the same character he does in HBO's Silicon Valley. Ajax, the movie's villain is fairly sinister and fills the hole that the villain must do, but his super power is not feeling pain.
Which compared to some of Marvel's more illustrious villains: Dr. Doom, Ultron, Magneto etc... makes him look just a bit undercooked.It would also have been nice for a film that vocally wants to challenge the currently accepted view of superhero films to present Morena Baccarin's Vanessa as more than your standard superhero girlfriend/ damsel in distress. In the opening sequences, we see her she is winning us over as a real character, its a shame from there on out she is either comforting or having sex with Wade.
The films budget is also exposed quite heavily, with limited set locations throughout the film, smaller fight scenes and less dazzling super-powers. but what can you expect from a film that had about a third of the budget of Marvels least expensive blockbuster Ant-Man.
But overall, Deadpool's irreverence and don't give a fuck attitude towards a well-established genre is admirable and plucky considering its upbringing. Deadpool isn't the Avengers, but then again he isn't supposed to be, he's a one-man show, and this man deserves one more show, or at the least one more cock joke.
Rating: 8.5/10
