Deadpool fans (and Marvel fans)… you can finally breathe a sigh of relief. 20th Century Fox haven’t messed up Deadpool a second time.
After the simply awful big screen debut in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a couple of years trapped in development hell, a leaked screen test that seemed so right and an inspired, “too good to be true” marketing campaign; Deadpool the movie delivers… in bloody spades.
Already sporting his natty red suit, mask, Wolverine style “healing factor” and horrific scars from head to toe at the film’s start, Deadpool the film relates Wade Wilson’s (Ryan Reynolds) quest for revenge against the man who tortured and disfigured him while explaining how he became Marvel’s “Merc’ with the mouth” in nice, bite-sized, chunks.
Along the way he’ll banter with taxi drivers, try and get Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead from the X-Men to leave him alone, share his preferences when it comes to Ikea furniture, and attempt to keep an old flame safe from a nasty enemy.
If all this sounds a little light on plot it’s because it is but this is more than made up for by the almost perfect combination of horrible ultra-violence and coarse jokes visited on the bad guys by Reynolds as Deadpool.
Based upon the trailers, Deadpool was always going to be funny, what’s truly surprising is that just how funny it is. Yes, there are jokes every 0.05 seconds but a ridiculously high percentage of them land, from the in-joke packed opening credit sequence, all the way to the post credit sting.
If there was one worry going in to this movie, it was that all the funniest parts would be in the trailers but the filmmakers improve each trailer moment by adding an unexpected gag directly before or after it. Under the mask, Reynolds performance is, as fans had always hoped, perfect. His non-stop delivery and manic clowning carries the movie, especially when his face is hidden under the mask.
All the trappings of comic Deadpool are present too; the constant quipping and breaking of the fourth wall, although rather than referring to issue numbers and comics creators, here it takes the form of incessant references to Wolverine (and Hugh Jackman), the affordability of cameos from big-name actors from the X-Men franchise, fast forwarding the plot and moving the camera at “private” moments.
Characters such as Blind Al and Weasel survive the transition from page to screen startlingly well and Sister Margaret’s School for Wayward children even makes an appearance.
On the other hand, the car chase featured in those trailers (and the leaked test footage that resulted in the film getting made) does take up quite a bit of the film’s running time, that laser focused plot can make the story feel a tad small and despite its structure, Deadpool is still just an origin movie, but it’s a very crude, very violent and very, very, very funny one.
Relax true believers; Daddy Deadpool’s home…Just don’t watch it with your parents.
DEADPOOL / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: TIM MILLER / SCREENPLAY: PAUL WERNICK, RHETT REESE / STARRING: RYAN REYNOLDS, MORENA BACCARIN, ED SKREIN, T. J. MILLER, GINA CARANO, BRIANNA HILDEBRAND, ANDRE TRICOTEUX, LESLIE UGGAMS, JED REES / RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 10TH
Expected Rating: 6 out of 10
Starburst Rating:
