Review of Deadpool (2016) by Jack B — 12 Jun 2016

DEADPOOL.

When the trailers and the news for Deadpool began to surface online, I wasn't really drawn into the fray. I had seen X-Men Origins: Wolverine and didn't like the iteration of Deadpool that appeared therein and felt that this one featuring the same actor would be no better.

The press junkets came and went, Comic-Con 2015 brought us the Deadpool panel that involved a lot of swearing and I still wasn't blown away. In my mind I thought: "why does a movie about an off the wall comic book character need to have such foul language to make for a promising movie.".

So it was with this mindset that I set for myself around this movie and while the posters were ingenious setting it up as the perfect valentine movie, I figured that there was no way I was going to enjoy a character about a guy dressed almost identically to Spiderman and with a name similar to a DC character (Slade Wilson/DeathStroke).

I am glad to say that I was totally and absolutely wrong! Deadpool is nothing extraordinary, it tells a tale that has been told time and time again. A simple story about a guy who has been done wrong and goes about trying to right said wrong while punishing some very deserving baddies along the way. That's the long and short of it but my Lord the presentation is GLORIOUS!!!

Every scene shows that this was a project of love, it shows that the hearts and souls of those involved were completely and absolutely in this. It is a pure project of love and one has to wonder why a lot of studios do not go this route as opposed to taking anything they think looks interesting and then trying to spin a franchise out of it because that's what everyone else seems to be doing.

The fact that the budget was minuscule meant that no matter what, this movie was going to turn a profit. Guess what, it turned a profit the very weekend it was released with a record breaking mind numbing figure of $300m for an R-rated movie.

The movie is told in a non-linear manner and starts around the middle of the story, backtracks to the beginning, works its way back, twists itself somewhere in the middle before finishing off with a bang in a crazy scene that a lot of my friends have said was quite impossible (you'll have to be the judge of that when you do see it because that is spoiler territory). It's fast paced, it's funny, it's raunchy and bother line mean sometimes. Yet somehow, even the jokes that would have come out as crass just seem so appropriate when they come out of the Merc with a Mouth. The breaking of the forth-wall was just beautiful because the movie was not afraid to make fun of itself and the universe it inhabits and that just makes it all the more entertaining.

Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool/Wade Wilson is perfectly cast in that role! He embodies the role the way Hugh Jackman embodies The Wolverine, the way Patrick Stewart embodies Charles Xavier and the way Robert Downey Jr. embodies IronMan/Tony Stark and I expect that he will keep playing this character until he gets fed up with it which I personally hope is not for a long time to come.

Another character that I absolutely loved was Negasonic Teenage Warhead played by Brianna Hildebrand. She didn't get to do much (well not much until the end) but every scene she appears in, she kills with her attitude. There's no way you see her and don't like her (well unless you're a sadist and don't like girls who look Goth and chew gum all the time!).

I have played this movie over and over again in my head and I will definitely be seeing it again soon but I cannot think of any reason to diss this movie or find it lacking. Even Colossus whom I felt looked to CGI I can forgive considering the budget of this movie.

Speaking of the budget again, when you understand how little this movie was made with (inclusive of marketing) and how good it really looks not to mention the return on investment (ROI), you have to give kudos to Fox for a job well done. At the same time you begin to ask yourself if this was truly the same studio that made the ABYSMAL Fan4tastic.

In the end Deadpool is everything we thought it would be and then some and the fact that critics and the audience alike have embraced it is a testament to how good it is. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes comedy, action, comic book movies and most of all Ryan Reynolds (did I mention he even makes fun of himself in this movie too. LOL!! It's hilarious!!!). It is just that unexpectedly good and as a result, I expect to see more R-rated comic book movies hopefully with lesser budgets and given to people who actually love the characters they have been given to work with and not those who just see it as another day job and a quick buck.