Deadpool

So this is how you do a comic book character right, emphasis on character.

The long awaited re-debut (see the horrid X-Men Origins: Wolverine for reference…actually, please don’t) of Deadpool has finally gotten a decent movie to go along with his ever growing popularity. This film acts as a kind of reintroduction to the character as well as a set up to explain who the man behind the mask really is…and why his face looks like a “testicle with teeth”. After being subject to a botched experimental treatment by a bunch evil assholes that was ultimately meant to cure his terminal cancer, Wade Wilson instead finds his life shattered beyond repair. Equipped with his newly discovered healing factor and a wicked sense of humor, Wade, now known as Deadpool, sets off on a quest for revenge to defile and dismember the person responsible for his misfortune. Cue the profanity and bloodshed and dick jokes.

First things first: Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool. No matter how you cut it, he was put on Earth to play this character. Reynolds not only embodies the Merc with a Mouth to perfection, but was also one of the main driving forces behind getting this film made, and properly I might add. It’s not very often that the actors playing these types of characters get super involved with the actual execution of the movies they’re acting in, especially considering that most of the time they’re only in it for the big paycheck or end up skipping out on the role relatively quickly, so the fact that Reynolds has been fighting so hard to give Deadpool the big screen justice he deserves, and then finally succeeding in it, is just icing on the cake.

Right off the bat it’s pretty clear that the filmmakers weren’t going to compromise on who this character is at his core: a loudmouth, profanity spewing, sexual innuendo loving, hard R rated anti-hero, complete with a badass set of mercenary skills that can turn a person into a bubbling pool of blood in a matter of seconds. Literally every scene Deadpool is in is near perfect in regards to portraying his character, each action scene deftly showing us why Deadpool is so damn cool to begin with. Guns and katana swords as well as a few well-placed jokes make the action scenes stand out from the rest of the movie by a mile, the brief scuffle between Deadpool and Colossus (yes, the X-Man) being a high point in this regard. This scene, coupled with a handful of others like it where I could have taken any random comic down from the shelf, flipped through it and seen exactly what was on the page onscreen, had me smiling from ear to ear. It’s an odd sort of feeling for something like this to feel so right, especially considering how badly Hollywood has treated comic book franchises in the past, so based on that fact alone there was no way this movie could fail.

But that being said, just because the characterization of the titular hero was so spot on, doesn’t mean the rest of the movie followed suit. As with most origin stories, this movie felt like it was going through the motions. By delving into who Wade Wilson is as a person and why he does what he does, while at first might seem like a good idea, really ended up slowing the movie down and placing some weird conflicting emotions at the forefront of my mind. If the filmmakers are trying to tell me that I’m supposed to care about a ruthless wacko who cuts off people’s various limbs while calling them hilariously mean-spirited names, then I don’t know if they understood why most people went to go see this movie. Now I’m not saying that an emotional core to a movie like this is a bad thing, but I just don’t think the Deadpool character really lends himself to being portrayed in this manner.

Obviously the tone of this movie is so over the top that it’s almost hard to take seriously at times, so when the filmmakers really try to change things up and inject some real drama into the film, it comes off as forced and a bit out of character. I appreciate the idea of Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) as Wade’s equally as wild and crazy fiancé, but it just felt unnecessary, almost like they didn’t have enough material to stretch into a full-length movie so they made due with what they could. Not every superhero movie needs to constantly delve into the backstory of their characters, take The Amazing Spider-Man for example; sometimes we just want to watch the spectacle of it all and I think Deadpool is the epitome of this idea. For everything this movie does to try buck the traditional superhero movie clichés, it still stumbles more often than not.

I will say, however, that the scene where Wade finds out about his cancer, and the resulting reaction by Reynolds, was pretty well acted. I wasn’t expecting it, and on the brief occasions where the emotion does make sense, it works pretty well. The main problem with this is that the hit or miss aspect of this film is so high that it’s hard to judge the film as a whole when each individual scene works much better on its own.

As for the big bad in the film Ajax (Ed Skrein), he’s also just as hit or miss as the rest of the film. Skrein does a fine job portraying this one note villain, but his badass demeanor can only do so much. Considering that Deadpool only has one real fight with the guy, it’s hard to believe he’s anything more than a means to an end to keep the revenge plotline going.

On the cameo front, I appreciate the fact that without really going too overboard or cramming the shared universe down our throats, ala Age of Ultron, Deadpool managed to confirm that this franchise is indeed part of the X-Men universe. Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) and Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) make a fun debut in this new post-Days of Future Past universe and rarely disappoint when they appear, only being used to spice up the action scenes and nerd factor. If this is how Fox will handle their shared universe moving forward, then I’m totally up for it.

Deadpool is a prime example of how to do right by a character while never losing sight of why he is so loved in the first place. Sure there’s a glaring hit or miss aspect to the jokes and violence, and the movie does stumble into the same holes most origin story flicks fall into, but overall this movie shows what can come from a group of people who put their passion for the character first instead of trying to approximate what makes him who he is. Minor growing pains aside, I’d say this is a big win for comic book nerds and Deadpool fans everywhere, and if you stuck around to see the secret ending, the wait for Deadpool 2 just became that much harder…aaaand that’s what she said.