Review: Deadpool

‘You are relentlessly annoying’ comments villain Ajax (Skrein), as Wade Wilson (Reynolds) – later to be Deadpool, is still cracking quips while strapped to a rickety gurney and about to be administered with all sorts of sinister procedures and experiments. I found it hard to disagree with him on that point. But then, what was I doing watching the film? Should I have expected any different? Deadpool by his very M.O is an incessantly crass, one-liner spouting, shock value creation intended to simultaneously annoy, alarm and provoke laughter from the pop-culture literate.

So how do you make such a character palatable for a feature length run time? Even the terrible X-Men Origins: Wolverine couldn’t stomach the thought of him in a supporting role and sealed his mouth shut. The answer is you don’t. Deadpool allows our eponymous anti-hero to just be what he always has been at the expense of alienating those who don’t enjoy his brand of college-age, look-at-me, faux-dark. And I’m guessing there will be many of those. But there will be just as many who are rejoicing.

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Director: Tim Miller
Exhibition: 2D
Rating: 15
Run Time: 108 mins

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But for all its ‘not a superhero movie’ posturing, no amount of meta winks at the cameras will stop this from following the path of a fairly standard hero origin story. We’re caught up via flashback style chapters as Deadpool is already hunting down those who turned him into an invincible (but ugly) force to be reckoned with, under the guise of curing his cancer, so that he can be reunited with his fiancée (Baccarin) without fear of rejection. But by being so hell-bent on blasé super-cynicism, the film takes the sting out of its tragedy and a lot of the depth out of its drama – maybe that’s all part of the act.

Deadpool isn’t the first film I’d turn to in order to experience the thrill of high drama and character investment, and its irreverence ensures fun throughout without getting too bogged down in exposition. It may be an origin story masquerading as something more ground-breaking, but it’s certainly never as boring as half the blueprint origin stories I’ve sat through, and will probably sit through in future (looking at you Spider-Man reboot number 3). The frothiness of some of the narrative is quite disconcerting, the film never strays into the darker realm that I was expecting – unless you consider a few distasteful and pretty unfunny molestation jokes, one of the few comedic moments that turned me off, the zenith of all subversive black humour.

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The majority of the jokes do land though, and it’s easy to laugh right the way through. You can feel how much the project means to Reynolds and team, and how much effort it must have been to get away with what they do, even if it’s not quite as dark or clever as it thinks it is. It’s exactly the kind of humour to be expected from a movie that’s faithful to the source, so its hard to criticise in any relevant sense. If you like the character and his defiant irreverence then yes, you will find Deadpool funny. The bigger issue seems to be that the concept of a film looking to antagonise the pearl-clutchers by taking every risqué aspect to the extreme in order to satarise the moody-broody Nolan-knock-off brigade isn’t really that fresh an idea. Matthew Vaugh’s Kick-Ass seemed far more topical, but also had the melodrama and more of a dark lawless edge despite being in the same BBFC certificate category. And even if not defined by their gore and number of bad words, films like Guardians of the Galaxy, Birdman and even The Incredibles have been mocking the supposed stoicism of the genre to arguably a higher level of satirical success for a good while.

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However, it’s very hard to come down harshly on what is clearly a labour of love that the team behind it has been pushing for and defending from lobotomising edits for a long time. It’s all too easy to overlook the efforts made to get it past all the sceptical studio heads and focus groups. Whether each fourth wall break or pop culture reference in Deadpool sets your teeth grinding or means you have to fight the urge to stand up and applaud, in at least one sense it’s an achievement over mundanity, even if it’s painfully self conscious about it. The film is brimming with the infectious glee found in just being allowed to exist. It’s not quite a cinematic revolution, but it’s definitely something interesting.

Fun and irreverent
Reynold’s is the perfect choice
The film that fans have been waiting for
Not quite as revolutionary as it thinks it is
Both lead character and humour won’t be to everyone’s taste

Deadpool, in all its preening effort to appear nonchalant and distant from the myriad of superhero blockbusters of the past few decades, is a total paradox of a film and something of a parody of itself. It’s trying so hard to establish something that we’ve all collectively realised a long time ago and to better effect. Yes, a lot of superhero movies are going through their angsty phase and have a list of by-the-numbers clichés to tick off. And yes, it can be fun to mock this through hyper sensationalism and audience in-jokes about casting decisions and ‘superhero landings’.

But the movie still goes through so many of these clichés itself that its not quite the breakaway badboy that it wants to be. Deadpool the film is just too easy to compare to Deadpool the character; equal parts fun and grating depending on your tolerance for smart-aleck wisecracks, neurotically conscious of how cool it seems and also, for better or worse, very, very difficult to ignore. But regardless of all this, long-term fans will lap it up.

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The author paid to see Deadpool
Official Movie Site

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