K-SCORE: 57
Director: Tim Miller
Writers: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick
Based on: Deadpool by Fabian Nicieza, Rob Liefeld
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin
Spoiler Level: Major
“It’s unfortunate that he has to twirl over the same blah plot points as duller characters.”
Deadpool is a movie written precisely for fifteen-year-olds who want nothing more out of life than to one day be eighteen years old. That’s not its weakness, oddly enough. For the most part, I’d say the film delivered exactly the product that it’s aggressive advertising campaign said it would. It takes a particularly shallow individual, or maybe just an adolescent one, to find all that crass content funny. You can’t just mention penises and expect me to laugh. There has to be another clever element to it. But Deadpool had a few genuinely funny moments interspersed with its barrage of disgusting and/or stupid jokes.
“It’s not like you got to know the guy he ran over with the zamboni.”
I actually really liked the idea of a very dark superhero movie. Anything to break Marvel out of its horribly overdone genre mold. Fourth wall breaks from Ryan Reynold’s character talking about Ryan Reynolds the actor, a character saying, “hashtag driveby” as he farts in an old blind woman’s face on his way to another room, and watching the X-man Colossus vomit were all things I was willing to endure in hopes of seeing a superhero film that was different. Stylistically, Deadpool is different. That style comes at the cost of being able to take it seriously. I really hate how often he talks to the camera. But the major issue with the film is that it has the same exact plot as all the others! You have a needlessly split narrative of a hero in costume in the middle of an action sequence that occurs two-thirds of the way through the chronological plot, then cut to his pre-superhero origin, meeting the girl of his dreams, developing a problem that needs to be radically fixed by turning him into the superhero, having that somehow go wrong and incite his rivalry with a supervillain, catch up to the opening scene, progress past it in a way that integrates the girl-o’-dreams character into the final action sequence, and then wrap it all up by having our protagonist win an absurd fight. I’ve seen it a hundred times now, if not more. It’s so… dull. Just because Deadpool actually makes the trash mobs, the endless hordes of personalitiless cronies, bleed, doesn’t mean that the story is innovative. They didn’t make bold choices about friend characters, fellow heroes, or love interests getting mutilated or Deadpool doing anything you thought was actually well-beyond the line ethically. It’s not like you got to know the guy he ran over with the zamboni. It’s just a joke.
Consequently Deadpool is a collection of amusing moments interspersed with standard Marvel disappointment. The studio continues to hire writers who only know how to tell exactly the same mediocre to bad story. I love that Deadpool is a superhero who might actually walk into a strip club. I hate that Stan Lee is doing his cameo as some weird old-man strip club DJ. I love that Deadpool might have his clothes burned off in a fight scene that takes place in a burning building. I hate that he has exactly the same regenerative powers as Wolverine and, in that burning-building fight scene, he gets impaled on a wrought-iron pipe exactly like Wolverine in Wolverine’s last movie. I love that Deadpool doesn’t mind killing his enemies. I hate that he only kills one, maybe two, characters with an actual name.
Ryan Reynold’s fast line delivery and witty banter with Morena Baccarin is enough to create someone that’s entertaining to follow. It’s unfortunate that he has to twirl over the same blah plot points as duller characters. I’m still watching the movie saying, “So, where are they? Did they teleport here? How did he get his weapons back if he lost them in the last fight? Why would he think the girl can survive that fall? How come everyone who isn’t dead can so easily just get back up and fight? Is that that same stupid flying aircraft carrier?”