Deadpool

"I didn't ask to be super, and I'm no hero, but when you find out your worst enemy is after your best girl, the time has come to be a fucking superhero."

There’s really no other way to refer to ‘Deadpool’ other than the passion project of Ryan Reynolds. The actor has fought tooth and nail to bring this adaptation onto the big screen, even agreeing to demoralise the character in ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’, hoping that the powers that be would see the potential and commission a spin-off movie. Reynolds probably didn’t anticipate just how catastrophically bad that version would be. But thanks to the magic of time travel that version is a thing of the past, and here is the ‘Deadpool’ movie we’ve all been craving for.

Having been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Wade Wilson (Reynolds) seeks treatment for his illness, only to be left a mutated immortal who, in the film’s own words, looks like ‘Freddie Kruger face fucked (that's right, breaking out the F bomb, the movie can do it why can't I) a topographical map of Utah’. But now the men who carried out these experiments have kidnapped the love of his life, so he must don a spandex suit and take them on as the vigilante Deadpool.

There were so many things I was sceptical about as this project went through production. I thought there would be no chance in hell of it being rated R, I was wrong, I thought there was no chance in hell it would tie into the rest of the X-Men universe, I was wrong, and I also thought there was no chance in hell that the film would be meta in tone and break the fourth wall as Deadpool famously does in the comics, I was wrong. In fact it became abundantly clear just how wrong I was within the film’s first five minutes. With n opening sequence and credits that I won’t dare give away, but they address virtually every problem I just listed and beyond.

The script of ‘Deadpool’ is just so ingenious in how it deals with every contrasting aspect of the character and makes it work so brilliantly. Consider this conundrum; you want people to empathise and connect with your characters, but how can you do that if the title character is pointing out the fictional nature of the story, how certain elements are dictated by budgetary reasons and copyright law, we refer to characters not by their names, but by the actors who play them. But as I said, it just works, maybe because it knows which moment is the right one to deploy each brand of humour, when to use straight up comedy, when to apply meta humour or fourth wall breaks, and when to play it seriously.

The comedy in question is fantastic, leagues ahead of virtually anything else that passes for comedy nowadays. It’s such a varied sense of comedy as well, I’d be lying if I said it never applies to the lowest common denominator but those kind of jokes are used (are you listening Mr Sandler?) when they are appropriate to the situation and are not the slow basis for the comedy as they are also intertwined with gallows humour, meta comedy and some genuinely terrific action scenes. For a first time director Tim Miller has an amazing talent for directing action, with such a visceral and fluid nature to every scene, no shaky-cam and no unnecessary cuts, and it doesn’t stop for breath but while watching it I never felt exhausted.

As opposed to faltering in its quieter moments, ‘Deadpool’ manages to make its human interactions just as entertaining as its action. The chemistry between Deadpool and every supporting character is fantastic from Morena Baccarin as Wade’s girlfriend, to T.J Miller as his best friend, Leslie Uggams as his blind roommate and even Brianna Hilderbrand and Stefan Kapičić as his reluctant sidekicks. But as for the titular character himself, Ryan Reynolds was born to play this role. It just fits in so perfectly with his attributes as an actor, he is crude and empathetic and hilarious and action oriented, everything just fits together so perfectly. It’s not hard to see why he leaked that test footage, I mean …. Why he was glad when the footage was leaked, yeah, that’s what I meant.

There is apparently a petition to edit a PG-13 version of ‘Deadpool’, but frankly that would be a great injustice to the movie as it relies on being as crude and violent as it is. Not only that but even the very structure of the film isn’t suited to a PG-13 demographic, being told nonlinearly and being so self-referential. There are faults with ‘Deadpool’ but the film even goes as far to address most of them itself, that doesn’t mean that those faults do not exist, but it does make me feel inadequate for targeting what is by now a low-hanging fruit. It’s hilarious, violent, genre pushing and ridiculously entertaining.

‘Deadpool’ is quite simply one of the best superhero movies ever made, as well as being one of the most outlandish.

Result: 9/10