Not so much a superhero movie as a super-anti-hero movie, Deadpool follows a low-rent fixer / mercenary / goon named Wade (Ryan Reynolds) who, after being transformed into an extremely pussy, pimply, putrid version of himself (but with endlessly regenerative healing powers) by a grim British villain named Ajax (the creepily named Ed Skrein), decides his hot mercenary-catering prostitute girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) won’t like him anymore, so sets out for revenge. Extreme carnage follows.
Supposedly extremely faithful to the source comic, Deadpool is deliberately self-conscious, self-referential and self-absorbed, both as character and film. It wears its naughtiness with pride, reveling in its over the top violence and its lead character’s extremely obnoxious personality; it also couldn’t be more satisfied with “breaking the fourth wall” over and again, having Wade / Deadpool address the camera / audience directly, and repeatedly exposing the film’s own existence as a fictional artifice, such as referencing the actors James McEvoy, Patrick Stewart and Ryan Reynolds himself in the context of playing characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while being a movie within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Get it? It takes great self-satisfaction with all of this, but a reference isn’t a joke, and I didn’t find Deadpool – the movie or the character – funny at all. Indeed, as the story descended into Just Another Origin Story, I grew increasingly bored and antsy. The whole thing is like one big fart joke – it’s that obvious and that juvenile (despite being widely heralded as “R-Rated”). If you’re a fan of the comic, I guess you’ll be thrilled that the film has so much integrity; by the third act, I couldn’t wait for it to end. It’s competently made, no doubt, and Reynolds has strong presence, even hidden behind a gimp mask that covers his eyes and his mouth. That mouth covering supposedly gave the filmmakers endless opportunities to tweak their hero’s wisecracks; pity they’re all rather lame.CJ Johnson
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Author: CJ Johnson
CJ Johnson is a radio host and film critic based in Sydney and LA. His radio show and Podcast Movieland is broadcast on the ABC in Australia and free to subscribe to on iTunes. His book And The Oscar Didn’t Go To… is about all the times the Academy screwed it up and gave the Oscar to the wrong person or film. As a critic, picking a genre would be like having a favorite child, but he does fancy a good caper movie. You can now watch his web TV show - http://www.skipi.tv/channel/watch-this/