I feel a little bad about hopping into the Deadpool so late, but it was well worth it. It’s easy to see why he’s been given so many crossovers with fellow Marvel crusader Spider-Man- he’s more or less his adult-oriented equivalent. Not only do they both have incredibly expressive masks, they also both have a tendency to fall back on snarky quips when feeling nervous or insecure about a situation.
Indeed, while Deadpool’s big screen debut contains all of the fourth wall breaking, pop culture referencing jokes and tongue-in-cheek but still hyper-violent mayhem his fans have come to expect from him, writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese and director Tim Miller provide Wade Wilson with various degrees of sweetness and self doubt. Ryan Reynolds channels his charisma reserves and loses himself in Rob Liefeld’s famed anti hero, clearly enjoying himself. Yet it’s never to where it feels like his edge has been undercut. His back story in particular is poignant enough to make the admittedly morally dubious “merc with a mouth” into a very rootable protagonist.
Even as the former Special Forces member Wade Wilson, Pool is insistent in his belief he isn’t an upstanding hero, though he clearly has a soft spot for the mistreated while working as a hired goon. After being diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer, with trepidation he decides to undergo an experimental procedure that will hopefully result in a cure and allow him to enjoy a full healthy life with his main squeeze Vanessa Carlysle (an equally droll Morena Baccarin). The two have a surprisingly charming chemistry with each other, as geeky and unexpectedly touching as they are sexual.
Unfortunately, helming the procedure is the absurdly evil Ajax, played by Ed Skrein with a demented glee as he happily tortures Wilson, hoping he’ll become one of many mutant super soldiers. A mutated and badly disfigured Wilson manages to escape, and him and a bar buddy (Big Hero 6’s T. J. Miller) settle on the Deadpool moniker as an effective way for Wade to extract his revenge.
Right from the opening credits mocking the filmmakers, Wade insists on doing things his way. This makes him a perfect foil for powerhouse X-Man, Colossus (Stephan Kapicic), who acts as sort of a metal plated Jiminy Cricket figure trying to steer Deadpool in a more typically heroic direction. He’s accompanied by Negasonic Teenage Warhead, played by Brianna Hildebrand with an unamused coolness that Pool plays off very well. In fact, if Warner Bros. decided to make a Teen Titans feature film, Hildebrand’s performance hem b re convinces me she’d make a pretty good Raven.
As Ajax’s henchwoman Angel Dust, Gina Carano mainly kicks and throws fists. Luckily the action scenes are well done enough to where that’s all she needs to rely on, and Deadpool’s regeneration abilities provide some squeamishly entertaining gags on top of some innovativly gory demise for many of the villains. Heck, some of them are downright Fatality worthy, maybe Fox might want to think about giving NetherRealm Studios a call some time.
Though as raunchy and gun/swordplay happy as Deadpool and its titular blood happy mercenary are, they never dip into what I’d consider bad taste or anything needlessly offensive. He’s clearly not for kids, but he always feels more darkly fun than he does mean-spirited, and in fact his debut film handles a good moral about appearances not always telling the whole story pretty well. Mix that with Reynolds’s unique brand of wit and you have what I think is one of the funniest films I’ve seen this year. I can easily recommend these chimichangas.