February 11th in Ontario, CA. Went to see the advance showing with one of the guys from the tour who's a big fan. To the best of my recollection, Deadpool was not even invented yet when I was in my Marvel Comics heyday (1982-1991ish) so I missed out on him. Deadpool made his on screen debut in 2009's less than spectacular X-Men Origins - Wolverine. Suffice to say fans of the character were less than pleased when their favorite wise cracking assassin (known as the "merc with the mouth") looked like this...
Kind of eliminates the chances of any witty dialogue.
After seven years and a lot of hemming and hawing, Deadpool finally made it back to the big screen, this time, a little more faithful to the source material. Ryan Reynolds is back as the title character (and back in a superhero film after the heinousity of 2011's Green Lantern). The big kicker this time is that the film received an R rating. That's right kids, a superhero film that has copious amounts of cursing and lots of gore. It's a bloody film, It is essentially a revenge film and those can get bloody. The R rating proved to be quite a nice touch as the film took in over $135 million on it's opening weekend.
The plot is very simplistic. Ex-Special Forces operative Wade Wilson is your every day run of the mill mercenary who gets work through a bar in a seedy part of town (it's a union hall for mercenaries). Wade trades quips with his bartender pal Weasel (T.J. Miller) and hits it off with an escort named Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). Wade and Vanessa move in with together and after a year they decide to marry. Their plans get derailed when Wade is diagnosed with a form of super cancer.
Despite Vanessa's devotion and best efforts Wade accepts an offer from a weird guy in a black suit that can "cure" Wade's cancer. Wade decides not to tell Vanessa about this and sneaks away to a very unsanitary "medical facility" to start his treatments. At the lab Wade has trouble making friends with Ajax (Ed Skrein) and his hench woman Angel Dust (Gina Carano). Wade learns that Ajex and this shadowy organization he works for are actually trying to create an army of super powered mercenaries to be sold to the highest bidders. Ajax takes a pleasure in tormenting the patients, especially wise ass Wade. In order to accelerate Wade's mutation, Ajax put him in a glass chamber (very similar to Captain America, more on that) that lowers the oxygen nearly asphyxiating Wade. The experiment works but it severely disfigures him. Wade is able to breakout of the chamber but in his weakened state, he's no match for Ajax and is let for dead while the lab burns down.
Wade survives (given) and proceeds to use his new powers to violently track down Ajax. Wade longs to see Vanessa but doesn't want to scare her with his disfigured face...
With a face like Ryan Reynolds', it's hard to make it ugly.
So he takes the tried and true path of just stalking her instead. Before they can reunite, Vanessa is kidnapped by Ajax and Angel Dust and is used as bait to kill Deadpool. Enlisting the aid of X-Men, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, the trio head to a scrap yard for the big showdown within the ruins of a SHIELD heli-carrier (probably from Captain America: The Winter Soldier). With Vanessa's life in the balance, Deadpool squares off against Ajax and Colossus takes on Angel Dust. Of course both bouts are evenly matched with only Negasonic Teenage Warhead tipping the balance in the good guys favor. Deadpool defeats Ajax and reunites with Vanessa. Film over.
I thought the picture was a lot of fun. Deadpool does for the superhero genre of films what Scream did for slasher films. The film never takes itself too seriously (which begins with the hilarious opening credits ), has several laugh out loud moments and has a great post credits scene. That's where the originality ends. Its still a formulaic superhero but there's enough witty dialogue and funny scenes where you don't mind that much. After seeing the film I came across this article, that brings up some issues about the film. The article is pretty much right on the money. Deadpool has a few warts but as I mentioned before, I didn't care that much (although the bridge fight scene would've have killed innocent bystanders without question and would have had every cop in the city called to the scene). There's a good reason that this film is currently killing it at the box office.
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