Deadpool Review

Deadpool follows Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), a former mercenary who spends his time in New York threatening unfavourable people for money. At the beginning of the film he is known as Deadpool, an antihero with accelerated healing powers and agility. He is also permanently scarred and therefore wears a red suit to hide his face (as well as the blood he is prone to stain his clothing with). He is desperate to find the man responsible for his disfigurement and acquisition of superhuman powers, Francis Freeman (Ed Skerin), in an attempt to regain his looks, and as he hunts the man down we are shown through flashbacks how Wade Wilson became Deadpool.

The film manages, for the most part, to skillfully weave in between the present and the past with ease without it becoming tedious. A lot of that has to do with the breaking of the fourth wall. Deadpool often turns to the audience and talks to them directly, a different and daring approach to the standard superhero movie. It's also very self-referential, with Deadpool discussing the movie, the Marvel franchise, and even Reynolds himself. It instantly disarms the audience in the best way, ensuring that wherever the story takes them that they're still in on the joke.

Speaking of jokes, Deadpool is funny. I'm not too much of a fan of the smart-ass superhero (I'm looking at you Tony Stark), but Deadpool does it so well to an unrelenting script and Ryan Reynolds who has never been more charismatic. He's not the only one though, the film is inundated with hilarious characters. Morena Baccarin is surprisingly effective as Vanessa Carlysle, Wade's girlfriend, and a lot of the enjoyment of the earlier part of the film and the flashbacks has to do with the chemistry and humour she shares with Reynolds (even if her character is underdeveloped and has little to do later on). There's also Weasel (T.J. Miller), a bar owner and Wade's best friend, Blind Al (Leslie Uggams) Deadpool's roommate in the later part of the film, and Dopinder (Karan Soni), a taxi driver, who all have varying degree of importance in the film but are all memorable and also exemplify  the film's humour.

Not every character does though. Francis and Angel Dust (Gina Carano) aren't compelling villains in the slightest, besides the fact that they run the Weapon X program that resulted in Wilson's transformation into Deadpool. Similarly, the writers decided that Deadpool needed some other mutant friends and subsequently inserted Colossus (Stefan Kapičić) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) into the film. Although the film is very self-aware in this regard it's still painfully jarring visiting Charles Xacier's School for gifted youngsters and only being privy to these two X-Men.

It's from the point where the aforementioned characters become prominent parts of the film, and after Wade's intriguing backstory has been fully divulged, where things start to unfortunately return to a stock-standard Marvel movie. Francis and Angel Dust kidnap Vanessa to lure out Deadpool, and he, along with Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead have to go save her. What makes matters worse for the traditional third act showdown is that the stakes are so very low. Sure, it's nice to have a more grounded and smaller Marvel film for once (a la Ant-Man), but with all the interesting plot out of the way the ending has nothing left to really on but the film's humour, which by that point surely would have grown old of majority of the more mature audience members.

It's a small price to pay though for an otherwise surprisingly enjoyable, often meta, and constantly funny film.

Rating: 3.5/5