Theatergoers looking for a nice, sweet romantic movie for date night or just a heart-warming story on a rainy day should assuredly pick “Deadpool,” or not. Just your typical story — man, Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds, “Green Lantern”), meets woman, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin, “Homeland”); man falls in love with woman; something makes man leave woman; and ta-da, happy ending.
The movie takes a cliché story and dresses it up in a trench coat befitting the oddest runways at New York Fashion Week and soaks it in a sea of perfectly timed one-liners, overly stretched stereotypes and a fourth wall gleefully smashed to a pile of rubble.
The opening credits set the tone for the whole movie. No actual names were harmed in the making of the credits, just replaced with possibly apt nicknames that get the audience laughing within the first 30 seconds. This, of course, takes place in medias
res, during the slow motion of an action sequence, which is followed by a series of flashbacks to give a backstory of a man wearing a red spandex suit waving around katanas and guns. The flashback explains the obligatory romance plot line, albeit a little twisted and full of crass humor, and introduces the sidekick (T.J. Miller, “Silicon Valley”) and arch nemesis (Ed Skrein, “The Transporter Refueled”).
Some parts of the movie were jarring. Transitions between some scenes would be aided by little WD-40. One prime example is the jump from a montage of Wade and Vanessa’s relationship to a visit to the doctor. Viewers are thrown from an unbelievable alternate reality carousel to a sterile white room stripped bare of the comedic padding and vivid colors viewers have been accustomed to.
Ryan Reynolds truly was the best choice for the role of Deadpool. He employs charm and charisma and is constantly finding new ways to combine his extensive cursing vocabulary and wide range of metaphors.
The movie itself, although action-comedy, is quite vulgar and violent. It crashes through the barriers set by most Marvel and superhero movies. At some points, Wilson’s scathing remarks, breaking the fourth wall, echo thoughts movie goers might have had during such action movies.
The movie also contains the requisite Stan Lee cameo, although nowadays, it is not much of an Easter egg in the collection of Marvel-esque movies that Stan Lee is a part of. Although this movie should be under the same branch as the X-Men movies — Wade Wilson appeared in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” — it seems to transcend all categories previously given to Marvel and superhero movies. “Deadpool” would be the much older brother of “Ant-Man” and “Guardians of the Galaxy,” if anything.
Deadpool delivers biting one-liners throughout the movie, sometimes to lift his spirits during trying times and also to engage in earnest bickering with his blind roommate about IKEA furniture.
Yes, the movie is just as ridiculous as it seems, but even though the underlying plot is hackneyed and furthers some stereotypes such as women being seen as objects (the first scene with Wade’s girlfriend she refers to herself as merchandise), the movie still bears comedic relief, and the audiences clap at the end as the man — or more suitable for Deadpool, the anti-hero — gets the girl.
5/5