Deadpool
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, Brianna Hildebrand
Directed By: Tim Miller
Written By: Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick
Reviewed by Brendan Dousi
[rating: 3.5/5]

Deadpool was starting to worry me for a while there. With its incessant viral campaign including Super Bowl teasers and Testicular Cancer Awareness ads, everything had just started to lean a little too much towards the juvenile side of humour. I was starting to worry that Tim Miller’s Deadpool was simply going to be a crass, overly-violent, paint-by-numbers origin story full of stupid dick and ball jokes. Guess what? I was completely and utterly right. But, now that I’ve seen it, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’ve always been a strong believer that to be good a movie doesn’t necessarily need to be at all original. It just needs to do what it’s trying to do well. Deadpool is not in the slightest bit original in its story. It is as basic a hero’s journey origin story as you could possibly get. In fact, if it were to actually play out in chronological order I believe this would be a much lesser film. Luckily, the filmmakers are having a blast and decided to jigsaw this origin story together in a spastic, narration-heavy whirlwind of samurai swords, X-Men and impressive head shots. Deadpool is incredibly well paced and there is never a dull moment as the energy is always cranked up to the max. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick’s screenplay crackles with fun set-pieces and fantastic dialogue, often pushing the boundaries of ‘meta’ storytelling to its brink, but always showing enough restraint to cleverly snap the viewer back into the story. It helps that Wade Wilson/Deadpool is in on the joke for the entire ride.

It is this titular character played, once again but to his full potential, by Ryan Reynolds that elevates this film into the next-level of enjoyment. Reynolds is obviously having a blast and loves this character, with good reason, as he flips, flops and shoots his way across screen in all of his crass, 4th wall breaking glory. He doesn’t carry the entire film on his shoulders, however, and is backed-up by a fantastic supporting cast. Morena Baccarin is great as conventional yet unconventional love interest Vanessa, though it would have been nice to give her more to do, Ed Skrein makes a delightfully hateable Ajax and T.J. Miller as Weasel is, well, T.J. Miller. But the winner in the supporting game is Brianna Hildebrand and Negasonic Teenage Warhead who does brilliantly with what she is given and gets extra props for standing out alongside a delightfully simple minded CGI Colossus (voiced by Stefan Kapicic).

As great as the character is, it is easy for Deadpool to get a little too stupid. His main demographic is young teenagers and it often shows through his various comic adaptations. Even here that line is definitely toed very frequently, but with the amount of jokes being spewed per minute it’d be hard not to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Luckily, Miller absolutely nails the balance of humour and the light/dark tone needed to make Deadpool really and truly work. This, my friends, is no small feat.
The main problem here is that this film has a large potential to alienate some viewers unfamiliar with the character or not used to content this meta (Or violent). Basically, the audience may not realise what they are getting themselves in for. But, regardless of those sticks in the mud (or parents who can’t read film ratings), Deadpool is one hell of a fun ride.

Even while it is treading well-trodden ground, Deadpool still manages to make things feel relatively fresh with a humorously violent twist to our usual superhero origin story. Some jokes may fall flat, but there are so many that you will probably find yourself laughing the entire way though, and the overall delightful chaotic tone of the film is sure to win many over. Deadpool breathes some well-needed lightness into the Superhero genre and I can’t wait to see what Fox does with him next.