Deadpool Review
So I saw Deadpool this weekend, and I had a great time with it. I have been excited for this movie for around six months, and I pretty much got everything I wanted out of it, though it has considerably more faults than other Marvel movies.
Deadpool is about a man named Wade Wilson who gets cancer and runs away from his girlfriend Vanessa looking for a cure. He then is tricked by Francis, the antagonist, who tells him that he will heal him when instead he intends to make him into an undefeatable mercenary. After put through numerous rounds of torture, Wade gains the ability to heal from any wound, making him virtually invincible. The comic book character of Deadpool is a pretty unique one, and the R rating helped separate this movie from other superhero movies. Deadpool would classify as a superhero movie since it's Marvel after all, but Deadpool is no hero and is often making a couple of wisecracks before and after killing his victims. I feel pretty indecisive about my feelings for Deadpool since I had so much fun with it while it did have a couple of recognizable errors.
What I had a huge expectation for in this movie was how true it stayed to the character of Deadpool, and I wasn't let down at all. Ryan Reynolds brings the best possible performance he can to this movie and his passion for Deadpool is visible in the movie. I feel like Ryan Reynolds is going to be almost inseparable from Deadpool from this point on, and I mean in the way that Robert Downy Jr is almost inseparable from Iron Man, and Heath Ledger is almost inseparable to The Joker. And yes, I really did just compare Heath Ledger's performance to Ryan Reynolds. Heath Ledger put a new twist on an already much-loved character with a lot of personality in the comics and gave the best possible performance he could have for the character. That's exactly what Ryan Reynolds does in Deadpool. I don't think there are that many people out there who could have played Deadpool off so well. I mean, everything from his delivery of jokes to his fourth wall breaks, to his insanity. There were a couple of other characters too, but I couldn't find myself caring about too many of them. I liked T.J. Miller in this movie, I liked Vanessa played by Morena Baccarin. But I didn't ever really care about Colossus or Negasonic teenage warhead, the only two X-Men in this movie. I mean, they were cool on screen and all, but were only in around 3 or 4 scenes in the movie, and were only relevant to the story towards the end of the movie. The opening credits jokingly reveal all the clichés that are about to unfold in the movie, like how the villain is British, and how it's directed by an overpaid tool. The villain in this movie was Ajax, played by Ed Skrein. His gimmick was that he couldn't feel pain, but couldn't heal like Deadpool. There wasn't really any backstory or anything given to us to be invested in for this villain, and he could be played by anybody. All of these clichés were a little more forgivable since the studio acknowledges it themselves at the start of the movie. Of course, they could have spent more time developing the villain if they really wanted to, but Deadpool's character was the star and evidently the first priority. That being said, I don't really need to restate everything the movie tells you it's going to be, and I'm at least glad the studio acknowledged it and didn't try to hide it.
The comedy in Deadpool is pretty on fleek. And it's not all fart jokes, some of it is clever too. Ryan Reynolds even said himself in an interview that Deadpool 'has a pop culture joke cannon in his brain with unlimited ammunition.' If you've read any of the comics, then you would probably know everything there is to expect from Deadpool's character. The movie has a lot of gags, references, crude jokes, even more crude sex scenes and an abundance of 4th wall breaks. If you already like Deadpool now, you will probably love his portrayal in this movie. The script is really well written too, with only a couple of hiccups. Admittedly, some jokes just didn't land, and some were not timed well, and some were followed up by an actual smart joke that a lot of people may sadly have missed because people are too busy laughing at the previous joke right before it. Besides some of these mishaps, the movie is amusing, and these mishaps weren't too often, and the dialogue had an enormous amount of jokes to make up for some of the jokes that may not have landed. I laughed a lot in the movie, which was what I wanted out of a Deadpool movie. Deadpool's sense of humor feels like it's been ripped right out of the pages of the comics. I thought the comedy in this movie delivered well, for the most part, seeing as how most everything Deadpool said was a punchline or leading up to a later joke. The humor always seems to tie in well, and it never feels forced, which is something I was glad about.
One thing I was disappointed in was the lack of creative deaths in the action scenes. Deadpool is very much a badass in this movie, but I expected more creative deaths like in the comics. The writers for this movie, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, also worked on Zombieland, which had creative deaths in it too. There were a couple of creative deaths, but I had hoped for more. Aside from not many creative deaths, the action in this movie is well done and entertaining. It's shot well, and Deadpool's style of fighting is somewhat badass, and ninja like as well as comedic, using a lot of banter during these scenes. The action is clear, and there're not many jump cuts. The action is also really violent, and Fox went all out on this. There is dismemberment, decapitation, gut entrails and brains can be seen splatting when Deadpool gets a headshot. I loved to see this much profane, crude, over the top nonsense in a Marvel movie, and it was refreshing. I only wish there was more action because it was fun when it was on screen. There were only two big fight scenes in the movie, and I wanted just a little more. Overall the action was very enjoyable.
The soundtrack in this movie was really good. There was some original music and some actual songs. I liked the Hip-Hop/rock feel to the soundtrack, and I feel like it suited Deadpool's ghetto personality. Tom Holkenborg who did one of the songs in the soundtrack actually did parts of the soundtrack for Mad Max: Fury Road and Black Mass, and I like what he did with the soundtrack. Usually, Marvel movies are over 2 hours long, and I was surprised to see the film end around the 1 hour and 40-minute mark. When the movie ended, I really wanted to see more. It feels like the movie got cut short a little bit, and was almost ... incomplete. The action and the comedy was working really well for the movie. If it was, say, a half hour longer, that would be plenty of time that could be used to further advance the plot and show some of the less seen characters, as well as add a little more action. One thing the movie was doing brilliantly was sometimes having the comedy revolve around the violence and vice versa, which is exactly what I wanted in a Deadpool movie, and they could have done so much more with that if the movie was longer. I was also disappointed to see that the big action scene at the end was only with katanas. There had been some good shootout scenes before, and I was expecting a lot of gunplay at the final action scene since Deadpool gets all ready by loading a huge duffel bag filled with guns, and then forgets it. I wanted to see a little more shootout scenes, with a bit more gunplay.
Other than not having as much action as I had hoped, and not having enough creative and wacky deaths in the action, I enjoyed Deadpool for what it was trying to be. The movie didn't want to be taken seriously, and clearly didn't take itself seriously. This is probably the only Marvel that I would say could be a little longer. There wasn't any fancy camerawork, most of the shots didn't have that much variety to them, but at least they got the shots. Deadpool was essentially made because of the internet. If the fans didn't beg for more after the test footage was released around two years ago, then this movie would never have been made. I feel like this is the first time Fox made a movie specifically for the fans. I mean, Fox has a lot of great X-Men movies, but those were made to the directors style. This movie feels like it was made entirely for the audience, which did make it a lot of fun to watch. Deadpool has a few more faults than other funny Marvel movies like Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy, which both had more variety to the cinematography, with Ant-Man being more vertical and being more about scale, and Guardians of the Galaxy about being good looking and showing it off with a lot more impressive camerawork. Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy did have a little bit more though put into it as far as the development of characters. One thing that those two movies weren't, was an extremely violent hard R-rated movie, that didn't feel restricted at all by the rating. I hope this movie serves as an excellent example of a superhero movie that can be R-rated and still stay faithful to source material and more importantly to the studio, make a good profit. Deadpool had it's hiccups and faults but is definitely not going to stop me from buying it on Blu-Ray when it releases and seeing it in the theaters again.
+ Action is violent/unrestricted - Not much room for character development
+ Comedy is clever and funny - Could have more action scenes
+ Violence/comedy work with each other - Should have longer run time
+ Does justice to Deadpool as a character - Needed more creative deaths
6.8/10
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