I’m not even sure I would have liked it five years ago since it’s so cynical and at moments mean-spirited, but now that we have a Marvel item this refreshingly different, I was quick to roll with it. Deadpool is the umpteenth Marvel comic book movie, and after a string of behemoth box office winners, it seems as if the company was thankfully ready for a detour. Ready for a risk. There is acid profane comedy, outrageous sex banter, black comedy, ironic parody of the superhero genre, and goddammit thank you – less action.
By the time “Avengers: Age of Ultron” came around and bored me to tears, I never wanted to see another Marvel product ever again. How many more explosions and computerized shots of crumbling cities could I bear to see? Done with such repetition?
Ryan Reynolds first played Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009, a totally forgettable and yawn-inducing entry. The character then was arbitrary, now he’s irreverent and slinging jokes, and busting heads with no-nonsense hesitation. He’s in love with a total babe, Morena Baccarin from TV’s “Firefly” has the perfect blend of tough cookie and naughty but fun girl. When ruthless underworld bad guys, headed by a British villain (of course!), decide to use Wade as an experimental guinea pig – well, let’s just say Wade becomes the disfigured but very powerful and instinctual Deadpool. He also can also heal from a bullet wound instantaneously.
Instead of typical bombastic save the world stuff from most Marvel movies, “Deadpool” is a modest revenge tale in kinky noirish high style. Wade needs to give the bad guys their deliverance and reunite with his former love. I expected that I would hate it before I started it. I was quite wrong about it. I’ll take its debauchery and cynicism, too, since at least that’s a note that hasn’t been played before in these types of movies. It helps that Reynolds is a sublime wiseass. And helps that it has the shortest running time among Marvel movies.
108 Minutes. Rated R.
ACTION-ADVENTURE / MARVEL COMICS LORE / WEEKEND AFTERNOON MOVIE
Film Cousins: “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (2009); “Green Lantern” (2011); “Guardians of the Galaxy” (2014); “Doctor Strange” (2016).
