Movie Week: Deadpool

Rating : R in America, PG-13 in Canada. No, seriously.

A superhero movie unlike every other, for a "superhero" unlike any other. Well, anti-hero, but you get the idea. Wade Wilson, mercenary, meets and forms a relationship with exotic dancer Vanessa Carlysle. Their relation goes well for over a year, when Wade finds out that he suffers from a cancer. He follows up on the offer of a mysterious man who works for a shadowy institution that offers to cure terminal diseases… and after a long time of experimentations and torture, finds himself with a mutant healing factor that makes him really hard to kill, but leaves him with a face that makes him, in his own terms, unfuckable. After escaping, he sets out to find and kill the guy who did this to him, another mutant with the ultimate resistance to pain. On his quest, Wade (who wasn’t already exactly sane from the get-go) dons a mask and kills his way through subordinates to find the guy’s whereabouts.

Thus begins the story of the Merc With A Mouth, fully aware that he’s in a movie and taking every chance he gets to dis the X-Men (who, in this game, want to recruit him to control him) or any of Ryan Reynolds’ previous superhero roles (that is, Green Lantern and the Deadpool of X-Men Origins: Wolverine). It’s also clearly an anti-hero we’re following, not a hero, as even though Deadpool is our protagonist, much of what he does is just plain wrong in so many ways. The film also definitely deserved its R rating, judging by the extreme fight scenes, and the many sexual scenes (sure, there’s the Wade/Vanessa ones, but it’s also used for a joke once in a while after Wade’s transformation).

The main character is crazy awesome – as per the course for Deadpool – and the secondary characters are also really great, like Colossus or Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Talking about that, when she’ll grow up, will she change her name to Negasonic Warhead? Whatever. The fight scenes are fun, and the special effects are pretty great too. While it is mostly a comedic superhero movie, there are some dramatic scenes that work very well; though, you can guess a dramatic scene won’t stop Dead-friggin-pool from making jokes.

I really enjoyed this film, and I’m sure you will, too, if this kind of comedy superhero falls right into the sort of thing you like. I didn’t dare to say much about the film since Deadpool fans who may not have seen the movie so far wouldn’t like it spoiled to them, and I don’t think I’ve spoiled too much so far. Anyway, see you tomorrow for another quickie review of a movie I went to see in theaters.