After nearly a decade of pushing for the movie to get made, Ryan Reynolds has finally accomplished his goal of playing the comic book character that perfectly matches his personality: Deadpool. The beloved comic star made his first appearance in 2005’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine with Reynolds playing the character, but the movie was a massive disappointment and failed to properly deliver the fullness of the character that fans knew and loved. Despite all of the bad, one thing the movie revealed was that Reynolds was born to play Wade Wilson.
After the success Fox has had with its X-Men franchise as well as a huge online backing, the studio finally decided to greenlight a Deadpool movie with Reynolds attached, and it’s finally here. When I saw the first test footage for Deadpool, I was pretty excited by what was put together, and the additional trailers and info that have been released leading up to the movie’s premiere have only built up my expectations more. While I wasn’t sure if Deadpool would truly be a good film or not, I at least had trust that the writers and director understood the tone, rating and personality that the movie needed to succeed.
Deadpool is a character that works because of his raunchiness, and to sell that short wouldn’t fool anyone. The marketing behind Deadpool has been perfectly on point and exactly what they needed to hype everyone up about the movie’s release. When it comes to traditional forms of marketing, Deadpool got creative with its billboards, utilizing things like emojis, while also taking advantage of the Valentine’s Day weekend release date and going as far as creating a fake romance/drama trailer and a billboard to go along with it. Deadpool is one of the most fun characters, so it was a really smart move to take advantage of that through additional marketing tactics; on top of the billboards, they gave us a set of Deadpool emojis, a script page with Deadpool’s notes and even fake Tinder profiles. Ryan Reynolds is so dedicated to this character, he even took personal time to sit outside of the Super Bowl in a Chimichanga food truck serving customers in costume as well as hanging at a bar with co-star TJ Miller to hangout, serve drinks and play darts with fans. That dedication shows how much Reynolds believes in this movie, and how far he’s willing to go to convince as many people as possible that they should go out and see it.
After seeing the early numbers and watching some non-spoiler YouTube reviews, I was extremely excited to finally see Deadpool. The build up had worked and I was definitely hooked. Was it the character, the dedication to getting the film made, or that we would finally receive an R rated Marvel movie? I’m not sure; however, Deadpool definitely delivered the movie everyone has been waiting for and acommplished enough to become a fan favorite.
Right off the bat, it’s clear that Ryan Reynolds hasn’t changed one bit. His portrayal of the character is spot on in almost every aspect and you can tell that this has been his passion project. Reynolds was great, his acting didn’t only shine during the comedic moments, but also during the films couple of emotional scenes that really round out the character. The supporting cast really carried their weight as well; veteran stars Morena Baccarin and TJ Miller were awesome in their usual ways but newcomers Stefan Kapicic and Brianna Hildebrand, who played Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, were fantastic additions to the cast that held their own. I really love how Fox is developing the X-Men cinematic universe and will be excited to have the characters popping up more often.
While most superhero movies have a repetitive skeletal plot underneath their origin stories, Deadpool was a nice change of pace and felt like the most honest adaptation of a superhero yet. Everyone, down to Reynolds himself, knew that this movie could only be made with an R rating in order to properly represent the comic character. Deadpool is a very unique comic book character, and the movie does a solid job with its writing to make everything feel authentic, which was a big high point for me. There was a perfect amount of humor delivered with fast-paced quick wit, but nothing ever feels cheap or cheesy. Although some of the lines are delivered very quickly and will be easy to miss for some, I liked the sarcasm that Wade had while trying to get the last word in under his breath.
Deadpool is very meta, which, if you have read the comics, should expect a lot of. The movie breaks the fourth wall similarly to the comics and the character is self-aware to the fact that he is actually in a movie. Again, the writing really utilized this aspect and worked in some great jokes about Marvel, X-Men and both Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman as actors. While I think the fourth wall breaking aspect will be a stylistic preference for non-comic book readers, anyone who has prior knowledge of the character should love it.
There wasn’t a lot wrong with Deadpool, but I had some very minor gripes with a couple of things. My biggest problem was with the villain, Ajax. While Deadpool handled its villain much better than most in the MCU, I believed that the movie could have given a better explanation of his full powers. There are some scenes where it seems like he can do more than we were led to believe. Otherwise, I thought that the CGI on Colossus looked phenomenal and for the most part everything looked pretty good.
Overall, I really loved everything Deadpool had to offer. This was very much an R rated Marvel movie, and it was a nice change to see the adult side of comic books come to life. The movie has good acting with great jokes and the best Stan Lee cameo out of any Marvel movie to date. The Deadpool sequel has already been confirmed and the rumblings of an X-Force movie are even beginning to happen, which is exciting after seeing this. Deadpool shows a new side of the X-Men universe and had just about everything I wanted. It will be really fun to see where they go next. Watching something so fun deserves to be watched on a big screen. I hear that an attic cinema is perfect for this kind of film if you’re lucky enough to have one.
Photo Via Fox Movies