Monday, March 07, 2016

Popcorn for One: DEADPOOL, my review (with spoilers)

There will be some minor SPOILERS in here so if you haven't seen DEADPOOL yet you might want to look away.

Wade Wilson is former military, now working as a small-time mercenary.  He's a wise-cracking guy who enjoys pop culture, drinking and sex.  One day he meets a girl and falls in love, unfortunately Wade soon discovers that he has cancer and may not have long to live.  Hoping to be cured he agrees to take part in some experiments, which will attempt to unlock any mutant abilities Wade might have. Quickly he  discovers that they are being conducted not by the government but by a group attempting to create super-powered assassins for hire.  When Wade survives the testing he finds he has become hideous, but with the power to survive almost any wound.  He also decides to find the man who did this to him.

I have to admit that while the comic book character, DEADPOOL has a huge following I'm not really among them. Like DC's LOBO, I always found him a rather one-joke character, plus I'm not really into the X-Men/mutant thing so that was two strikes against him. One of the things that turned me around on the character was the actor Ryan Reynolds, who loves the character and has been trying to get this movie made for years. I must say that I'm really glad he did.

The movie is just so much fun and never takes itself too seriously, but still finds time to really allow us to find the man beneath the mask. Wade is a much better man, in some ways, than he believes himself to be.  Still not a hero, as we'd normally think of them, he still can do the right thing, even if not in the way that a Superman or Captain America might. Deadpool might help you get your cat out of a tree, but then he'd probably steal your car so he could go out for pizza.

From the very opening credits to the ones at the end, the film seldom lets up.  In fact the opening credit scroll gives you a pretty good idea that this is not your standard super-hero movie.  Also, the movie has an "R" rating for several very good reasons, not just the violence and language.  I'm hoping that the fact that the movie has been doing so well doesn't push other folks into doing "R" rated comics films just because it worked here. Deadpool is a very different kind of movie and not for everyone.  You could almost say it's like THE WATCHMEN played for laughs.  Yeah, these are superheroes, but do you really want these folks running around unchecked.

If you've seen the trailers for this film or some of the remarkable promotional videos and posters online you already know some of what you'll see.  Oh, and a really nice surprise was seeing how the X-Men Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (the coolest name for a super-hero in like forever!) were not only there for a brief cameo, they were an essential part of the story.

Do yourself a favor and check this movie out, on the big screen if you can.  Oh, and please don't leave like some folks after the credits. You really will be sorry.