Deadpool Review

Marvel's super hero movies have been flooding the movie theaters for some time now. Many of the ones produced by Disney have been fantastic, while the ones produced by Fox have been hit or miss. Fox still owns the film rights to the X-Men franchise, and most of those have been good. The eighth installment in the X-Men series is Deadpool (2016); something fans have been begging studios for for sometime, especially after that horrible depiction of the character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The Deadpool movie is not so much about the story as it is about this bizarre and well loved character of the Marvel Universe.

Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is a former Special Forces operative who now works as a mercenary. His world comes crashing down when he develops terminal cancer. Even though this fiancé, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), remains by his side, he fears losing her. A recruiter from a secret program approches Wade and offers him an experimental cure for his cancer. Initially he refuses, but later decides to leave Vanessa and undergo the procedure. At the sketchy laboratory, evil scientist Ajax (Ed Skrein) tortures, disfigures and transforms him into a mutant. The rogue experiment leaves Wade with accelerated healing powers and a twisted sense of humor, and shortly thereafter adopts the alias Deadpool. With occasional help from X-Men mutant allies Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), Deadpool uses his new skills to hunt down the man who nearly destroyed his life.

In the X-Men Origins movie, Deadpool was one of several characters who were horribly misrepresented in all the wrong ways. I was bent out of shape about how Gambit was depicted, but that was nothing compared to how inaccurate their disparaging and repulsive version of Deadpool was. The Deadpool in this movie is a vulgar and loudmouthed goofball and was what we were expecting in X-Men Origins. Here, he is highly talkative, cracks more jokes and wisecracks than Spider-Man, suffers from psychosis which itself makes him unpredictable and random, he's gratuitously violent and crude, and is aware that he is a comic book character, so he breaks fourth wall often to humorous effect. During one such gag in the movie he turns to the camera, looking at the audience and says, "A fourth wall break inside a fourth wall break? That's, like, sixteen walls!" At another point in the movie, Colossus is dragging Deadpool away and says, "You will talk with Professor Xavier." Deadpool responds by asking, "McAvoy or Stewart? These timelines can get so confusing." referencing Patrick Stewart's role and James McAvoy's role as a younger version the same character in prequels, and commenting on how the timeline in the X-Men movies don't actually make a lot of sense.

Ryan Reynolds played Deadpool in both movie depictions, and he's so perfect for the role. I mentioned in my review of Woman in Gold that Ryan Reynolds is frequently typecast as an arrogant, handsome, cocky, and rude young man. Wade Willson is certainly handsome before the secret Project X scientists get a hold of him, but not so much afterwards. Pretty much every other aspect of Reynolds' usual typecasting is present in the character of Deadpool. Deadpool's wacky and sometimes crude quips make the whole movie hysterical, and they are often the sort of sarcastic things Reynolds says in other movies. One of the cleaner lines from Deadpool has the titular character surrounded by henchmen with guns early in the movie. "You may be wondering why the red suit. Well, that's so bad guys don't see me bleed." He points at one of the henchmen to his left. "This guy's got the right idea... He wore the brown pants!" At which point Deadpool proceeds to kill all of them. I almost wonder how much of the movie was scripted and how much of it was Ryan Reynolds ad-libbing or just being himself.

One of the fun things about the Deadpool character is that he's not by any means typical. He frequently reminds us and other characters in the movie that he's not a hero. Deadpool has always been a mercenary who is in it for his own reasons and for whomever tends to have the bigger paycheck offer. Superheroes and villains are often depicted as having cool gadgets, weapons, and fancy hideouts. Deadpool lives in the ghetto, and shares a dilapidated apartment with and elderly, bitter blind woman. Deadpool is so lacking in resources that he has to take a taxi in his costume to get to the big fights. He doesn't have fancy powers outside of his accelerated healing. His healing powers make him effectively immortal and are so advanced that the character has literally recovered from decapitation in the comic books. Since he has no offensive powers, he fights with guns of various sizes and a pair of swords. "Okay guys, I only have twelve bullets, so you're all going to have to share!" It's these combined quirks that make the character so likeable and enjoyable. He doesn't take himself seriously, and that's why fans love him. The character wears a colorful, cheap Adventure Time wrist watch under his crime fighting costume for goodness sake!

It seems a lot of people were all worked up over Deadpool being rated R. Apparently they didn't think comic book movies were supposed to be R rated. But allow me to point out comic book movie titles that preceded Deadpool which were rated R, such as Watchmen, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Kick-Ass, 300, and Dredd to name a few. "But this is a Marvel movie, those aren't supposed to be R-rated." Oh, you mean like Punisher and a whole trilogy of Blade movies? I generally don't prefer R-rated content. But given the character of Deadpool, a PG-13 version of the movie would have been an insulting, watered down version of what the iconic character is. I feel like it was important to have an R rating to get this character done right for a movie. There were a couple of times I averted my eyes during the movie so as to avoid something I prefer not to see. But that's my preference and I would have been frankly disappointed if that sort of content was absent. Even sex scenes and graphic violence was imbued with Deadpools iconic, bizarre humor. The profanity and violence which permeates this movie is not simply thrown in to get a higher rating. It's intelligently incorporated and used in creative and witty ways. It's not vulgarity for the sake of vulgarity; it's well written and fits perfectly with setting and characters that use it. This is not a super hero movie for children; no matter how much your ten-year-old loves Iron Man and The Avengers, Deadpool is not for kids. And that's the way this movie should be.

Deadpool was everything that Deadpool fans had hoped for: fast, hilarious, and gleefully profane. The fourth-wall-busting Deadpool subverts the superhero movie formula with wildly entertaining and absolutely non-family-friendly results. This immature action-comedy is Marvel's biggest breath of fresh air since Guardians of the Galaxy. The movie makes self referential jokes as soon as the opening credits start rolling. The story may be a little on the cliché side but the narrative format makes it more interesting, and Deadpool himself makes it even better. This movie isn't about the story, it's about this character and depicting him the way he was meant to be depicted and the wacky humor he brings to every situation. And Deadpool succeeds in that endeavor with flying colors! I recommend seeing Deadpool if you're a fan of the character or the Marvel universe. However if you prefer classic, heroic, morally centered characters, you may want to skip this one; that's simply not who Deadpool is. Also, leave the kids at home if you plan on seeing this. I liked it enough to get a copy when it's available on home video.

Even though it's been done before, it was a bold move to make a R-rated superhero movie amidst all the other Marvel and DC superhero movies hitting theaters which were designed to be a bit more family friendly. What are some other Marvel and DC superhero movies titles you'd like to see that could reasonable have an R-rating? Comment below and let me know!

Kingsman: The Secret Service Review

I have a confession to make; I'm not much of a fan of spy movies, and I've never seen a James Bond movie I can honestly say I liked. I saw the trailer for Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and I was torn. It looked funny, but it also looked too much like a James Bond rip off for me to enjoy it.  I watched it anyway, and it was nothing like I expected. It's a very tongue-in-cheek spy movie that both satirizes Bond movies and acts as an innovative action spy movie.

Harry Hart (Colin Firth), code named Galahad, works for a top secret spy organization called The Kingsman. When one of Hart's compatriots dies in a failed attempt to rescue scientist James Arnold (Mark Hamill), The Kingsman have an opening in their ranks. Hart recruits Gary "Eggsy" Unwin (Taron Egerton) an unrefined but promising street kid, and son of a former Kingsman, into the agency's ultra-competitive training program. During Eggsy's training, internet billionaire and philanthropist Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) is reaching out to politicians, celebrities, and other persons of status to support him in his idea to put an end to global warming which correlates with his promotion of SIM cards that will provide the world with free internet and phone service. Concerned about the connection between Valentine and the death of his compatriot, Hart discovers a global threat behind Valentine's seeming generosity. Can Hart whip Eggsy into proper gentleman and spy to help save the world?

Kingsman was a ton of fun. It's almost like Men in Black meets James Bond but without aliens. If James Bond were completely rebuilt from the ground up for this generation, we'd have Kingsman. The movie both makes fun of spy movies while paying homage to them. It's self aware and makes literal references to spy movies. In some scintillatingly well done dialogue between Hart and Valentine, they say something to the effects of "If this were a movie, wouldn't [insert spy movie trope here] happen?"  This is followed by "This isn't that kind of a movie." And then they'd do something outside the usual structure of a spy movie. They really push on the fourth wall without actually breaking fourth wall in the interest of commentating on the spy movie genre. It gets a bit meta and self-referential without such commentary seeming out of sorts with the story itself.

Further homage include Valentine being made of the same stuff as a James Bond style villain but with a modern flair. He's got weirdly endearing quirks; he has an odd lisp, pays for all his ridiculous gadgets with his inheritance and earnings through online business, and he can't stand the sight of violence and becomes ill at the sight of blood. He's even got a ridiculous henchman; an amputee woman named Gazelle (Sofia Boutella) who wears bladed prosthetic legs. It's just like an over the top James Bond Villain, but modernized, silly, and interesting.

Hart is positively delightful. He's a superbly proper British gentleman with a crisp Queen's English accent. He's dapper, well dressed, eloquent, and can fight amazingly well. He's the kind of gentleman who would hold the door open for a lady and kick the trash out of her scumbag boyfriend. This was perfectly played out by Colin Firth, he seemed practically tailor made for the role. The role of Eggsy was also good, I've never heard of Taron Egerton before, but he was excellent, and I expect to see him in a lot more movies in the furutre. He played a streetwise petty thug with a chip on his shoulder and a thick cockney accent, and he allowed the character to develop and grow gradually and become a likable character. He's not terribly deep, you can't help but root for him.

The action is very intense in Kingsman. While there are moments of rising and falling action, the action rarely lets up. It's the action and some language that give the movie its R rating. Some of it is fairly cringe-worthy, but the camera doesn't dwell on the shots of gore hardly at all. It gives you just enough time to register what happened before moving on to another shot. This made it more watchable, I think, but no less shocking. But even some of the violent imagery tends to be hilarious at times. The action scenes were well choreographed and captured on camera. There's some shaky camera work in a few action scenes, but it was reasonably well done; the camera followed the action well enough to know what was going on without making me motion sick.

I thought Kingsman: The Secret Service was very enjoyable. Non-stop action, fun characters, a witty script full of commentary on spy movies, self-referential comedy, and lots of laughs. I'd say this wasn't a deep movie if not for the meta-spy movie quality it has, that makes Kingsman work on the level of a simple action movie and on the level of an interesting critique of the genre. I was both laughing and sitting on the edge of my seat throughout. This works well as a self contained story; there's no open end for a sequel to follow. I liked it enough to want to see more, but I don't think a sequel is necessary. Leaving this as a one off movie would be just perfect. If you do not like violent films or are put off by profanity, you won't like this one at all. But it that doesn't bother you too much, I recommend seeing this movie. I enjoyed it enough to want a copy on blu-ray once it's available.

Can you think of another good meta-movie? Surely there are others. Comment below and let me know!