Megan Moore
BU News Service
There’s a lot to love about “Deadpool”, the anticipated antihero film that’s spent a decade in the making, and there’s so much more to love about the way it broke all the Marvel movie habits.
This low-budget film of only $60 million with a first-time director, Tim Miller, has not only appeased fans but has also topped the charts with the highest grossing weekend by an R-rated movie.
“Deadpool” is the origin story of Wade Wilson, a former Special Forces operative turned mercenary that drips with violence, satire and vulgarity. Parents, it’s rated R for a reason. Please don’t take your children.
Wilson, played by Ryan Reynolds, undergoes a life-saving procedure after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Performed by a sadistic scientist (Ed Skrein), the procedure leaves him mutated with healing powers, a disfigured physical appearance and an unquenchable desire for revenge. And if you’re wanting a love story, “Deadpool” has that, too. It may be a thin outer shell of a love story, but it gets us to what we all really want out of Deadpool: a bloody good time. Miller works cleverly within budget restraints to add to the violence. Deadpool forgets his bag of guns most of the time, leaving him with only his swords and fists. Well, and the part of the X-Men team they could afford.
When Wade Wilson is suited up, the movie is explosive with wit. From the gloriously clever opening credits to the last closing joke, Deadpool’s humor is on point. The raunchy material suits Reynolds as he tosses snarky one-liners throughout the movie, much as he did in his cunning promotional videos. It’s a type of humor perfect for this film, and Reynolds fills the role almost as perfectly as he fills his red spandex suit.
Reynolds plays into the storyline that separates “Deadpool” from any other Marvel movie. The nonlinear script isolates the essence of eccentricity that is Deadpool while playing up the self-referential, meta and fourth-wall-breaking aspect. The movie works skillfully between past and present storylines, packing punches all along the way. If writers had taken a chronological approach, fans would die of boredom. The story is written in such a way that even people who are not superhero fans can enjoy the film.
Since it’s an origin story, many characters were melded together and some underdeveloped, but that’s a worthwhile sacrifice with talks of a sequel. The movie lives up to the promotional hype, pays homage to the comic and showcases everything we love about Deadpool.
If Betty White can rate it four Golden Girls, it’s a heck of a good movie.
