Based upon Marvel Comics’ most unconventional anti-hero, DEADPOOL tells the origin story of former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts the alter ego Deadpool. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humor, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.
Deadpool is a super-powered revenge-seeking guy who, like many superheroes of yore, is quick with the wisecracks. The chief difference here is that it’s pretty much all he does while engaged in action sequences that vary from the impressive – gotta love the film’s opening titles – to the by-the-book mediocrity that accounts for most of the film’s set pieces.
While consistenly fun, thanks mostly to Reynold’s hyper performance, the film’s rather bold claim to being subversive and cheeky when it comes to the whole superhero universe wears very thin very quickly.
The hero might well be a self-referencing, over-confident wisenheimer, but the film harks straight from the Marvel movie factory and hence dutifully observes all the genre conventions it is supposed to, particularly the one mandatory scene involving a chase where cars are flipped over by fireballs.
The film certainly doesn’t qualify as being any sort of satire, a claim many will make on the film’s behalf merely because it clumsily refers to itself, with Deadpool often breaking the “fourth wall” and directly addressing the audience.
On that score, films such as Hancock, Kick-Ass and Marvel’s own Ant-Man are far more inventively executed.
As for the humour in Deadpool, a point needs to be made about when it was that sheer vulgarity and watery pop references were regarded as replacements for genuine wit.
We all enjoy coarse humour when delivered with verve and conviction, but not even Reynolds’ energy can paper over just how weak some of the film’s gags are.
To illustrate, this is yet another American comedy that appears to have an obsession with a certain posterior orifice. These can be funny in measure, but here it appears to be the default gag, its constant repetition engendering a certain weariness of both the joke and the film’s alleged novelty.