With quips that are just as lethal as its action scenes, Deadpool successfully establishes itself as an R rated superhero action comedy hybrid, led by a game Ryan Reynolds who finally nails the superstar making performance of his career.
A long time ago children outgrew comic books as they grew into adults. Decades of pop culture rearing has changed that, leading to the demand and delivery of storylines and characters aimed towards adult readers.
The comic book movie has followed suit, with the likes of Kick-Ass and Sin City proving that superheroes getting down and dirty can make a buck while also receiving praise from critics. It was only an inevitability that Marvel Studios (through 20th Century Fox) would bite, and bite they did stepping out of their PG-13 confides and into the Deadpool.
Of course this is not the first time that the character of Deadpool, aka Wade Wilson, aka the “Merc with the mouth” appeared on screen, having first been portrayed by Ryan Reynolds in X-Men Origins: Wolverine to mixed results.
Reynolds (who has more superhero roles under his belt than Meryl Streep has Oscars) knew that he and his character deserved better, and that is exactly what he, director Tim Miller, and especially writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (they of Zombieland fame) deliver: a better, sharper, raunchier, and unapologetically entertaining movie experience that is up there with the best hard-core comic book movies.
The film follows Wade Wilson, a special forces operative who undergoes an off the grid experiment that on top of curing his inoperable cancer and provides superhuman powers, leaves him incredibly disfigured to the point where wearing a mask is the best option.
Leaving behind the love of his life Vanessa (Monica Bacarin) and swearing revenge on sadistic supervillain Ajax (Ed Skrein) for his part in the experiment, things get very bloody very quickly with Miller not at all shy in presenting a carnage of crimson in the form of flashy fight scenes without restoring to the sadistic lows of Kick-Ass.
Many with the greenlight to do so can deliver bloodshed. What separates Deadpool from the pack is the script by Reese and Wernick, with quips galore deliriously shameless in their un-PC approach, while an effective love story between two equally twisted souls anchors the light on its feet pace.
Through it all Reynolds proves that Deadpool is the role he was born to play. Box office superstardom has eluded the Canadian leading man (but not without a lack of trying), yet Deadpool is just the role and just the movie to break through to the next level, proving Deadpool to not only be a game changer in comic book movies, but a game changer for Reynold’s career as well.
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