Plot: After being tricked into undergoing dangerous medical treatment by a shady organisation, former mercenary Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) discovers he has mutant powers. To his horror the transformation leaves him deformed, causing him to hide away from the love of his life. Wilson suits up and sets out on a path of revenge.
Whatever you think of superhero films, there’s no denying that in a saturated market a title like Deadpool needs to shake things up a bit to make an impact, and shake things up it does. At its core Deadpool is a superhero film set in Fox’s long-running X-Men universe, but on the surface this is an R-rated, violent comedy made to engage with an audience who are craving something new from the superhero genre. What we get is a mixed bag; a film that managed to nail the tone of the character, but within a bland and surprisingly familiar story. In one of its fourth wall gags Deadpool acknowledges and pokes fun at its titular character’s notoriously disappointing role in the franchise’s most poorly recieved entry X-Men Origins: Wolverine. With that in mind, it’s strange that a film so self aware then offers its audience a similarly flawed story, be it buried under a layer of witty quips and muddled within a non-linear narrative.
Plot aside, Deadpool is a funny film. I laughed throughout, enjoying the character’s engagement with the audience and the absurd scenarios that played out on screen. The fourth wall breaks, OTT action and quirky humour mostly works, with Reynolds’ showing off the merc with a mouth’s true potential as an engaging and charismatic screen presence. With the spotlight so focused its no surprise that the film’s other characters pale in comparison; a gritty love interest played by Morena Baccarin exists mainly to serve as the damzel in distress, whereas Ed Skrein’s Ajax is a completely uninteresting villain who’s very good at being evil and erm… fighting. Two B-list X-Men also feature in the film, although the franchise’s new timeline, the recast of Colossus (Stefan Kapicic/Greg LaSalle) and the films’ contrasting styles make it unclear where exactly Deadpool fits within the larger universe.
Verdict:
Deadpool’s revised introduction gives us a glimpse of the character’s potential, but witty quips and fourth wall breaks aside, this is a formulaic origin story that favours style over substance.
3/5
Screened 