Deadpool Review

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

Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

Plot: After a troubling vision Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) creates artificial intelligence to replace his team of superheroes. It doesn’t go well. To prevent humanity’s extinction the Avengers must assemble once again to overthrow a powerful robot known as Ultron.

Age of Ultron is the first of three huge sequels to be released this year and, to nobody’s surprise, the hype is strong with this one. It’s hype that’s well earned, Avengers Assemble is a smart, funny, action packed thrill ride. Age of Ultron is a superhero sequel which means it’s a fair assumption that it will strive to be bigger and better than its predecessor and well… Ultron is certainly bigger.

The cast of this film is huge. Ultron himself is a menacing presence, he’s visually impressive and is voiced effectively by James Spader, even if he does deliver the odd goofy line. We get the full line-up of heroes from the first film as well as some new additions, which means there’s a lot of people to cover. Impressively the film manages to give all the main characters some kind of arc, with more minor heroes merely making fan-pleasing cameos. All this does however come at a cost, Age of Ultron isn’t as finely tuned as Assemble – the film drags a bit at points, even during fight scenes. This is mainly due to way too much going on at the same time. The film has the daunting task of setting up three sequels that split off from this story and there are times when its own plot seems to get lost amongst the explosions. That said, when Age of Ultron does bring the hammer down it brings it down hard. The film’s opening is an insane rush of action. Remember the incredible team shot in the last film’s showdown? Well it gets topped in Ultron’s first five minutes. There’s also a new Iron Man suit called the Hulk Buster, I’ll let you put two and two together there… it results in smashing, a lot of smashing.

Outside of the action Age of Ultron‘s sense of humour is mostly on point. One of the strengths of MCU films is that they don’t take themselves too seriously, and no one knows this better than two-time Avengers director Joss Whedon. Allowing banter between earth’s mightiest heroes means they can be entertaining even when they aren’t hitting things, which is necessary for a film with this running time. JC

Verdict:

A bloated but enjoyable send off for Phase Two of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.

3/5