Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Deadpool – 50 Shades of Utter Awesomeness!!!

After my last angry movie rant, involving Star Wars: TheForce Awakens, I thought I would take a second chance and see if Hollywood could redeem itself, so I load up the family in the old SUV and we headed off to see the new Ryan Reynolds movie, Deadpool.

20th Century Fox
Anyone know where Francis is?
For those of you who may not be familiar with the protagonist, Deadpool, he is a fictional anti-hero who first appeared in comic books published by Marvel. Originally, the character was depicted as a super-villain in ‘The New Mutants’ (Issue #98) and later in issues of ‘X-Force’, but he has since evolved into the current role. 

Deadpool is a disfigured, and mentally unstable, mercenary with the super-human ability of accelerated healing and physical prowess. He is known as the ‘Merc with a Mouth’ because of his highly talkative nature.


Before I get into it, I’d like to send out a big Fuck You to the 20th Century Fox execs who thought it was a great idea to slash seven million dollars from the budget, effectively removing nine pages of glorious Deadpool action from the movie.  There’s a special place in Hell awaiting you.

That being said, if you are looking for a completely irreverent, action packed movie starring the anti-hero of all anti-hero’s then brothers and sisters do I have a movie for you. The acerbic wit of Deadpool was enough to make this old grizzled New Yorker feel downright homesick.

I admit that I was a bit apprehensive. Fans of the comic book character know that he frequently breaks the fourth-wall, interacting directly with the audience, and I wasn’t sure how that was going to come off on the big screen.

For the record: Reynolds Nailed It!

I know a lot of you folks might have seen his original appearance in the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Don’t worry, despite the suck factor of that one, this incarnation of Deadpool is brilliant. Don’t believe me? It brought in over $150 million in box office sales over the four day opening weekend, utterly brutalizing the previous records in typical Deadpool fashion.
20th Century Fox
No..... It's not a ROM-COM

Now, just so you know, this is not a family movie……  Don’t be confused by the graphic showing Deadpool with his hands in the shape of a heart. This is a hard ‘R’ movie. A very hard ‘R’ movie. I don’t want anyone coming back leaving comments that they thought this was a Rom-Com.

It’s not……

It is filled with unrelenting sophomoric humor that only seems to further endear the character to the audience. Honestly, sometimes don’t we just need a kick-ass anti-hero?  Apparently the ass-hats in Hollywood didn’t think so. In fact, Deadpool is the box off smash that almost never was.

The fight to get Deadpool on the big screen has been going on for years.  It seemed as if this film had to get pushed all the way up the hill. Back in 2010 an early version of the script had been leaked on-line. For a typical movie that would have been a disaster, but the exact opposite happened. Fans got behind it and added their voice, calling for the film to be made. A couple of years later some test footage of the freeway fight scene was also leaked and fans went nuts. This proved to be the push needed and the project was finally green-lighted.

Now I am sitting, impatiently waiting, and wondering when the sequel will come out…….. Note to movie execs, mention J.J. Abrams name and you’ll end up a character in my books. Trust me when I say that it will not end well for you!

Moving forward the real issue will be how to add Deadpool into the X-Men world. Marvel’s cinematic universe has become a huge juggernaut and one that doesn’t seem quite sure just how to open up for the real Deadpool. To be fair, their universe seems much darker and serious, whereas Deadpool would make a joke out of a massive heart attack.   The movie does take a swipe at the conundrum when Deadpool says to Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead: “Wow, this is such a big house [referring to Xavier’s school], but I only ever see the two of you here. It's like the studio didn't have enough money for any more X-Men....”

20th Century Fox
This is how you do Bad-Ass
The cast is superb. Reynolds was born to play Deadpool and, fortunately for him, he stole the Deadpool suit after production ended so they have to bring him back. Morena Baccarin was incredible as Vanessa. Okay, she is really hot and appears naked and spoke some words. Actually I’m really hoping that the sequel expands her role to include Copy Cat, but time will tell. Ed Skrein as Ajax was intense and Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead was perfect. At least we didn’t have to contend with some pretentious, emo, teenage pain-in-the-ass, ala Kylo Ren. The movie also stars MMA fighter, Gina Carano, as Angel Dust. She’ll kick your ass, but what a way to go.


If you’re looking for an action packed movie that will also make you laugh your ass off, then you need to check out Deadpool. You’ll probably end up going back to see it a 2nd time, I know I am, so that you can see and hear all the things you missed the first time, while you were wiping tears from your eyes. For hardcore movie geeks there are a ton of Easter Eggs in this movie. 

Well, I’d like to say more, but you really need to go see it for yourself. So, in the immortal words of Deadpool: It’s time to make the chimi-fucking-changas

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