BRACE YOURSELF:
WATCHING DEADPOOL IS LIKE DOWNING A SHOT.
You can’ t keep a good s uperhero d o wn. Nor, as Deadpool proves, a morally conflicted one. Ryan Reynolds appeared briefly as Deadpool in 2009’s X- Men: Origins, playing third fiddle to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Next up for Reynolds, in 2011, came a star turn in Green Lantern, which took such a critical beatdown that most actors wouldn’t have gone anywhere near Spandex again.
And yet here he is, a mere five years later, reprising the role that didn’t make him infamous.
Watching Deadpool feels a bit like downing a shot of something stiff, while simultaneously having the same again thrown in your face. It’s bracing, and if you’re not ready for it, it can rock you back on your heels.
The opening minutes dispense with anything resembling a backstory or even proper credits, instead throwing Deadpool (and the audience) into a remarkably violent criminal takedown, peppered with R- rated witticisms from the superhero. It’s as if Spider- Man and Lenny Bruce had a baby, and the Joker raised him.
The battle also introduces two of the X- Men, sent to recruit Deadpool to their cause: Colossus (voiced by Stefan Kapicic), who looks like a tungsten- carbide statue of a Russian wrestler; and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), which is what happens when you let young mutants pick their own names.
Deadpool, who also goes by the name Wade Wilson, doesn’t have time for X-Men antics; he’s on the trail of Ajax ( Ed Skrein), a mutant mad scientist who gave him incredible regenerative powers but also stole his good looks. Honestly, you couldn’t create a more pissed- off nemesis if you tried.
He’s a remarkably chatty guy, which is no surprise when you consider that his comic- book predecessor, created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, was a mercenary soldier known as “the merc with a mouth.” Or as he refers to his non-vengean-cerelated activities: “I’m just a bad guy who gets paid to f-- k up worse guys.” This ac- companied by soundtrack selections that range from Chicago’s You’re the Inspiration to one that makes the theme from Shaft sound like a Christmas carol.
It’s all very self-aware, with Reynolds cracking wise about other superhero movies and the actors who star in them. And he’s constantly talking to the audience — in fact, I think the only reason Deadpool wasn’t released in 3-D was to save us from the fourth-wall-breaking shrapnel.
It’s also trying hard to amuse, with intermittent success on this watcher. If I regularly attended press screenings fortified with mood enhancers — instead of doing so merely on rare and special occasions — I might have been more tickled by Deadpool’s deadpan delivery of Canadiana jokes and references to self-pleasure. As it was, it took me perhaps half the movie’s 108 minutes to warm to its crackpot sensibilities.
It helps that Reynolds’ delivery is so spot on. And the scattershot approach to humour from screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick ( Zombieland) has it pluses — if you flail about enough, some of your punches are going to land. That goes for punchlines too.
There isn’t much room for a strong female presence amid all the joking, unless you mean a literally strong female presence. In addition to Negasonic, there’s mixedmartial- artist- turned- actor Gina Carano as Angel Dust, who suffers a wardrobe malfunction during a fight with Colossus; but he’s too much of a gentleman to allow the film to become even more Rrated, if that’s even possible.
Deadpool does have a girlfriend, played by Morena Baccarin, but she spends much of the movie thinking he’s dead, and then becomes a hostage. Also in the minor- character realm: comedian T. J. Miller as Weasel, a barkeep who inadvertently gives Deadpool his nom de trop fort.
If you go, be sure and stay for the end credits, which are as infuriating and funny as the rest of the film. Though if you’re under 40 — clearly the demographic Deadpool is reaching out for — you may need to ask your elders to explain that strange reference from the ’80s. ΩΩΩ