‘Deadpool’ Is a Perfect Embodiment of the Character’s Quintessence

In a way, it’s somewhat of a miracle that this movie got made.  Ryan Reynolds is a perfect fit to play Marvel’s fan-favorite anti-hero Wade Wilson a.k.a. Deadpool a.k.a. the Merc with a Mouth.  Unfortunately, this spot-on casting was wasted when the first attempt to depict the character on screen was done in the godawful X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie in which it was a horrendous failure.  It’s somewhat rare for a studio to make up for its failures, but thankfully Fox decided to do so, listened to fans, and took another shot in bringing a live-action Deadpool to the big screen – and they nailed it this time!  By boldly opting with an R-rating, a movie that brings justice to the character was made possible.

Deadpool is the unique superhero movie that is to be expected from a feature length film headlining a character such as Deadpool.  It’s packed with badass action scenes.  It has fourth wall breaks.  And – most importantly – it has the Deadpool-brand of humor that consists of meta-jokes, violent slapstick, and unrelenting smart-assery.  I was laughing or chuckling a lot.

I acknowledge that as far as what kind of movie that it needs to be in order to embody the quintessence of the character, then it’s “perfect.”  However, there’s a particular detail about the character that I felt the movie didn’t quite address.  And that is, Deadpool is insane and it’s due to his accelerated regeneration affecting his neurons.  Though this characteristic isn’t something imperative to establish, I feel that this is a considerably useful detail to know for it somewhat makes Deadpool’s penchant for breaking the fourth wall “logical” in the comic book universe’s perspective.  Sure, he did a lot of insane things in the movie, but Wade Wilson was already established having an eccentric personality even before he got his powers; a correlation between his episodes of mental instability and his healing factor weren’t established at all.  Also, I was half-hoping that he was being an “unreliable narrator” when he was telling his origin story, as another facet of Deadpool’s character is having defective memories due to his mental condition.

But as far as being a movie is concerned, Deadpool is tremendously fun and volatile.  It lacks dull or predictable moments.  It has this clever and funny opening credits sequence that perfectly sets the tone of the movie and immediately puts a grin on the face, a grin which the movie does a fantastic job of keeping for most of the movie.

Lastly, I also need to mention something about the “love story” aspect.  During the movie’s promotion, one of the gimmicks was packaging the movie as a romantic movie for Valentine’s Day.  This, of course, was mostly done as a joke, and it was pretty funny.  However, it turns out that the “love story” aspect actually has an important presence in the movie.  This came as a surprise to me.

All in all, if it’s still not clear, as a fan of comics and movies, I enjoyed Deadpool a lot.  And I’m happy that Fox (SPOILER of the post-credits scene) is already committed to making a sequel that would have Cable in it.  Now if only that X-Force movie will get made, too.