Deadpool (2016)

Yet another superhero origins story. It is a different take. It is laugh out loud funny in places but is this enough? Can it charm its way into our hearts and launch a whole new franchise? Well perhaps…..
Director: Tim Miller
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, T.J. Miller

I love Marvel and DC. They were my earliest childhood reading. As a small boy in the 60s I have to admit they were pretty much all that I read. In recent times the first Spiderman with Toby McGuire blew me away and the Dark Knight Trilogy took things to a new level. Even the X-men in all their forms were pretty good. By the time we got to the Avengers I was getting flagging. I was surprised by Guardians of the Galaxy which had cool music, class, and charm in abundance, but now we finally get Deadpool and I am very tired.

First of all it is a good movie and if you are able to leave your disbelief at the door (like every movie) and if you further are able to leave all sense of grey behind, and accept a world where everything is black and white, then maybe Deadpool works. Deadpool is very well made, it is brimming with ironic jokes, sexy jokes, and super-hero slapstick. It is so confident of its own identity that it constantly takes the proverbial out of itself. Perhaps that is the real problem. If a film of this genre, which is never very serious, starts to layer sarcasm upon irony upon self-deprecation, does it start to become contrived?

Actually, this movie insults our intelligence in a never ending double bluff, or triple bluff or something. Yes I laughed a lot, but somehow I felt as if the laughs had been ‘rung out’ of me like the water from a damp wash cloth. I felt almost manipulated into liking it. Of course, this type of manipulation is well tried and tested, and trying to get you to like ‘it’ is the objective of almost of every film, but here, perhaps, they just tried a bit too hard.

Perhaps I’m just a bit fed up with comic book movies so don’t let me put you off, if want a laugh and some more high-octane super violence with all the usual clichés then this is the movie for you. The post credits ‘Easter egg’ is also sort of amusing.