God's Perfect Idiot

The long-awaited review of the even longer-awaited Deadpool.

Minor Spoilers Ahead.





I have been waiting for a Ryan Reynolds Deadpool film since his glorious turn in X-Men Origins, and I was worried for so long that it wouldn't happen because of Mainstream Geekdom's major temper tantrum overreaction to what was obviously an origin story of its own (though in fairness, the studio didn't do itself any favors by only shipping the "Deadpool grabs his severed head and shushes the audience" stinger with half the reels).

And I will admit that I was initially sad that this film disavowed what happened in the previous films and even mocked it, but the mocking wasn't as bad as I feared and having only just seen Days of Future Past I understand the in-universe justification of the soft reboot. I actually kind of like parallel timelines that allow a team to go in their own direction without sweeping previous continuity completely under the rug.

With that out of the way, what did I think of the movie as a whole? I quite enjoyed it. Ryan Reynolds was perfect casting years ago and is perfect casting now - and he nails the character's sarcasm, irreverence, and insanity perfectly. It was also an interesting subtle affectionate satire of superhero films in general.

There's only one thing that bothered me - not even "bothered" as much as took me completely by surprise and required me to get into the headspace.

Now, I'm no prude, and I knew doing Deadpool justice would require an R rating. But MAN, did they ever MILK that rating for everything it was worth. The comics were raunchy and violent, but never THIS much. And it is very clear that a lot of the relevant content was to see just how hard an R they could get away with, and thus doesn't serve the story making it unnecessarily uncomfortable.

Oh, and I felt the villain was kind of forgettable.

However, for viewers with a strong constitution and any reasonable sense of humor, I recommend Deadpool wholeheartedly.

You might want to look away for this part.