Deadpool (0/10)

by Tony Medley

Runtime 108 minutes.

Not for children.

The song “Angel of the Morning” opens this movie accompanying the credits. That was the last thing I liked.

It is an apparently tongue-in-cheek look at superhero movies, starting out with credits describing the filmmakers with names like “The Other Funny Guy“(or something like that; I didn’t write them down). Then it’s narrated in the first person by Wade Wilson who becomes Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds). What follows is an extremely violent story, filled with the vulgar language and references that have become monotonously the same in superhero picture after superhero picture; gory, violent fights between characters who are invulnerable and can only be killed when the script calls for them to die. Otherwise, bullets go through them, knives pass completely through their chests to come out the other side, but they just pull them out. Someday it will have to be explained how it is possible for such creatures to die, but die they do, however only on cue.

Whether creator Stan Lee knows it or not, this is strikingly reminiscent of Stephen J. Cannell’s anti-hero private eye, James Rockford, as played by James Garner. Deadpool has the same devil-may-care attitude as Rockford and defies every superhero rule, except the one that says he can’t be killed. If you like superhero movies like I like private eye movies, you will probably be entertained and get all the in-jokes.

The film is egregiously violent and has some torture scenes that are gratuitously offensive and bothersome.

I sat next to a 20-something critic for an online publication. She loved it. She laughed at the credits and throughout the film (because the narration is meant to be funny). She had warned me before the film started that if I didn’t like Marvel Superhero movies I was in for a long night. When it was over I told her that she was right, this is definitely a generational film and I’m not in that generation. As far as I’m concerned all these Marvel X-Man superhero type films are intellectual diarrhea, filled with boring sameness. How many times can one sit through the same thing?