Deadpool

Spend a little time on the web and it’s clear everyone agrees the 1990s were a pretty bad time for comic books. But if that uber-macho, uber-gritty, uber-‘roid-y artwork-filled era was good for anything, it was that it gave the world Deadpool. Marvel’s cocky, fourth wall-breaking mutated mercenary came around at the right time, humorously tearing down the decade’s aesthetic that had become fodder for mocking, while also getting to participate in it. Likewise, this moment, with the market for comic book movies saturated to near-critical mass, is absolutely perfect for the character to give the genre onscreen the same drubbing. And he certainly does, in a film as endlessly fun as it is filthy.

One might recall Ryan Reynolds played the character before in that much-hated Wolverine prequel everyone has apparently agreed to forget. Having learned from their mistakes in that film (sewing his mouth shut is like taking Wolverine’s claws away), the studio lets him be to play the character to the fullest this time. It’s a case of note-perfect casting if there ever was one; Reynolds’ charming smart mouthy act has been perfected by this point and fits Deadpool like his costume, the particulars of which he oh-so-vulgarly describes early in the flick (which is to say, quite well). This time, though, they bothered to make the right movie around him. His persona doesn’t clash with everything else like in Blade: Trinity, or get anchored down by an unsure half-seriousness like Green Lantern (the butt of more than one joke here). Everything in Deadpool is built around him, and just as committed to getting laughs above all else.

And it succeeds splendidly, most often. The jokes are great, and the verbal rapport swift and sharp. The action scenes are frantic and goofy takedowns of industry standard CGI (but no less thrilling, and honestly maybe a little better and more coherent than the real thing). T.J. Miller is really funny as Pool’s deadpanning pal Weasel, as are the liaisons from the X-Men: a hilariously do-gooder Colossus (Stefan Kapičić) and sullen, unimpressed Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand). Even some of the most basic movie elements are presented in funny ways. And the complete lack of a fourth wall is a huge plus, not only presenting some good gags and self-aware pop culture digs, but making the title figure seem sort of like a pleasant buddy watching the film alongside the viewer and wisecracking the whole time, while simultaneously acting in it.

But, as much as it plays like a parody of comic adaptations, a few scenes pull it off for real. The one-on-one fights between Deadpool and his nemesis Ajax (Ed Skrein) are bloody and intense, and more effective for that. And when comedic touches seep into these sequences, it all fits together seamlessly. That, as well as Reynolds selling it well in both physique and attitude, suggests that the character might work just as well if he he managed to sneak into a property playing it straight. More surprisingly, the highly raunchy scenes between Reynolds and love interest Morena Baccarin, played more for humor, are nevertheless sweet and sexy in a way that’ll appeal to the dirty-minded horny teen in everyone.

This one’s kind of a narrative featherweight (in a nutshell: mercenary gets cancer, gains superhuman healing in an experiment but also gets disfigured, seeks revenge on man responsible), but it’s many times more fun than comic book films with greater ambitions. In fact, that leads me to the only complaint I have: the fact that character ownership rights will likely limit Deadpool to his own movies (and maybe further X-Men pictures if we’re lucky). That’s a damn shame. I love Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool. I want to see him do to every self-serious comic movie out there what he did to the genre’s broad strokes here.