Deadpool is an unfunny drudgery that brings nothing new to the table

Rating: 6/10 (27 February 2016)

I've heard it again and again over the last few weeks, people keep saying that Deadpool brings something new to the superhero genre. The problem with this claim is that no one seems to be able to tell me what it is that is so revolutionary about this flick. Is it the dick jokes? The fisting jokes? The prom sex jokes? The face sitting jokes? So revolutionary. I suppose it's necessary to say that I am no prude, and that I take no issue with those types of jokes, other than the fact that they just didn't make me laugh. The humor in this movie just reeked of desperate immaturity. The jokes seemed aimed at the middle-school-boy-who-lurks-on-Reddit-crowd, which is, thankfully, a frame of mind that I have long since moved past. The "humor" often felt like it was trying too hard, as if it was screaming at the top of its lungs, "LAUGH AT ME! I'M SO HILARIOUS!" And if the humor doesn't work for you, which it did with many people at my screening for some reason, then there is really very little for you there. The beginning credits of the film call the writers the "real heroes" of the film, an assertion that I must wholeheartedly disagree with. The movie is remarkably light on plot and what is there has been painfully rehashed from every superhero origin story ever. The non-Deadpool characters are all paper thin, none of them are given sufficient arcs to make them interesting. Even Deadpool himself is not entirely interesting. He begins the movie the same way he ends, smarmy as ever, violent as ever, wanting the same things he did 1 hr and 48 mins ago. The saddest part of all of this is that because this movie made so much money, there will be a sequel, as well as many worse rip-offs of it that are even more cringeworthy and forced.