There's no denying Deadpool is hilarious, but...

Rating: 7/10 (15 February 2016)

Deadpool has outperformed all R-rated movies at the box office this weekend, and audiences couldn't be happier. After all, it is a gamechanger for the types of movies studios might take risks on. Additionally, everyone seems to love it. But is it actually any good?
Even before the first line of dialogue, Deadpool kicks off with a bang, with a hilarious and appropriate opening credits sequence. The action that follows is equal parts brutal and comedic, and soon, Deadpool takes us back to the beginning of his story. As a matter of fact, he tells us he's going to do that.
From the opening scene, Deadpool would appear to break all the rules- breaking the fourth wall, spewing countless profanities in a superhero movie, and having that superhero actually be a murderous psychopath- but in fact, Deadpool is structured like many superhero movies from before Marvel Phase II. It's an origin story, and despite its constant barrage of jokes that poke fun at many of the tropes of superhero movies, Deadpool is actually pretty conventional. This aspect I found to be rather disappointing, because in any meta-film, all the rules can be broken because they exist in our world too. Yet, Deadpool remains confined to the world of the screen, despite acknowledging a world outside of it.
Still, that doesn't mean Deadpool isn't a fun film. Outside of a brief respite in the second act, nearly every line of dialogue has a punchline, and there's no joke too low-brow for Deadpool to touch on. This movie is as crass as they come, like many R-rated comedies of recent years. What sets it apart is that the script is so air-tight and fast-paced, it never feels like it's reaching for jokes. Rather, it feels as though the writer tapped into the devil on everyone's shoulder and channeled it every nook and cranny of the script. Anyone who has sat through any superhero film, even if they loved it, has at some point felt indifferent about the genre and its tropes as a whole, and Deadpool mocks every single of those tropes, despite also using them as the vehicle for its plot.
The movie is funny enough that even conservative types who don't enjoy low-brow humor will burst out laughing at least once in the film. There's no denying the movie is hilarious. However, I feel the movie really shines in its second act, when things start to get real. The characters, who were previously one-dimensional are actually given some depth. It's a sobering few scenes in a movie drunk with comedy. It proves that the writers are even smarter than the humor of the film, and honestly, could have made a better film. Instead of delicately balancing the hilariousness of the first act, and the darker humor and drama of the second act, it returns to pure comedy for its third act, and it starts to feel a little past its welcome. There's a lot of potential shown in glimpses, or entire scenes of Deadpool, that go largely untapped in the final act when it retreats into familiar territory.
Perhaps, in a movie so blunt, the writers felt it best to play it safe in the narrative structure of the film. After all, the studios took a big risk and were often worried about the film. They wanted to make it PG-13. They cut $7 million from the budget shortly before production. They were worried it would fail. Its enormous success has proved them horribly, horribly wrong. Perhaps the writers will up the ante for the second film. I hope they do, because for all the enjoyment I felt watching Deadpool, I also felt letdown. Whether you feel as I do, or hate the film, or love it, Deadpool's success is extremely important to the movie industry as a whole, which has been dominated by the monotonous churning-out of safe, formulaic superhero films, and hopefully that will give the writers more room to take even bigger risks in the inevitable sequels.