Deadpool is a violent comic-book flick with bad language, nudity and plenty of gore to boot.

Rating: 9/10 (17 October 2016)

Comic-book/Superhero movies are not my ideal genre, I rarely watch them and baring the odd exception I find them relatively uninteresting. I had heard positive things about Deadpool, I was told it wasn't your average superhero movie and despite my reservations I decided to give it a go. Starting with a beautifully constructed intro scene, it was clear from the get-go that this wasn't what I have come to expect from previous superhero movies. It was violent with graphic gore, had bad language and had a unique spoof comic-book style; from the first few minutes I was laughing at the one-liners and enjoying the violence, I was hooked.
I was expecting the humour to be forced and awkward, the trailers made it look this way and I honestly didn't expect to find it all that funny. At the start it did feel slightly off to me but once I adjusted to the style everything clicked and it worked, completely. From the timing of the one-liners to the witty narrative, it's simply a well humoured movie which had me laughing to myself on many occasions. Some jokes did miss the target with me but this is to be expected and isn't something which I can put the movie down for. The choreography in the action scenes along with the graphic violence was very refreshing and when it was mixed with a little dry humour it made for some impressive sequences. There's some slapstick in the action scenes with immature humour which isn't really to my taste. Thankfully this was relatively minimal and was balanced out enough to not bog the movie down. Whilst the movie is violent and graphic, it's not quite at Game of Thrones levels of gore so don't let this put you off too much if you're one of the squeamish types.
The run-time is perfect, at 105 minutes the movie doesn't drag for a single second, and other directors should take note that not all anticipated, big screen movies need to be 2+ hours just for the sake of it. We are thrown into the action straight away before being shown detailed backstory through the use of flashbacks. This happens throughout the movie as the story unravels revealing how Deadpool was created. It's very well done and although a little predictable it doesn't give everything away too early and I was kept intrigued, wanting to know what was going to happen next.
Despite being completely ridiculous and not taking itself seriously, Deadpool manages to achieve a sense of emotion; the love relationship is kept sharp and works with the plot. Love stories are a given in practically every single genre of movie nowadays, even more so in superhero flicks and Deadpool does a good enough job of not making it too overpowering or distracting. Paying homage to other comic books and other movies is a nice touch and although some I could appreciate I feel that many went over my head due to my lack of superhero/comic book knowledge or interest. The score was fantastic with a fantastic soundtrack, this is another thing which worked perfectly with the movie and was one of the things I really appreciated. Getting the music right is a tough ask for movies and an even tougher one for a movie like this. It has a great mix of music which all compliments the movie well.
Overall my expectations for Deadpool were very low due to my own personal movie taste and also the trailers which didn't look overly appealing. As the credits rolled to yet another strangely perfect song from the fantastic soundtrack, I was filled with a huge sense of enjoyment. I had just watched a movie which I thoroughly enjoyed even though all the signs were pointing towards it being a film I was going to dislike. Its witty, violent, cool, excellently choreographed and downright adrenaline pumped. Go see it as soon as you can and don't forget the popcorn.
8/10