The Redemption of Ryan Reynolds

Rating: 8/10 (18 February 2016)

The roots of this film were very convoluted, weren't they? 20th Century Fox had overseen a literally butchered version of Deadpool back in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (sew shut the wisecracking merc with a mouth's sasshole, really?) and Reynolds himself didn't do so well with Green Lantern either. From what I've read it seems like Fox themselves didn't have much faith in the idea of a proper Deadpool outing so Reynolds and co had to lobby like crazy for years to get this thing made, only to have several million slashed from the budget late into project. Fox have a history of derailing projects so it's to be expected (Baccarin was previously involved in cult favourite Firefly which had similar things happen so she'd know better than anyone) and it does lead to a wonderful biting-the-hand joke where they ask why Xavier's mansion is so huge when there's only two X-Men in the story, but I digress...
Despite these many speed bumps, delays and other issues, the movie succeeds on a number of levels - story, acting, directing, humour - all present and correct, and it hits the target so consistently you can't help but wonder what all the fuss was about.
My favourite Ryan Reynolds character before this was the overgrown college boy Van Wilder, and here he channels that sense of manic energy and fast-talking perfectly into Wade Wilson, amping it up further when the famous red and black suit goes on. The guy can't help but crack wise at every opportunity, even when he's putting his last 12 bullets into the perps he's still mocking them to amuse himself. Me personally, I found this hilarious throughout the whole film. Almost all the jokes work, there's maybe three or four amongst the hundreds of puns, putdowns and pop culture references that miss so I'm clocking that as maybe 3% that didn't make me smile, laugh or groan at the right times - that for me is a high hit rate and a sign of great writing.
More than just being a comedy, though, I was surprised to find that the love story between Reynolds and Baccarin is actually pretty compelling. I figured maybe it'd be thrown in to link with the Valentine's Day release but no, this has proper roots in the story. The chemistry between the two leads is clear to see - they obviously enjoyed working together on this.
I suppose what's also quite exciting is that isn't yet another bloodless, cuss free "fun for all the family" superhero flick either. There's actually a reasonable amount of gore where appropriate, which is something the others just don't have, and bad language/vulgar jokes at every turn. This makes it a little shocking in a good way because a) that's what the character needs and b) when you're used to every super flick being cleaned up to earn a UK PG rating, the one that doesn't has more drama/humour as a result, a sign that it was clearly targeted at an adult audience. People have voted with their wallets so the sequel (and potentially other superhero franchises too, we'd hope) should continue this trend. Deadpool himself is an interesting, complex character who is more of an anti-hero but not in the same broody way Batman is (he's too fun and silly for that) so there's definitely a place for this style of film.
The origin story is told very skillfully, I wouldn't have guessed that it was Tim Miller's first effort as a film director due to the careful use of camera tricks and attention paid to the editing to show us how Deadpool came to be through flashbacks that are never short and vague or long and boring. The pacing keeps the energy up to the point where there's never a dull moment and the action scenes never overshadow the drama of the others, it's quite impressive. As another reviewer noted, at points it feels like a comic book has flown off the page and come to life, and I can't say that about any other superhero movie I've seen so far, even the top quality Joss Whedon Avengers monoliths.
I would say I went into this movie with reasonable expectations and found them exceeded at every turn. Deadpool is a hugely entertaining character, the other leads are well chosen (I love Negasonic Teenage Warhead as the careful jab at teenage cynicism), the main villain is a little underdeveloped perhaps but that's a minor criticism when the movie overall has such great enthusiasm and is just hugely entertaining from the first frame to the last. Even the credits animations and closing stinger (another quality pop culture pull; spot the John Hughes film reference) reflect the tone perfectly.
This movie truly is the redemption of Ryan Reynolds. It's the movie he worked hard for and he has not wasted the opportunity - a strong introduction to what we hope will become one of Marvel's best and most popular superhero movie franchises.
Would I see this again? Absolutely. I want to try and work out exactly what Wade was doing with that stuffed unicorn, for one thing...