Potty mouth archangel out for justice

Rating: 7/10 (4 March 2017)

Highly invented parody of the super hero genre, with Ryan Reynalds at his cocksure best. It seems the super hero movie has been in vogue for the past few years now, with studios clambering to release any kind of movie, TV show or animation attached to a super hero premise. There was a time when studios waited to unleash their tent pole super hero movies onto the world. This usually followed a long laborious period of rumours of actors playing the part, directors walking in and out of production, script writers and script doctors being hired and fired. Now it seems that every six months a new super hero movie or new look super hero is being reborn, rebuilt, re-configured, renewed, re-hashed, re-imagined or just plain revealed. Add to this the fact that within these movies are a scatter gun of loosely attached characters who will go on to have their own movie releases. This really does say all you need to know about the state of the Hollywood movie making process at this moment in time, and perhaps says more about international audiences appetite for spandex clad crapola.
Now add to this the new Deadpool movie. A movie which is so self aware of its roots as a super hero movie it borders on the pastiche. The joke in Deadpool is that the character is aware he is in a movie, that alone is enough to separate it from the usual slam bang visuals of the ordinary super hero movie. Now factor in that he is a foul mouthed, sex-obsessed, drug abusing, wise-cracking, mutant hero, and you begin to start wondering how this movie ever made it to the cinemas. In this age of polished, stars and stripes, hero obsessed genre of movie making, it is refreshing that Hollywood deemed it worthy to add to the cannon the antithesis of the super hero, and that antithesis is Deadpool.
Whilst not totally re-inventing the wheel, Deadpool succeeds through it's sheer disregard for the genre. Deadpool wears it's 'R' rated badge proudly, neither trying to kowtow to the box office 'PG' crowd nor go full blood and guts towards insatiable violence. It straddles a fine line between the two, providing some clever 'meta' references to it's modern audience, whilst at the same time being visually eye popping with some deft cartoon style OTT violence. Even though at heart this is a super hero movie, with a character that has been present in comic book form for decades, and is straddled with a plot reminiscent of any Marvel/DC movie/origin tale that you care to mention. Deadpool comes across as fresh and a nice tonic to what we have seen of the tired comic book genre so far.
When you start to analyse why it works you begin to realise that it falls nicely onto the feet of one Ryan Reynalds. Ever since Ryan limped onto our screens as Van Wilder in the early noughties, he has been an actor who has been left in a state of limbo artistically. Whilst good looking and toned and more than capable of holding a romantic lead, he could never quite shake his obvious comedic chops, always delivering a line as if he was laughing to himself on the inside. Thus we saw his peers such as Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio even Ben Affleck (all in the same age bracket) go on to make more serious movies with great success, all successfully transitionally from drama to action with little fuss. Whereas Reynalds appeared to be left behind still trying to define his acting, unsure if he was a romantic lead, action hero or a comedian.
In Deadpool I feel Ryan has rediscovered his range. In essence he is not an actor to be taken seriously, nor a superhero who we can convincingly believe is capable of saving the world. For me he is a modern day Chevy Chase, all knowing smiles and smarmy charm. He is a throwback to the 80's comedic sensibility where it was OK to laugh at people who were different or less good looking than you. He is the actor we all love to hate, overly confident, limited in range, lacking in subtleties, and way too quick with a one liner. But when he is good, he is great, and when he is bad, he is just damn unwatchable. In Deadpool he is note perfect.
That isn't to say that Deadpool is a perfect movie. As part of the X-Men entourage it does spread it's bets by including links to the X-Men saga, clearly with a view to cashing in on a Deadpool/X- Men collaboration at some time in the future. However, this link seems somehow fitting. Deadpool as a comic book character exists alongside the X-Men, furthermore the inclusion of Colossus is in itself a joke, and one that is cleverly interspersed into the script, rather than ham fistedly wedged in to tie the two entities together.
A fun, inventive spin on the super hero genre, and a much welcomed breath of fresh air to the current status quo of Hollywood blockbusters. It will be interesting to see how Deadpool develops in his inevitable sequel and if the powers that be have the balls to put their money where their mouth is and give him free reign in an X-Men spin off. Judging by how well this movie came together, all signs look good.