Okay Okay Deadpool is Okay

Rating: 6/10 (24 March 2016)

I am happy to say that DEADPOOL is an okay movie. It ranks alongside an adequate school play ... or a good musician in the park ... or a McDonald's cheeseburger. It satisfies your hunger for 90 minutes and is almost instantly forgotten. A lot has been said about DEADPOOL's sex, violence and profanity giving it an R-rating and making it unsuitable for kids. I agree that kids shouldn't see the movie, but not because it will haunt their dreams or corrupt their morality. The action is so cartoonish (in one sequence, in fact, cartoons actually appear on screen) that it can only be taken with a grain of salt. Ryan Reynolds' performance reminds one of Jim Carrey circa LIAR LIAR; hyper, snarky, sarcastic and overplayed to the hilt. Reynolds breaks the fourth wall early and often - at one point, when told that "looks aren't everything" he replies, "Yes they are. Do you think Ryan Reynolds has had a career based on his acting ability?" In another fourth wall-breaker, he notices that there are only two X-Men characters at the huge X-Men Mansion, leading him to say, "You'd think the studio could spring for a few more X-Men ..." Reynolds has fun with the character and does make it his own. Morena Baccarin is very appealing love interest, and the two X-Men counterparts are adequate. Of course this is a Marvel (albeit Fox) film so there is the wiseass sidekick named Weasel, here played by T.J. Miller and in other recent Marvel projects played by Elden Henson (Netflix's Daredevil), Michael Pena (Ant-Man), Ty Simpkins (Iron Man 3), Kat Dennings (Thor & Thor 2). Marvel's writers have obviously locked the stock wiseass sidekick into their word processors and won't let go of them. At least Miller's variation isn't quite as annoying as Henson's, which caused me to scuttle Daredevil after less than a half-hour. The villains are pretty standard-issue. Ed Skrein appears with no backstory, no motivation and lacking only a pitchfork and pointy tail to tell us that he's the super-evil bad guy. His character, like Deadpool, cannot be harmed in any permanent way, making them a pair of Terminators duking it out until one can figure out the secret formula. I figured that Deadpool had to go Highlander-style and cut off his head (hence the swords) to kill him, but apparently not. Deadpool is an amusing exercise but lacks the memorability of the best comic book films. After seeing The Dark Knight Rises, I literally hummed the "Bane theme" (Deshi Basara) for two weeks. I remembered the epic hand-to-hand battle in Gotham with everything at stake. The army of cops vs the army of villains. After Batman Begins, I couldn't wait to tell friends about the amazing cast, the new Batmobile/Tumbler and pictured the great scenes over and over. Avengers had moments that brought down the house, when Hulk smashed Loki and uttered "puny god" or when he punched Thor right out of the frame. Great comic book movies leave a taste in your mouth for weeks to come. You go back and revisit them over and over. Deadpool doesn't offer these things. There's no score of note (pardon the pun) or songs to remember, no set pieces to memorize, no toys to run out and buy. It's simply 90 minutes of motion with an occasional chuckle. It was like watching my kids play soccer - it was fun and made me grin, but now that it's over ... what's for dinner? Deadpool doesn't aspire to greatness but satisfies just enough to make it a mild diversion.