Deadpool is an excellent mash-up of action, romance, and comedy

Rating: 9/10 (18 February 2016)

Deadpool is a very, very funny movie. It takes the overexposed superhero genre, mixes it with comedy and romance to create an entertaining and very funny film for adults. It's hilarious from the start with the tongue-and-cheek introductory montage scene. You get "a British villain", "a CGI character", produced by some "asshat production." Talk about being self-aware! I mean this movie knows exactly what it is, and it delivers on that! While the first 20- 30 minutes is very action heavy and has some awesome action pieces, it's ultimately a love story between Wade Wilson aka Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and his girl. Before this movie came out, I was very confused as to why a superhero movie was coming out so early in the year given that usually not so good movies come out during this period? In seeing Deadpool, it makes perfect sense! Because ultimately the movie's plot revolves around: boy meets girl, boy falls in love, loses girl, and then tries to win back the girl. Oh did I mention evil research scientist, mutants, and X-Men characters including Colossal, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and mention of Wolverine? (There are so many throughout the movie that you begin to wonder if there is something going on between Deadpool and Wolverine besides plain rivalry).
Things I didn't particularly like:
1. My biggest gripe with the movie is with the girlfriend's character. Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). Initially when Wilson meets her, she is portrayed as a strong female character, but are we really supposed to believe that she just accepts her boyfriend back after he leaves are suddenly without saying anything, and disappears for 2 years (?) during which time she assumes him to be dead?!! Really??? I just can't help but feel her character was objectified in the movie. Apart from being the perfect girlfriend material, and being "the thing" that drives Deadpool's motivations and actions, she doesn't have much else to do here. Her character was disappointingly one-dimensional. It's a shame because Morena Baccarin is so good here. But apart from having a lot of skin show, we don't get to see other sides to her character.
2. I didn't really care for the blind landlord lady. I don't think their scenes were particularly funny given the level of comedy in the rest of the film. I found their relationship just way to awkward for my taste.
3. I didn't like the way the only Indian character in this movie was portrayed. Why must an Indian be portrayed as either a science/tech person or a taxicab driver? Why? Yes, Dopinder (Karan Soni) and Deadpool's scenes in the taxicab were all very funny, but can't we move away from over generalization and perpetuating the same stereotypes of ethnicity? Couldn't the writers come up with something a little more inventive?
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