Movie Review: Deadpool

OK, let's just get this out of the way first, since the blog title tends to get hits for people asking this question - is there "cursing" in Deadpool? A f*ck-load of it. Like, we're talking The Big Lebowski levels of f-bombs going off all over the place. Not to mention some graphic violence and sex scenes. Parents, DO NOT TAKE YOUR LITTLE KIDS TO SEE THIS!!! I left my 7yo at home and saw it by myself. It's Rated R for a reason.

Now that that's out of the way, did I like it? Quite a bit. Ryan Reynolds perfectly captured the quirky charm of Deadpool, his annoying wit, and his penchant for graphic violence very well. It's not a perfect movie, it's not high art, but then it never pretends to be that. And it is funny, and full of enough 4th wall breaks, silly fan service, and Easter eggs to keep Marvel geeks excited and talking about it for quite a while.

Now, there isn't a whole lot of plot (and there were one or two holes in it). We get a LOT of flashbacks to explain Deadpool's origin, but the actual "present" storyline only covers about two days' worth of action, and only for the most part the "action" parts of those two days. The flashbacks cover a lot of ground, and seemed to me to take up the lion's share of the run time.

As for the characters, as I mentioned Reynolds knocked this one out of the ballpark. He's forgiven for his part in that crap Wolverine movie (and Green Lantern). Of course, this film mocks both of those performances, and mocks them well! Colossus was a bit of a school-marm, which was a bit different from how I remember him from the comics (although it's been a while), he's a bit more naive like Colossus in the old FOX X-Men cartoon, but more annoying. Negasonic Teenage Warehead was the perfect moody teen foil to Deadpool's shenanigans. Francis could have been a bit better developed as a bad guy, though. He was pretty one-dimensional.

Overall, it was a fun, raunchy popcorn movie. One I'll be sure to rewatch in the future (and to not let my boys see it until they're much older!).

Oh, and like most Marvel movies these days, stay through the credits for a helping of shawarma.

[I'm pretty behind on movie reviews, but it may be too late to post about The Martian or The Force Awakens. Well, we'll see. I may do it anyway.]