Every so often, a TV show's minor character will get so popular that they graduate from a small supporting role to being one of the primary stars of the show. Characters like Fonzie from Happy Days, Steve Urkel from Family Matters, and Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are all huge examples of this. And this can apply to other forms of storytelling beyond TV shows. I mean, that's how characters like Tigger, Jay and Silent Bob, and the Minions got their starts.
It's also quite prevalent in comic books as well. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko didn't plan on having Mary Jane Watson stick around for long after her debut in 1966, but she's become just as important to the Spider-Man mythos as Peter Parker himself. Wolverine got his start as someone for the Hulk to fight in 1974's Incredible Hulk #181, but became one of Marvel's most popular characters not long after he was brought into the X-Men fold.
I bring all this up because we can't talk about breakout characters in comic books without mentioning the one and only Deadpool. Making his initial appearance in Marvel's New Mutants #98 in 1991, creators Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld will be the first people to tell you that Deadpool began as just a ripoff of Deathstroke from DC's Teen Titans comic. But as the years rolled on, Deadpool would evolve from a villain into a goofy, wisecracking motormouth antihero. And as he evolved, his popularity with readers grew exponentially, so much so that he's become one of their top-tier characters, almost on the same level as Spider-Man and Wolverine.
With that popularity, Hollywood was sure to come knocking on Deadpool's door. But alas, so did a little thing called "developmental hell." A movie starring everyone's favorite "Merc with a Mouth" was first conceived all the way back in the summer of 2000 by the now-defunct Artisan Entertainment, but nothing came of it and the film rights ended up with New Line Cinema in 2004. But they eventually scrapped the project, at which point 20th Century Fox picked up the character and gave him a brief role in X-Men Origins: Wolverine that they managed to completely bungle in the process.
The Deadpool in that movie had "Murphy's Law" written all over him; if they could screw something up with him, they would (and did). By the end of X-Men Origins, Deadpool's mouth had been sewn shut, and he was shooting lasers from his eyes and waving blades that grew from his forearms like he was Baraka from Mortal Kombat.
But a spin-off was in the works, with word around the campfire that one day, someone would correct the mistakes made by Wolverine & Co. and create a proper Deadpool movie. And it only took them a decade or so (give or take a few years), but that day has finally arrived. Deadpool has his own, proper movie, and I don't know if I could possibly be any more excited to see it. So let's dig right in, shall we?
Once upon a time, there was a man named Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds). Dishonorably discharged from the Canadian military, the cocky Wade puts his special-ops training to work as a mercenary, a soldier of fortune helping people in need. He's also madly in love with his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), but their relationship hits a serious rough patch when Wade is diagnosed with late-stage, terminal cancer. As he begins to resign himself to his eventual death, Wade is contacted by a shadowy organization claiming they can cure him while making him a superhero in the process. Seemingly out of options, Wade sneaks away from Vanessa in the middle of the night and signs up for their program.
He arrives at their facility to discover that human experimentation is the name of the game. Under the supervision of the lead scientist, a rather sociopathic gentleman calling himself "Ajax" (Ed Skrein), participants in the program are pumped full of a specialized serum to grant them mutant abilities before being subjected to increasingly extreme conditions to fully trigger said mutations. Wade is put through the ringer for weeks, finally being locked in an airtight chamber and deprived of oxygen after Ajax grows tired of him being such a smartass all the time.
The experience does activate his mutant ability — a healing factor so potent that it not only stops the spread of his cancer, but renders him practically immortal in the process — but it also has the pretty side effect of covering his face and body in hideous burn-like scars. Enraged over this, along with the revelation that Ajax has secret, sinister motives for he and his fellow test subjects, Wade attempts to stage a fiery escape only to be beaten and ultimately left for dead by Ajax.
He survives, but is so humiliated by his extensive scarring that he's convinced it would be in Vanessa's best interests if he never returned home. It is shortly thereafter that, while out drowning his sorrows with his best friend Weasel (T.J. Miller), he gets the idea to put his newfound abilities to good use as a masked vigilante. He adopts the name "Deadpool" and begins cutting a bloody swath through the criminal underworld as he follows a trail of breadcrumbs that will hopefully lead him directly to Ajax and a potential cure for his disfigurement.
But while X-Men members Colossus (the voice of Stefan Kapičić) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) follow him and try convincing him to join their little team of mutants and become a more conventional superhero, Wade is more concerned about finding Ajax. But when he catches wind that he's effectively led Ajax and his brawny sidekick Angel Dust (Gina Carano) to his own front door and put Vanessa in danger, the "cure for disfigurement" idea goes out the window and Wade just wants some good old-fashioned vengeance.
The thing about Deadpool is that it is so unlike every other superhero movie out there that going in expecting it to be more of the same is the wrong way to approach it. Granted, the plot is a bit of a paint-by-numbers origin story when you break it down, but outside of maybe Kick-Ass and its sequel, Deadpool is practically in a class of its own. It's violent, vulgar, immature, and hilarious. And when it's all said and done, Deadpool is such a unique entity among its superheroic brethren that I can't help but absolutely love it.
The movie marks the directorial debut of Tim Miller, who does a fantastic job telling the story and giving it an anarchic spirit. He crafts the movie in such a way that it feels very unique and stands out among all the other superhero movies out there. It stays energetic throughout, and the fights scenes... oh boy. They're ridiculously violent, practically outdoing the Blade trilogy and the Punisher movies combined. But they have the same infectious vibe as the rest of the movie.
And if it didn't earn its R rating through the violence alone, it definitely would via its script. Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick of Zombieland fame, the script's sense of humor is about as blue as you can get. But it stays really, really funny all the way through. Sure, quite a few of the really good jokes have been given away by the trailers and TV advertisements, that doesn't stop the movie from having plenty of fantastic, fun, hilarious moments.
The narrative hopping around back and forth between flashbacks and the present day for the first two acts adds a little style to set it apart, while the frequent asides and breaks of the fourth wall add a lot to the movie's already irreverent sense of humor. Take, for example, a scene where Colossus tries dragging Deadpool away to meet Professor Xavier of the X-Men. Deadpool's response: "McAvoy or Stewart? These timelines are so confusing." It's things like that that keep the character true to his roots for the most part. I say "for the most part" because while the movie version of Deadpool is well aware that he has an audience watching him like his comics counterpart, we don't see him talking to his own inner monologue like he does in the comics. He's also way more of a potty mouth here than he was in the source material, the same kind of feeling is still there and bring a subversive silliness that makes the movie more engaging.
And then there's the cast, all of whom do a fine job in their roles. Morena Baccarin and T.J. Miller are quite likable, and Leslie Uggams is entertaining in her small role as Deadpool's elderly, wisecracking roommate, Blind Al. Ed Skrein, meanwhile, is perfectly sleazy as our villain. I also greatly enjoyed Brianna Hildebrand and Stefan Kapičić as the movie's resident X-Men, but the movie wholly belongs to Ryan Reynolds.
This is one of those movies that would live or die based on the performance of whomever plays the title role. Reynolds absolutely nails it, elevating the movie from "good" to "great" through sheer force of will alone. I'd heard that Reynolds fought hard to get this movie made after how much everybody hated Deadpool's appearance in X-Men Origins, and his affection for the character is obvious. He's turned all the way up to eleven here, playing Deadpool with a madcap intensity that makes him feel like a demented Looney Tunes character. The movie is that much better for it, and I couldn't imagine anybody but Ryan Reynolds playing Deadpool.
Deadpool is not going to be for everyone. The violence and occasionally vulgar comedy won't suit everyone's sensibilities. That being said, it's still a wonderfully crazy movie. It's a genuinely fun, entertaining flick that I can't recommend enough, a refreshing change of pace from the formulaic fair we usually get in this genre. So if an R-rated superhero movie that makes jokes about itself and other superhero movies sounds up your alley, definitely check out Deadpool. They don't come much crazier than this.
Final Rating: ****
