"Deadpool" (2016)

This is the pixie stix of movies. It hits you in the dome and then you wondered why you spazzed out so hard. I couldn’t recite one joke from this mess. It’s not that memorable, because he’s so clever and so funny and so charming with the references. Right? RIGHT?! This, of course, will pass for today’s theater experience. Throw shit to the wall and hope they like something. Watching this was equivalent of someone grabbing you by the scruff of your neck and dragging you through a teenagers bedroom circa 1990-1996. Like when you went over to your friend’s house, and their little brother couldn’t stop annoying you with their toys.
 

THE single biggest issue I had with this movie is that there are way too many people cracking wise. Deadpool, his bartender friend, his girlfriend, the blind Black woman he inexplicably takes as a roommate…for what reason, please tell me (so he can crack more jokes?). This is one big skit and violence in between. There are so many questions to his psyche that despite Ryan Reynold’s supposed charm and self-effacing humor…it doesn’t cut to the darkness. Yes, there are glimpses of true pain and anguish, but it’s quickly diffused with THAT humor. Either you get it or you don’t. And it’s hard to imagine any of the teenagers in the theater I saw it in understand why the 20 something hot prostitute girlfriend knows the value of a Voltron ring. She’s really not that cool. She’s a whore, but doesn’t look like one, act like one, feel like one. I see that years earlier, this would’ve been a great role for someone like Gina Gershon. In this movie, this girl doesn’t have that broken busted look NO MATTER how much pain in life she’s endured. Number one rule of storytelling, show DON’T tell. And there’s a TON of tell.

Backstory upon history, upon explanation. Yes, it breaks rules. But it also doesn’t know when to use the rules they set up. They break the fourth wall to talk to the audience. Then make references to how cheap this movie was made (only TWO X-Men characters). Is this funny? Yes and no. Most people don’t give a fuck about what’s outside those walls. Only that you’re entertaining us. But that is the point. They are DYING for you to like them. I don’t think I’ve seen a movie try so hard for you to like them. And for the most part, I do. But…it’s exhausting to be around this attention deficit flick. For the most part, are the stakes really that high? Not really. Wade Wilson a.k.a. Deadpool voluntarily accepts treatment for cancer that will kill him. He’s cured. Except now he’s deformed. His biggest issue of revenge is ridiculously superficial. Which they had to explain away, in terms of how people find each other…looks being the sole purpose. Even though nothing in the history would explain Wilson and his girlfriend’s attraction was due to looks. They are kindred spirits by way of…pop culture. So similar, they might as well be brother and sister. That’s broken rule number two: there is nothing unique about her. She is the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold. Or is she? Who knows? She doesn’t seem to be in that much of a hurry to leave the business (as she’s seen later as a cocktail waitress at a strip club). By the way, has anyone asked what she’s doing at a bar which is frequented by regulars and would just nonchalantly let in a hooker trying to score johns?

The villain is…so…plain. What is his super power? Oh, one that he gave himself. And it overlaps with others. And is vague. He doesn’t feel pain? Okey-doke, so that sword that is jammed through his shoulder and carotid wouldn’t…you know, stop his heart? I guess not. Since, in this world, you’d need to feel pain to bleed out. And he heals slower than others, so say a hubcap to the face, or being thrown through vehicles wouldn’t, like…break every fucking bone in his body? Nope, not in this universe. Also, the teenager with the cool ass name and the ability to (apparently) nuke the world…how is it that it didn’t incinerate Gina Carano’s clothes off. Obvious as the big metal Russian guy was sparring with her, she had nip slip. If you’re going to go all the way, start with that.

Look, don’t ask too many questions and you’ll have fun. For me, it did what it needed to do. But I don’t think this movie will hold up to the hype it’s getting a few months from now. It’s a lackluster ice cream with a TON of whip cream. It’ll make you fat, and you’ll regret it down the road however, it’s a good matinee watch, and worth debating with Marvel nerds.