Dead Pool - A Movie Review
So the snarkiest super-hero of the Marvel franchise, Dead Pool finally hits the big screen! And with a such a resoundingly loud bang! that catapults Ryan Reynolds into the pantheon of super-hero greatness wiping away all his previous bad luck outings - with Green Lantern/Blade Trinity/X-men Wolverine Origins stories.
A mile-a-minute wise cracker who cannot keep it shut even in the most dire circumstances, Wade Wilson has been dealt too many rotten apples in life. So when Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) comes along waltzing into his life, the super cynical merc for hire knows its just a side-show in life. And reality comes slamming back with a fourth-stage cancer that threatens to take him away his dream-girl.
To deal life one-up, Wade signs up with a medical camp where the patients are treated to bring out their mutant powers - and thus fight against any kinds of disease. However, this is where life really starts to spin away out of control for Wade. Little does he realize that he's signed up with a British badass and maniac named Ajax who doesn't really care for the patients and along with his butch girlfriend, Angel only wants to create super-slaves to be auctioned out for hire to the highest bidder.
The movie is told in alternating time-lines and really skewers up any expectations you may have had on the lines of a marvel franchise. In fact, in being irreverent, grisly, bloody and laugh-out-loud funny, Dead Pool manages to be unique compared to all other Marvel outings. It remains faithful to the comic book in its nasty overtones that are not subdued and the action is over-the-top - where Deadpool combines parkour and the art of katana-swinging into one of his own inimitable style statement action signature. The crude jokes never stop, delivered like a anti-aircraft rail-gun on auto-mode. Be it a dig on Proffessor Xavier, the X-men or teenage girls - and many more, they just keep coming at you.
The side-characters do shine their own light on the deliriously comic overtones of this movie [ for example, take Weasel, Wade's best friend who runs the bar called Sister Margaret's Home for Wayward Girls that's essentially the meeting point for all heavies on hire in the neighborhood. T J Miller is brilliant as the barman who cracks jokes with that serious poker face on! So are the characters of Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Kolossus - X-men(?) in Xavier's school for gifted, out to recruit Deadpool into X-men. Bringing in some levity towards the dark gritty end of the movie, is the character of Blind Al - widow, crack-addicted smart-talking granny who is Deadpool's room-mate. Not much screen space as in the comics but the quips traded back and forth between them are glorious!
But the entire movie is the star-vehicle for Ryan Reynolds - whose comic timing is perfect, alternating with some super rare tender moments in the movie. The gusto and verve with which he pulls off the character of the zany, fucked-up jumpster of a superhero is truly exceptional. Forced to be in a red and black spandex most of the time, it's not really his facial expressions but that sharp tongue that lashes out at everything around in the screen - that takes the cake.
Right from the starting credits where the director Tim Miller calls himself an 'overpaid tool', the movie reels away from the atmosphere that X-men or Marvels movie franchise has been known to create. This one's a completely flipped out, irreverent train-wreck that remains audacious to the core till the end winning back fans of the Marvel universe. It is a laugh-riot that is definitely one of the more genuinely relatable origins story that I've seen in the recent past. Dead Pool lays waste to the very idea of a superhero story - And tongue-firmly-in-cheek, it's a demolition job that should explode Ryan Reynolds' super hero status in the future for sure.
A mile-a-minute wise cracker who cannot keep it shut even in the most dire circumstances, Wade Wilson has been dealt too many rotten apples in life. So when Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) comes along waltzing into his life, the super cynical merc for hire knows its just a side-show in life. And reality comes slamming back with a fourth-stage cancer that threatens to take him away his dream-girl.
To deal life one-up, Wade signs up with a medical camp where the patients are treated to bring out their mutant powers - and thus fight against any kinds of disease. However, this is where life really starts to spin away out of control for Wade. Little does he realize that he's signed up with a British badass and maniac named Ajax who doesn't really care for the patients and along with his butch girlfriend, Angel only wants to create super-slaves to be auctioned out for hire to the highest bidder.
The side-characters do shine their own light on the deliriously comic overtones of this movie [ for example, take Weasel, Wade's best friend who runs the bar called Sister Margaret's Home for Wayward Girls that's essentially the meeting point for all heavies on hire in the neighborhood. T J Miller is brilliant as the barman who cracks jokes with that serious poker face on! So are the characters of Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Kolossus - X-men(?) in Xavier's school for gifted, out to recruit Deadpool into X-men. Bringing in some levity towards the dark gritty end of the movie, is the character of Blind Al - widow, crack-addicted smart-talking granny who is Deadpool's room-mate. Not much screen space as in the comics but the quips traded back and forth between them are glorious!
But the entire movie is the star-vehicle for Ryan Reynolds - whose comic timing is perfect, alternating with some super rare tender moments in the movie. The gusto and verve with which he pulls off the character of the zany, fucked-up jumpster of a superhero is truly exceptional. Forced to be in a red and black spandex most of the time, it's not really his facial expressions but that sharp tongue that lashes out at everything around in the screen - that takes the cake.
Right from the starting credits where the director Tim Miller calls himself an 'overpaid tool', the movie reels away from the atmosphere that X-men or Marvels movie franchise has been known to create. This one's a completely flipped out, irreverent train-wreck that remains audacious to the core till the end winning back fans of the Marvel universe. It is a laugh-riot that is definitely one of the more genuinely relatable origins story that I've seen in the recent past. Dead Pool lays waste to the very idea of a superhero story - And tongue-firmly-in-cheek, it's a demolition job that should explode Ryan Reynolds' super hero status in the future for sure.
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