Review: Deadpool

Story:

“Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is a former Special Forces operative who now works as a mercenary. His world comes crashing down when evil scientist Ajax (Ed Skrein) tortures, disfigures and transforms him into Deadpool. The rogue experiment leaves Deadpool with accelerated healing powers and a twisted sense of humor. With help from mutant allies Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), Deadpool uses his new skills to hunt down the man who nearly destroyed his life.”

Review:

This is pretty much what I expected and that’s both good and bad. First the good stuff. It’s funny and fast paced and they get Deadpool spot on. The violence is over the top and hilarious as well. The fourth wall breaking doesn’t go so far as to break the movie.

The supporting characters are good and I wasn’t expecting colossus to be so entertaining. He plays the straight man to Deadpool and it works really well. T.j. miller from How to train your dragon is good as well. It took me a while to place him. They’ve even got an old lady as Blind Al but she’s only in a little bit.

The only good thing I wasn’t expecting was how good the romance between Deadpool and his girlfriend was going to be.

So far in super hero movies I can name two couples that are actually compelling and I like to watch. That’s Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, and Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, who were the only good parts of The Amazing Spiderman 2.

Vanessa is just as weird as Wade and they play off each other really well. So much so that it’s actually emotional when he gets cancer and they have to deal with it as a couple. I got emotionally involved in a movie where Deadpool gets shot up the arse and you see the bullet hole.

But it feels like all that good stuff gets wiped out when she then gets treated like female characters always do in these movies. The bad guys get hold of her because Wade’s causing them trouble and he’s got to go save her. Boring.

You know I actually believed this trailer when they had her saying I’m no damsel in distress. I can’t believe I fell for that.

And you’ve got so many people saying this is such a different super hero movie, it’s reinventing the genre. No it’s not. It’s just more focused on comedy than your typical super hero movie and is quite a bit more violent but everything else stays the same.

It felt like watching Guardians of the Galaxy and being disappointed with Gamora all over again. Or like with Ant-man and how they treated Hope.

Why couldn’t she have been a mutant or been involved with the plot in some way other than just being the love interest.

The expected bad stuff is that he may be pansexual but I didn’t see any reference to it. And if I missed all the little implied references, well that’s not good enough. I’m tired of it being implied and having it go straight over my head.

If a bigot can watch it and deny the sexuality of the main character then it’s not good enough. It’s cowardly and pathetic. The director confirms Deadpool’s pansexual to people who ask, who have a vested interest in Wade’s orientation, but won’t state in clearly on the screen. All you needed was one line from Wade stating he had had a boyfriend or he’d slept with men. Something.

I guess I got what I asked for though. There’s no homophobia. At least I don’t think there is, again all these little implied things tend to go over my head. Although there was one scene where she had a strap on and they were trying anal sex but he didn’t like it and I suppose that was meant to be a joke. Why isn’t he allowed to like anal sex?

I guess I also forgot to ask for no sexism because it’s 2016 and we should be over all of this shit by now.

It’s good enough movie and it made me laugh. And once I get over my disappointment I’ll be re-watching this movie. That will just take a bit of time. By the time the sequel comes out I’ll be fully on board again and hoping for better. As always.

Rating: 6 out of 10

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