Deadpool // Ryan Reynolds

Why I'm reading
All the marketing looks hilarious (and c’mon, it’s Deadpool.)

Where I watched the movie
Local theater with Alan again.

Expectations
It’s Marvel, so I wasn’t too afraid of a trainwreck. But Deadpool’s humor is easy to mess up -- either too PG, or relying too much on violence/swearing/sex instead of actually being funny.

So how was it?

Fantastic! Once again, excellent pacing. The whole thing was framed with a narrative, allowing Deadpool to break the 4th wall with impunity (as he should). It starts with an action sequence, then a narrated flashback to Deadpool’s origin story and (I kid you not) surprisingly romantic and fun meetcute with his (prostitute?) girlfriend. Eventually it picks back up after the first scene, and Deadpool meets up with some B-grade X-Men to track down the guy who turned him ugly.

The jokes are spot-on Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds was born the play Deadpool. He’s rude and random and weird and has zero filter -- but without trying to impress us with how rude-random-weird he his (no sporks or penguins, promise).

And yes, there’s a romantic subplot. I don’t hate it. They meet, they make stupid sex jokes, they have hilariously inventive sex, he goes AWOL and gets turned into an avocado-testicle-hybrid, they eventually get back together. The actual relationship part is fairly normal and low-key.

Recommendation
Not for the light-hearted when it comes to sex, violence, and language. NOT a kid’s movie.

Feels
Like a comic book!!!

Favorites
I can’t choose one thing. The sex scenes? His old lady roommate? All the viral marketing?

I guess what really made this movie for me was (I can’t believe I’m saying this) the humanity. Reynolds is playing an irreverent and violent character, but he does occasionally pause to feel some feels; they’re surprisingly normal feels (I love you, I have cancer, I’m ugly now) and he doesn’t overdo it.

Least favorites
I expected to hate Negasonic Teenage Warhead, but her lines were consistently funny and she hit ‘third generation disaffected teenage X-Man’ spot-on.

I didn’t love the CGI on Colossus.

I hated the fight scenes between Colossus and Angel Dust. Don’t get me wrong, she was a great character -- good to have more female roles/superheros/villains, and they didn’t try to jam a backstory into every single character -- but she was way overpowered. Super strength does not mean super invulnerability… and invulnerability is supposed to be Colossus’s thing. If Colossus was just some random other superhero, it would’ve been fine, but… dude, Colossus.
Yes I totally put a romantic comedy tag on this.