Before going any further, but I must declare it a real treat to finally get an R-rated movie of this magnitude up on the big screen, which modern movie studios have been aiming to avoid for the longest time, now.
So should you run out and catch it while it's still playing in theaters?
Well, not so fast....
The action and the humor are most definitely there and pulled off with finesse (though I did feel the editing was a bit choppy and not quite so seamless in regards to frame continuity), but the execs at the film studios did manage to commit what is -in my personal view- a terrible sin. More on this later.
Concerning Deadpool himself, his mutant powers are nothing to write home to grandma about. Like Wolverine, he has top-notch regenerative abilities, but that's it as far as the movie made clear to me. He certainly displays great agility and skill with guns and blades, but I suspect it's supposed to be the results of his own personal training.
His most special ability, however, is his breaking of the fourth wall. Ridiculous as it sounds, it's perfectly fine when it's a wink or a nudge here and there, but I found it to happen annoyingly often in this film.
Another thing that irked me throughout the film was how anyone failed to mention what the specific powers of the supporting cast were supposed to be. I remember something about the main villain being unable to feel any pain (bo-ring!!), and his main assistant is a really strong woman, but come on!!
A great deal of us appreciate it when these characters are accompanied with more colorful descriptions!
But perhaps I just fell asleep at some point and missed it (guys, I'm old! I definitely caught myself nodding off for a few seconds right in the middle of the slowest scene. Also, I was at the 2:30pm matinee showing....).
That said, Deadpool himself almost has too much buildup for my own personal taste. We weave back and forth between current ass-kickings and backstory one too many times, resulting in a slower pace than the trailers would have you expect, and all of the fun and games lead to the early climax of the film just as the DMX track hits to warm up our engines.
All things considered, it's still a solid Hollywood movie with excellent casting (this is the role Ryan Reynolds was born to play - for better or worse) and very much worth watching ... sort of.
My biggest problem with this movie (unexpectedly) turned out to be just how well it was promoted by the marketing department.
Ads for the film have been up all over the place and it's certainly helped it achieve box office success as it's currently the highest grossing R-rated film of all damn time.
What this all means is that if you've been keeping an eye on the previews and tv spots then you've pretty much watched all of the highlights from the movie before you even sit down to open up your gummy bears.
I sincerely left disappointed having heard most of the jokes ad nauseum and with a lack of genuine surprises and chimichanga references by the time the credits rolled.
I feel it would've been a smarter move to include more of the backstory in the trailers and just remove them from the actual movie.
If you're old enough to remember, this was a tactic Pixar used to great effect (in the past) in order to give audiences a taste of what types of lovable character personalities to expect even if they provided zero details pertaining to any plot or conflicts.
If you've watched the previews for Deadpool, the biggest surprise will likely be the mandatory Stan Lee cameo - which is admittedly my favorite so far.
I still look forward to the sequel, but I'll have to avoid watching any and all commercials for it before it releases.
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