Review: Why Deadpool will never be allowed into the Avengers mansion.

I recently posted
about the surfeit of superhero movies. Spielberg compared them to the
Western, which was a cinema staple for many years, but nowadays is rarely made (Tarantino homages not withstanding).

Now, I’m not saying
that superhero movies are going to disappear from our screens anytime
soon. But if you follow the analogy, you realise that Westerns used
up their pure form very quickly, and almost immediately moved on to
deconstructions and subversions. Deadpool is one such subversion. And
it’s awesome.

Making a movie about
Deadpool, it was unlikely to be your standard Marvel fare. This is
the merc with a mouth, an insane anti-hero who’s better known for
lame jokes and slapstick than pithy catchphrases and Saturday morning
cartoons; a man with a face like a day old pizza driven insane by the
very healing factor that keeps him alive; a character who knows he’s
in a comic book (or film) even if those around him have no idea who
he’s talking to when he breaks the fourth wall. This is a long way
from the Avengers.

The thing most
viewers were worried about is ‘how far is Marvel willing to go to
protect it’s franchise’. It already saw a melt-down with AntMan when
they got into a fight with Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish about whether
to produce a fun movie making fun of the cliches of the genre, or a
traditional (i.e. boring) interpretation of the hero as just one more
addition to the Marvel canon. Fortunately, that was Marvel Studios,
this is Fox. Since Fox has the rights to all the characters, Marvel
has very little control here. With AntMan, the problem was how to be
irreverent without breaking any of the canon of the Marvel Cinematic
Universe. With Deadpool, you can be assured that we are a long way
from the MCU. Right from the opening credits, the jokes flow fast and
irreverent (the film is produced by ‘asshats’ and directed by ‘an
overpaid tool’). It also prepares us for to keep our eyes open for
the jokes – the film expects us to work a bit here, some of the
lines won’t be telegraphed and the levels of meta can sometimes pile
so high that you’re left wondering whether any lines are meant to be
taken seriously, or if we’re just watching a bunch of actors messing
around and pretending they’re in a
film.

Fox even has a
little fun with the Marvel backcatalog. Ryan Reynolds agrees to be
turned into Deadpool as long as they don’t make him wear an animated
green suit (Green Lantern), he says he doesn’t want to meet the X-Men
because he gets too confused about whether Professor X is Patrick Stewart or James McAvoy (Days of Future Past), gets threatened with having his mouth sewn
up (Wolverine: Origins), and comments on the number of times the X
Men Academy gets blown up (every X-Men movie ever).

All in all, its a
romp of a movie, with an unstoppable number of post-modern jokes and
references to other films. It even manages to fit in the promised
love story, even if it’s not your standard G rated version –
seriously, don’t take kids to see this movie – and does so with a
suprisingly mature touch and feel that gives weight to the story
without in any way diverging from irreverence or silliness that makes
the film work.

In the end, its just
like Deadpool himself – childishness and stupidity masking a heart
of gold. It’s nice to see a movie that admits that its genre is
ridiculous but wears that ridiculousless like a cape. Hopefully, it
won’t be the last.