Deadpool

A criminal (Ryan Reynolds) is diagnosed with cancer so turns to an underground organisation to help ‘fix’ him. They turn him into a self-healing mutant, but in doing so grossly disfigure him, so he hunts them down to find a cure.

Finally someone has made a subversive, balls to the wall, funny superhero film. Yes, we’ve had Super and Kick-Ass, but the first was weird and inaccessible, the latter too silly to really stand the test of time. Besides, Deadpool resides within the Marvel universe, while simultaneously mocking it. It’s like mum and dad finally let you swear and look at boobs.

Deadpool is not exactly a work of outstanding genius and surprisingly, it falls foul to the same tropes that every super hero film does despite its efforts to subvert them. The protagonist has to kill the big bad guy to save the person he loves. There’s an origin story, henchmen, super powers, the lot, and it gets a little tiresome. It’s a self-aware film but it would be nice if it didn’t have to be.

That said it charmed the pants off me. Ryan Reynolds was born to play the character and his relationship with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) is funny, endearing and more than enough to build the plot on. The whole thing works because beneath all the snark, pop culture references and inside jokes lies something genuine.

Although not as laugh-out-loud hilarious as you might expect, Deadpool is still everything I was hoping for. It’s a Marvel movie made by people more concerned with entertaining an audience than selling action figures.