The Deadpool Movie is Exactly what it Should Be!

Hi, I’m Daniel and it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve seen the Deadpool Movie.

In my defense, I saw it three times opening week, and I have come to the conclusion that I absolutely loved the movie.  I have yet to read or hear a legitimate complaint about the movie.  I have some personal issues, the humor was a bit too crude at some points for my taste and there was some nudity that felt a little excessive, but those are personal complaints not legitimate issues with the film itself.  And yeah there are spoilers ahead.  But if you’re reading a movie review this late after the film has come out and you get upset by that then I’m pretty sure you’re just broken inside. 

It amazes me that people are complaining about this film at all.  There’s nothing to complain about really.  So let’s look at some of these.  First up, they weren’t true to the origin.  Okay, I’ll give you that, they tweaked the origin a bit.  They had to so that it could fit into the X-Men Film Universe.  For the most part if you have an issue with that you basically have an issue with Brian Singer’s universe.  A universe I personally think he has screwed up royally since X2 (and seriously why do you hate color in costumes dude).  But the nods they gave us in the origin were spot on, they demonstrated that they did their homework and they did it well. 

Sure, Ajax is both Francis and Killebrew.  Without having both around basically we have assured that the sequel won’t just be another quest for revenge and will actually push the character in new directions, hardly grounds to complain.  Related, in the film Deadpool wasn’t a part of Weapon X and didn’t get his powers grafted onto him from Wolverine.  Well, honestly we don’t know that this wasn’t connected to Weapon X.  And so he just has the same ability as Wolverine that was triggered rather than grafted.  That’s a valid adaptation, especially given that his origin when last done in conjunction with the hairy little Canucklehead is rock bottom for our protagonist.

They also successfully adapted where he got the name Deadpool for the film.  The difference between it being a betting pool for what patient is going to die and a pool for which merc is going to die is pretty slim.  Connected to this is that he isn’t madly in love with Mistress Death. 

For those that don’t know, in the Marvel Universe Death is a stone cold fox.  But there’s a mad Titan named Thanos that’s out to destroy the proper MCU to try and get her attention right now and so thanks to some licensing insanity that’s not likely to be someone they even could include.  And as the story moved along it became less and less that he was in love with her and more that she was enamored with him as the one man that she couldn’t lay claim to anyway so I’m okay with us sidelining her for right now. 

Secondly, and a bit more interestingly, it wasn’t “Deadpool” enough.  Really?  Precisely how was this movie supposed to be “more Deadpool”?  Deadpool isn’t just a schizophrenic character; his storylines are just as insane as he is.  So which Deadpool did you want to see?  There’s the Circle of Blood version.  Maybe people wanted the Joe Kelly version, that strives to be a hero but keeps getting dragged back into the mud and the blood.  The guy that sort of embraced his inner mercenary a bit more under Jimmy Palmiotti’s pen is a fun read.  Perhaps we were hoping for someone a little more quirky like the chap we met in Cable & Deadpool? 

Then there is Daniel Ways current run and I don’t even know how to describe it.  That’s done everything from having his body share a soul to having him get married to a demonic queen to having him going banana’s because he gets to kill a bunch of dracula’s.  Oh and let’s not forget the mini-series’ and one shots out there.  One of my favorite reads is honestly the Merc with a Mouth maxi-series.  So it’s not that the character wasn’t Deadpool enough, truthfully, it is more likely that you simply prefer a different iteration of the character.  The Deadpool we got drew heavily from elements of Circle of Blood (his first mini-series), Joe Kelly and Palmiotti’s runs.  And one of the reasons this might not seem as familiar to some folks is because they haven’t actually read those issues for a good decade or so (insert gratuitous ad for Deadpool Classics here)

Now let’s talk about something far more important than just invalidating a few complaints, and that’s just how much this film got right.  The film has done spectacularly at the box office and there are a lot of reasons why.  The biggest fear now is that the people who cut checks to make movies are going to learn the wrong lesson.  They’ll say it’s okay to make movies about “heroes” that bang hookers, cuss a lot, and they can show boobs and other naughty bits and they’ll make money.  None of that is why Deadpool is the financial success that it has become. 

Deadpool is doing so well for a lot of reasons.  The first one is it was made by fans for fans.  They didn’t cut corners or try and water it down so that it would be more easily understood by the “general audience”.  They adapted the film to work within the universe and budget available but they didn’t change anything about the character himself.  They did a good job of blending together a version of Deadpool that stayed within the lines for every version that has been written over the last 20 or so years.  If there is one lesson that should be taken from this movie it’s that there is a reason fans are fans and if you tell a good story that is true to the character the fans have supported for years then you will likely have a good movie that makes a lot of money (take note Michael Bay and Transformers producers it is possible to have a visually enjoyable film that makes money that has a story worth following).

The second is that it was fresh.  This wasn’t just another super hero movie.  This falls squarely in the genre of action/comedy/romance/horror.  It isn’t just one type of movie it’s all of them blended together, and blended together well.  And what’s more is that it at no point apologized for what it was, rather the film reveled in the fact that it wasn’t really that easy to define.  It doesn’t take itself so seriously that it’s not fun anymore but at the same time they take themselves seriously enough to ensure the story they are telling is worth seeing.  Honestly in some ways the film is daring you not to like it because if you don’t like it then clearly it wasn’t a film that was made for you so shut it.  If you don’t like Deadpool, you will hate this film and that’s okay, go watch something else.

Now let’s talk about something else they got correct, the characters.  The relationship between Blind Al and Wade was pretty accurate.  They made it a lot less creepy by having her be his roommate instead of his captive, and the ways he tortured here were also less creepy than locking her in a box surrounded by things that she would run into that would hurt her.  Deep down they do love each other and they seriously show that by screwing with each other as much as they possibly can.  From making the blind lady build the furniture to constantly insulting him, the relational dynamic was accurate.  Weasel was a bit more off base than Al was.  They combined him with another character named Patch so that he ran the bar and was Wade’s best friend instead of just he was a gadget geek and was Wade’s best friend.  A change made for the sake of the story that worked because while they shifted the setting of the character, they didn’t really change who he was. 

But what about Vanessa, she’s not even a mutant in this movie, and she’s supposed to be copycat!  Yeah yeah yeah, I know.  But how sure are we that she isn’t a mutant?  She even acknowledged that she’s played many roles, what’s to say she wasn’t playing one that she just found herself really liking there?  However, that’s not the key to making her character work, and it works great in this film.  The key is that her crazy matches Wade’s crazy.  I know, line from the film, but it’s the best way to describe their relationship, she’s not Syren, the gal wade is hoping to be worthy of, she’s not Domino, and she’s not any of the other gals that have gone through Wade’s life.  She’s the bad penny that always turns up and that is perfectly matched because she’s just as unstable as Wilson, just like in the film they complement each other almost perfectly. 

A lot of the others are in here too.  Francis is a one dimensional sadistic bad guy that hates his name and Wade: check.  Colossus is a gigantic Russian stereotype: Check.  Bob is a friend of Wade’s that he beats the tar out of: Check.  If you read the comics these are all really pretty accurate portrayals of who the characters are at their core.  Change the settings but as long as that doesn’t change then I’m calling it a successful adaptation.  Is anyone really upset that Negasonic Teenage Warhead had way cooler powers in this than she does in the comic? 

And then there is Deadpool.  So what are the defining characteristics of Deadpool.  He knows he’s a fictional character and breaks the fourth wall, yeah in spades.  He does not shut up.  Nailed it.  Anyone complaining because there were too many jokes and some of them weren’t really that funny has clearly never read a Deadpool comic because seriously I get tired of reading them sometimes because there is so much dialogue because Wade just never shuts up. 

He’s a badass.  Oh yeah, even the people like Taskmaster that hate him have to admit that he really is just that good, he just goes about being that awesome in a manner that is befitting a perfect idiot.  He’s not really a villain or a hero.  Much like wreck-it-ralph, he’s a bad guy but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy.  I’ll trust you to insert the correct inflections there, but he really does have a soft spot and tries to help folks out, he just does so with extreme prejudice at times.  And honestly, I think that sums up the character pretty well and is why this film works.  They let Deadpool be Deadpool and for the folks that didn’t like it that was their problem.

Last thing I want to acknowledge real quick, and that is the marketing on this film.  This was brilliantly marketed.  From the comic-con introduction to the red band trailer, to the Christmas ad this movie was promising great things.  It released two of the best videos on checking for cancer I’ve seen, informative and entertaining.  The spoofing of other movies, like Green Lantern and the various other banner ads that popped up just kept driving home exactly what this movie was, a serious love story that probably shouldn’t be taken seriously.  Even without action figures thanks to the ongoing feud between Fox and Marvel this movie was on point with its marketing strategy.  It might help that I think Ryan Reynolds walked away with a suit and was just having a lot of fun.  So take heart true believers, there are writers and producers out there that are actually fans of this stuff and they know how to tell a good story using these characters, that won’t sacrifice for runtime, for fear of not being understandable, or relatable and will instead just be a great movie that doesn’t care if some people don’t get it.