domingo, 21 de febrero de 2016

Some thoughts about Deadpool

What makes a hero a hero?

Wade Wilson has never been a good man but once that a terrible person uses him as his test subject to create a living weapon, he will have to turn into someone worse and maybe save the woman he loves.

This movie came out of nowhere for me quite frankly.

First of all, I'm not really that much of a Deadpool fan. Not because I don't like the character (in fact based on his premise I'm pretty sure his comic would fit perfectly with my tastes) but because I simply never got an opportunity to check his own series and mostly known him from his cameos in other Marvel titles.

However, I understand the concept perfectly, created by Rob Liefeld as a typical EXTREME! copy of a popular comic character from the 80's (Deathstroke), Deadpool eventually would become a crazy mercenary with a mouth who would constantly break up the 4th wall and tell jokes everytime.

And that's good enough of a reason to turn this character into a movie, the idea of a superhero parody who keeps telling metareferences is simply to good to ignore and thankfully this is far away from that awful incarnation of the character from X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Tim Miller is in charge of directing it, how does it fare?

Pretty solidly thankfully.

You simply know that you're going to have a good time when just the opening credits make you laugh. Refering the Ryan Reynolds as a douchebag and insulting basically everyone else involved, this film refuses to take itself seriously. The comedic moments don't stop and by that I mean that they don't stop, Deadpool will continually make jokes every time he's in scene making fun of both action and superhero movies, some of my favorite scenes of the film is that he wasn't afraid to ridicule the fact that both Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (yeah, she's an actual character from the comics) were the only X-Men allowed because the studio didn't want to spend more money on it. Is the kind of little touches that make this movie so good.

Oh, but I wouldn't really recommend this movie to kids despite of being a superhero one. This story contains a lot of sex jokes, nudity and crude scenes that I don't think are apt for children so parents should be very careful before thinking into taking their kids to see this and instead enjoy it themselves.

About the plot, is the most serious part of the film quite frankly. Despite of the constant jokes and 4th wall breaking, the story takes some surprisingly emotional moments concerning Wade and his relationship with his girlfriend Vanessa, they're well-execute despite of how sex-driven their relationship is at the beginning. The villain, Ajax, contrasts perfectly with Deadpool's goofy personality due that this is an antagonist who takes himself pretty seriously despite of being named after a detergent.

I have some complaints though and they're surprisingly the same as some of my praises about it. The comedic moments simply. Don't. Stop. At times the jokes become so abundant that make you wonder where they're going to take a break from them just to see them continue to absurd levels. Most of the jokes are pretty funny but at times they get asphyxiating. Another complaint is that while the origin segment is good enough and have some strong moments, is way too long and feels like it takes too much from the rest of the scenes that I would prefer to be watching like Deadpool killing others.

In terms of the cast, they're pretty good. Ryan Reynolds pretty much plays himself, there's a lot from the original material but the guy is obviously going full with his own personality here which fortunately works better than in Green Lantern. Morena Baccarin as Vanessa is a solid romantic interests who at times seems to be as twisted as the protagonist. Ed Skrein as Ajax works nicely as a serious antagonist for this goofy story.T.J. Miller as Weasel got many laughs from me, he's probably one of the most entertaining characters from the film. Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead is pretty much a teenage girl and works okay for that. Stefan Kapičić as the voice of Colossus does a solid job too and his dynamic with Wade is pretty hilarious.

In terms of the effects, they're well done for the most part. There aren't many scenes that exploit them or that seem epic in terms of scale aside from the end but they're still executed satisfactorily.

So yeah, aside from some complaints, this is definitely one of the most successful superhero adaptations in a while. Is quite faithful to the source material and is simply perfect for this kind of medium. Highly recommended.

4 comentarios:

  1. "Is quite faithful to the source material" Generally, but not entirely. One of the things I was kind of disappointed about with the Deadpool movie was the fact that it didn't portray his insanity; despite being humorous, the comics themselves were loaded with angst and delved heavily into that aspect. He was a character that frequently had hallucinations, both visual and auditory, and his own sense of identity was constantly in question.

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    Respuestas
    1. Yeah, I guess they wanted to focus more on the comedic aspect of the character so they probably didn't want to include many serious issues here.

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    2. I hope one day they actually do a movie based around that aspect, in the same way there's like two or three versions of Spiderman, just because I don't think the subject of mental health and superheroism has really been explored, outside of maybe the first two Tim Burton Batman movies and to an extent the Nolan Batman films.

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    3. I'm pretty sure they're planning something like that for the upcoming Moon Knight movie.

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