Name: Deadpool (2016)
IMDb: link to Suspicion page
Genres: Comedy Country of origin: USA.
Cast:
Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, Morena Baccarin as Vanessa Carlysle/Copycat, Ed Skrein as Ajax, T. J. Miller as Weasel, Leslie Uggams as Blind Al, Karan Soni as Dopinder, Brianna Hildebrand as Ellie Phimister/Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Style Dane as Jeremy (Pizza Guy), Gina Carano as Angel Dust.
Directed by: Tim Miller. Written by: Rhett Reese (screenplay).
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| Deadpool |
The initial tableaux:
Deadpool tries to take out Ajax on a crowded bridge setting: gunfire, blades, cars crashing, motorcycles being destroyed.
Then we have a massive flashback. Wade is a former Special Forces member who had 41 confirmed kills to his credit while on active duty. He's a bit down on his luck, and scrounges money by terrifying local scumbags of minor repute. He meets Vanessa, the woman of his dreams, and they fall in love. Unfortunately, he contracts cancer, and does not have long to live.
Vanessa looks for cures. Wade tries out an offer that seems too good to be true, but he goes for it anyway. The shady group offering the service forces his body to mutate. Good news: Wade recuperates extremely rapidly from almost any injury, including the cancer. Bad news: his new normal state is just as ugly as hell.
Ajax, the fellow in charge of the mutating, was not doing it out of the goodness of his heart. He intended to sell Wade as a high value soldier of fortune. With a superhuman effort, Wade escapes Ajax. He finds Vanessa, but cannot bring himself to show his face for fear of losing her.
Wade cannot be with Vanessa, so he decides to take revenge on Ajax. This brings us back to the beginning of the movie.
Delineation of conflicts:
Ajax wants to control and sell Wade, even with his new name, Deadpool. Deadpool wants to retain his freedom (might work), get revenge on fellow mutant Ajax (maybe; seems difficult), and get his old good looks back (nope).
Complicating this are Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, two strong warrior mutants who work with Professor Xavier. They wish Deadpool to settle into the community that Xavier fosters. Deadpool regards this as just another form of slavery.
Resolution: We have a typical no holds barred massive cliche fight at the end.
One line summary: Cure is worse than the disease.
Statistics:
Cinematography: 7/10 Too much CGI, too much slow motion nonsense, too much absolutely fake looking X-Men bullshit.
Sound: 7/10 I can hear the dialog, which is good. Music seems to be poorly chosen or mixed; I got zero enjoyment from it, especially the music I like when heard on its own.
Acting: 5/10 This was a real mixed bag. I liked TJ Miller, Morena Baccarin, Leslie Uggams, and Ed Skrein (though to a lesser extent). Ryan Reynolds was hiding behind a mask for most of the film, and he might as well have been a cardboard cutout with an attached speaker. His whiny voice was a grating irritation. Gina Carano was better than I expected, but that is not saying much, since I expected nothing good from her, based on past performances.
Screenplay: 4/10 I liked the opening credits. I got more laughs from them than I got from the rest of this film. In general I dislike flashbacks. Finishing the giant, oversized flashback took us into the second half of the film. Breaking the fourth wall is another of my strong non-favourites. This film is full of that. The relentless PC horseshit (any women can beat up any man, children can beat up adults, and so on) was as boring as it was predictable.
Final Rating: 5/10 Perhaps if the jokes had been funny, or if Ryan Reynolds had not used that falsetto voice, I might have liked the film better. The property did well at the box office, so perhaps the sequels will be better than the first one. As a popcorn movie, it was fine: people get killed by unthinking bastards, things blow up, valuable things get ruined, lives are shot to hell.
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