Merc with a mouth on the big screen

Jared Krause, Assistant Editor

Deadpool is a famous character from the Marvel X-Men universe who has been praised by many fans and has a gained a large following.

The character was first introduced into the world of cinema in the 20th Century Fox’s fourth installment of their X-Men film series, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The film was met with scathing reviews; many Deadpool fans, including myself, were especially displeased with how it had handled the character.

It’s likely that if this film was successful that there would have been a number of these X-Men Origins movies. However, seven years after this letdown of a movie, the film’s most disappointing aspect received a second chance on the big screen.

Fans all agreed that Deadpool would be a great character to appear in his own feature film, and Fox complied. This movie ignores X-Men Origins and instead makes a new story for Deadpool.  Keeping with the spirit of the character, the film makes a lot of fourth wall breaks and makes fun of Ryan Reynolds’ past films including X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Green Lantern.

The film was released Valentine’s Day weekend and was met with resounding reviews by fans. It makes all the jokes the fans want to see, it has all the action, and it is a perfect representation of the character.

Some critics may have given the film bad reviews, but it is not meant for them. The movie is not some ground breaking art house film – it was made to please the fans that were desperately waiting for this movie. Yet this doesn’t mean that all the critics hated it. In fact, most enjoyed it and gave decent reviews.

The director knew what made a good comedy and a good super hero movie. Of course it had the typical revenge story and a damsel in distress, but it didn’t feel like a big rehash. The cast was perfect – Ryan Reynolds was destined to play Deadpool.

However, his love interest did not come across as a damsel in distress just because that’s something the movie needed to have. I really believed in the love story in this movie. Some Deadpool fans, including myself, are worried  about what will happen to her in the future films because in the original source, Deadpool was in a relationship with Death.

It was not afraid to go all out with fun, weird comic book elements. For example, the supporting heroes see Deadpool on TV and say, “We should go help him.” That felt like a very superhero kind of thing to do. Another example are the opening credits. They are reminiscent of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, making references such as “A CGI Character” and “A Gratuitous Cameo.”

The film as a whole felt like it made purely for the fans, and I mean that in a positive way. It felt like I was watching something that was made by fans for fans. The writers wanted to do the character justice and they knew how to do it.

As a warning, this movie is rated R. There are scenes of intense violence, blood and gore, nudity, sex, and a lot of cursing. It is definitely not appropriate for children.

As a whole, it is one of my new favorite movies. My personal rating is five stars, but that may be a very biased opinion, as I am a huge Deadpool fan. A more objective rating would be three and a half stars. I know that it is definitely not for everyone and some fans did not enjoy it as much as others.

If you are a Deapool fan, a super hero fan, or just someone who is looking for a good action/comedy story, then I would highly recommend this movie.