[7]

Ryan Reynolds was born to play a wise-cracking vigilante, and indeed Deadpool comes off a bit like a higher-stakes Van Wilder. The story centers around the origin of the character, how he discovers he has terminal cancer and takes a chance on a scary experiment run by some bad guys who torture him and turn him into a hideously-scarred immortal super fighter. Most of that comes across in flashbacks while Deadpool stalks the bad guys who did the awful deed, enlisting the help of two X-Men (Colossus and some goth girl who runs and, shit, I don’t know, catches fire?) to help him on his quest.

The story is your basic revenge tale, but the tone is something a little fresh in today’s superhero landscape. Deadpool frequently breaks the fourth wall, giving private asides to the audience and spewing pop-culture references left and right. He even pokes fun at Ryan Reynolds. It’s post-modern, meta, gitchy, and I guess, cool. I worried that the shtick would get old, but it didn’t. At least not for me, and I have to credit Reynolds for that. Without his charisma and personality, this movie wouldn’t be anything special. It’s entirely character-driven, and he drives it remarkably well. I can’t say as much for anyone else in the cast, who are all stuck playing stock characters that leave less than half the impact Reynolds leaves. I particularly wished for a stronger villain, one who could go snark-to-snark with Deadpool. Instead, we just get a smug, pretty face. Oh, but Stan Lee has what is perhaps his finest cameo.

Good on Reynolds, producer Lauren Schuler-Donner, and the rest of the creative team for bringing an R-rated anti-hero superhero movie to the masses. These days I celebrate when Hollywood does anything even a little bit different.