If we’re going to be entirely honest with one another, I was kind of dreading Deadpool. I love superhero movies and I have often enjoyed the character of Deadpool in the pages of Marvel comic books, but I had so little faith in any attempt to bring him to the screen. I figured the film would be one joke repeated for two hours, that Wade Wilson was too weird to exist in a movie.
I was wrong and chances are strong that you also know how wrong I was, as the film opened to a record-shattering$135 million at the box office over the weekend. Deadpool is a hoot, a film that coats the typical superhero movie template with a satisfying combination of ultra-violence, immature jokes, and satire. Director Tim Miller has orchestrated a hurricane of a movie – it’s a force of chaos and destruction that leaves nothing standing, but it’s contained and controlled and follows a very direct and purposeful path. That’s easier said than done.
And since you’ve all seen this movie already, it’s time to take a slightly deeper dive into the movie, to break it into a few component parts and take a look at what works and what doesn’t. Spoilers follow, naturally.