There is a buzz in the air about the latest superhero movie “Deadpool." It’s an R-rated movie due to its violent content and not the standard superhero violence in which someone is shot nine times yet there is no bullet hole to be seen. No, this is violence with gore and brain matter.
It's a movie with sex and nudity, and not the standard superhero nudity in which all the naughty bits are conveniently covered by a tree branch. No, this is nudity in which you can see a penis or a pair of bare breasts. This is a superhero movie with jokes, and not the standard quippy Tony Stark jokes. No, these are jokes that break the fourth wall in an attempt to subvert the genre. And “Deadpool” has all those things, but when it comes down to it, “Deadpool” is just another inconsequential superhero movie.
The ingenious thing is that “Deadpool” is actively selling itself as an alternative to the tired superhero genre. It masquerades its adherence to formula with the spectacle of raunchiness and self-parody. The problem is that “Deadpool" does not succeed as either. Rather, the film full-heartedly feels like a 15-year-old teenager’s dream of a movie. Ironically, a 15-year-old would not even be allowed into this movie.
For those who don’t know, “Deadpool” is about the eponymous superhero played by Ryan Reynolds, a character designed to work for the comic book medium. Clad in red leather, "Deadpool," as stated above, breaks the fourth wall, serving not only as a protagonist but a commentator as well. The movie works with that conceit as a narrative device in order to shoehorn in exposition and hide the fact that this is just another origin story.
Wade Wilson is a mercenary for hire, with a heart of gold, who falls in love with another misfit with a heart of gold (played by the underutilized Morena Baccarin). When he gets late stage lung cancer, Wilson decides to go into a program that turns him into a mutant. But, because he becomes cosmetically unpleasing, to put it lightly, he goes into hiding and tries to find the people who did this to him, saying that he is not a superhero through and through.
As a superhero flick, “Deadpool” is basic. The movie comments on the fact that it has a British villain, Ajax (Ed Skrien), who lacks pain and emotions is exactly how any audience member will react to him. In fact, the film comments a lot on superhero tropes. The problem is that just because it's commenting on it, does not give the film an excuse to follow every beat and trope there is.
The humor is sophomoric, relying on the “Family Guy” style of jokes guide. The standard template for all the jokes follow, “That’s like (insert celebrity) f**ked a (specific object)” which gets less and less funny as the movie progresses. As an action film, the over reliance of CGI gives a weightlessness to the violence that we see giving us no visceral response to the amount of gore that we see.
Yet, as the first wave of audiences have come to praise this film, I can’t help to think that we have already gotten a movie more audacious, funny and subversive. “Kick Ass” revels in the brutality of its violence, demonizing it by letting us find pleasure in it. “Kick Ass” is a much better version of “Deadpool." If I was 14, I would love this movie. But, I’m not 14 and I am tired of the same old thing.
