Deadpool
Director: Tim
Miller
Writers: Rhett
Reese, Paul Wernick
Starring: Ryan
Reynolds, Karan Soni, Ed Skrein, T.J. Miller, Morena Baccarin,
Brianna Hildebrand
Rating: One and a
half stars out of five
Available in
theaters now
Punk rock is, at
its core, a critique of dominant musical, social, and political
structures. It is a conscious stripping down of the excesses of what
came before it and/or exist alongside it – the 10-minute noodle
guitar work of Pink Floyd and Yes, an embrace of simple (if
provocatively spiky) clothing, an angry voice directed at abuse of
power. Punk rock is also a hat hormonal teenage boys wear so they
have a false excuse to be obnoxious all day, every day, their shallow understanding of their heroes not allowing them to contend with the points raised by those musicians.
Deadpool is
that obnoxious teenage boy, screaming into the void in the vain hope
that someone will pay attention to it. From the word go, it commits –
you have to give it that, it really goes
for it – to that surface punk ethos of being a big, exhausting journey into a world of
faux-irreverence that would be mocked by the Looney Tunes
writers' room for trying so
painfully hard. Ryan Reynolds, as the “merc with a mouth”
anti-hero at the movie's center, talks in a register that is an
octave or so above his usual speaking voice, inflecting his every
line an Alvin and the Chipmunks fast-forward
effect. But unlike “The Chipmunk Song” that you hear every
holiday season, it lasts much longer than three minutes. It is
charming for none of those minutes.
It is
a movie that could stand to calm down a great deal. When it stops to
collect itself, like in its admittedly solid origin story
construction – bits of Deadpool/Wade Wilson's life are interspersed
via flashback throughout a single set piece along a stretch of
highway – Deadpool becomes
somewhat worthwhile. There is a hint of charm in Reynolds's
performance as the non-mutated version of the guy in the red suit,
even if his dialogue feels like it was written by an insecure
15-year-old imitating the wicked attitude of Shane Black (Kiss
Kiss Bang Bang) and Judd
Apatow's “razzing your buddies” putdowns, with constant
surface-level observational comedy delivered with a smug smirk.
Insecurity
is all over the film, with numerous references to how dumb comic book
movies are (there are multiple nods to Reynolds's other failed big
screen superhero, Green Lantern),
more specifically how dumb X-Men movies
are (steel-skinned Colossus is nothing but a wet blanket with a
Russian accent, and there are at least three instances of attempted
Wolverine takedowns), and how dumb it is, itself. Deadpool breaks the
fourth wall, literally Ferris Bueller-style,
to complain about the budget being too low, and the opening credits
have the sort of “we're so awful” detachment – it's
self-awareness without any self-respect.
Except,
in true unsure-of-itself-teenager fashion, it swings all the way
around to being fraudulently pleased with itself all the same,
without earning its self-regard. Deadpool, in voiceover, brags about
how the girlfriends in the audience must be so shocked by the sight
of him using his twin katana swords to stab a man through the chest
in slow motion, when it is barely any more violent than the PG-13
adventures of Wolverine and the X-Men proper. Its violence has been
far exceeded, and to more purposeful, satiric effect, in the R-rated
comic book adaptations by Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass,
Kingsman: The Secret Service).
Deadpool has no larger
meaning to its violence, no lesson to impart about the uselessness of
chaos. It revels in it because it's all a poorly constructed joke
delivered too rapidly to have any impact.
But
it's all right, Deadpool.
You can keep wearing your Rancid t-shirt and screaming for attention while you work on your
gel-encrusted mohawk.
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