Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, T.J Miller, Ed Skrein, Gina Carano, Brianna Hildebrand, Stefan Kapicic
Director: Tim Miller
Genre: Action, superhero
Duration: 108 minutes
Now showing: Cinema Magic Metroplex Mall Naalya and Century Cinemax Acacia Mall Kisementi
The last time Ryan Reynolds played a comic book character was in DC Comic’s Green Lantern. I do not blame you if you do not recall the movie. It was not memorable – one of those movies I like to pretend didn’t happen, not to Reynolds at least. So you will understand my nervousness when it was announced that Reynolds would be back to the comic character scene –this time as Marvel Comic’s Deadpool. But my nervousness was misplaced, something I should have known, considering this is Marvel Comics we are talking about. DC fans may find this hard to swallow but Marvel Comics shine on the silver screen –that may be more about Warner Bros vs Walt Disney respectively but you get it.
I digress. Books based on comics usually have something clean about them. Even amid all the violence they are usually movies you feel comfortable enough to sneak a child into. The same thing can’t be said about Deadpool. First, the plot.
Reynolds plays Wade Wilson whose life’s work is to protect girls from stalkers. Then his body gets hit by the Big C in the worst way. The cancer is in his liver, lungs, prostate and brain. Suffice to say, things look bad. Although his girlfriend Vanessa Carlysle (X-Men fans should recognise this name) tries to encourage him in vain. He, therefore, doesn’t need much convincing when he gets a chance to take part in an experiment that would heal him and give him superpowers. He even jokes about the experiment which I interpreted as a dig at his Green Lantern character – virtual hi-five if you notice it too.
However, the experiment goes awry, leaving Wilson looking like he went through a meat mincer that didn’t quite get the job done. He can’t bring himself to face Vanessa (Baccarin) and instead turns to a life of vigilantism with support from his best friend, Weasel (Miller). His mission, however, remains to hunt down Francis Freeman (Skrein) and Angel Dust (Carano), the duo behind his mutation.
The movie seems like your basic vigilante story. However, as I mentioned earlier, Deadpool is not what you’d expect. There is a lot of profanity, the violence is something that would fit in well in a Tarantino movie, and the humour is on the coarse side. In short, it is not a movie you take your children to. This has played a part to the movie’s popularity but doesn’t sit well for one who treats watching a movie with a masked superhero as a family affair.