Deadpool is almost exactly what you'd expect it to be. Like the antihero at its bloody, boisterous core, it's loud, stupid and full of crude jokes, with wild lashings of cartoonish violence. All of this you'd expect from its trailers. What the marketing clips didn't let on, however, is the heart beneath the beheadings and fart gags that makes Ryan Reynolds' long-awaited superhero comedy a surprisingly emotional ride.
For a long time, the odds seemed stacked against the Merc with a Mouth's standalone film debut. Made on a small budget, with a difficult balance of superhero action and meta-comedy to get right, it's been in on-again off-again development hell for more than a decade.
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Add to this the fact that Fox's last Marvel movie was box office bomb Fantastic Four, and you'd be forgiven for being nervous. Especially given the character's poorly-handled previous screen outing as fodder for Hugh Jackman's sharp-knuckled mutant in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
But first time director Tim Miller's passion and persistence in getting Deadpool to screen is ultimately all worth it. Reynolds is great as Wade Wilson, a mentally-unhinged, super-powered cancer survivor whose mouth is always running. Given healing powers after a medical experiment gone awry, he's able to slice and dice through armies of criminal goons with near-invincibility.
Joining him are his sometime-girlfriend Vanessa (Firefly and Gotham's Morena Baccarin) and comedian TJ Miller as his comically unsupportive barman sidekick Weasel. Game of Thrones' Ed Skrein's sociopathic arms dealer type Ajax doesn't quite reach Loki levels of loveable supervillain bastardry, but he gives it a good bash, while Fast and Furious 6's Gina Carano is silently imposing as super-strong lieutenant Angel Dust.
The opening sequence will ring familiar to those who saw Tim Miller's test footage that leaked online in 2012, sparking a online campaign for a full movie. A car chase played out in slow-motion hyper-violence, punctuated with wisecracks, it electric-shock-starts the movie as it means to go on. From there it's a rush of hilarious, impressive action, chemistry and humour.
Not every gag lands, but Deadpool is off onto the next one before a dud properly registers. They're the kind of stupid jokes that drunk friends might say to each other at a party when no one else is listening – far from PC, but not malicious either. Take Weasel's reaction to Wade's newly scarred face and the repeated wishes for his grisly death.
Of course, no superhero film debut can be without its obligatory origin story. Instead of telling the story of how Wade became Deadpool straight, however, it's teased out cleverly over flashbacks that break things up nicely here. Each one's a bit of a breather, delving into a past that's subtly heartbreaking as Wade and Vanessa vow to battle the former's cancer diagnosis.
It's a genuine pleasure to see Reynolds shine in a role that he's clearly been waiting to return to since Fox made an utter mess of it in Wolverine. He's had seven years to dwell on that indignity, which might be why he commits so hard to the role here, utterly inhabiting all sides of his character.
It helps that his chemistry with Baccarin is electric throughout. Their relationship touches despite their constant sex montages, giving something to genuinely root for amid the inevitable superhuman dustup of act three. Elsewhere, newcomer Brianna Hildebrand shines as the X-Men's Negasonic Teenage Warhead, pulling out every disaffected teenager cliché on demand and adding even more sardonic laughs to Deadpool's pile.
Deadpool does an impressive job of bringing its insane and loveable anti-hero to life, with energy and a level of detail that marks it apart. It's not for everyone, of course, but what did you expect? For fans of the Merc with the Mouth, Deadpool is everything we could ask it to be.
Director: Tim Miller; Screenwriters: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick; Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, TJ Miller, Ed Skrein; Running time: 106 mins; Certificate: 15
