Yuh-oh—are we in for Yet Another Formulaic Comic Superhero Movie? On paper, Deadpool might seem that way. Its origin story sets up the launch of a brooding hero and a distressed damsel. Its cast is made up mostly of archetypes, including comic relief, stern ally, and bitter villain. Heck, its time-frozen, Matrix-styled intro, in which a climactic action scene is frozen so that cameras can spin all around it, has been done a bazillion times.

Luckily for us, this is Deadpool we're talking about. Marvel's latest comic-to-film conversion wastes no time in forcefully asserting itself as a very different kind of superhero flick.



Marvel







Marvel

Joe Lederer/Marvel





The film's first moment of weirdness arrives only seconds into the runtime, when that opening sequence starts flashing unusual text crawls. Instead of the usual production company credit, we're told this is "some douchebag's film" directed by "an overpaid tool" whose stars include "a moody teen," "a British villain," and "god's perfect idiot"—in this case, Ryan Reynolds, whose real-life face briefly floats between dead and dying bodies on the cover of People magazine.

It's a fitting start for a movie based on the anti-comic series with the ultimate anti-hero. The rest of the film's two-hour runtime is spent doing a lot of what made Marvel's Deadpool comics so popular when they launched in the early '90s: sending up comic-book clichés with a liberal smattering of ultraviolence, curse-word bombs, and penis joke after penis joke after penis joke. (By the way, DO NOT TAKE YOUR KIDS TO THIS MOVIE. Don't even think about it.)

At its best, Deadpool mocks the action movie universe while supercharging its source material with unforgettable twists. At its worst, the film falls prey to typical action-movie issues like slow pacing and painfully unsurprising plot tentpoles—the kind of stuff that series newcomers will detest and fans will forgive. And in spite of some other nagging issues, the film survives almost entirely on Ryan Reynold's shoulders, as he turns in a best-in-genre performance to lift the film's fun, sarcastic mess to great, bloody heights.

Gargling what?!

The film revolves around Deadpool's origin story, already a warning flag for any series purist. After all, the Deadpool character often poked fun at the idea of a rigid origin story and made readers wonder if he was actually the original man in question. Here, we're given a rigidly defined story of an ex-Special Forces agent named Wade Wilson (Reynolds) who picks up odd vigilante jobs for cash—and apparently has a heart of gold hidden beneath his sarcastic, threatening exterior.

Like the comic version of Deadpool, the film's Wade winds up diagnosed with incredibly invasive cancer and takes a mysterious-sounding offer of treatment from a shady, militaristic organization. His Special Forces background would be useful, he's told, and they'll hook him up with incredible powers while curing his cancer. Unlike the comic version, this all goes down just as Wade falls madly for a woman named Vanessa (played by Morena Baccarin of Firefly and Homeland fame). By the way, that's not the Vanessa "Copycat" Carlysle from the comics but rather a more generic woman with a similar, troubled past—and to the film's credit, their love story's development is swift, funny, and replete with a sense of empowerment on both sides.

The story takes a turn when Wade leaves Vanessa without a trace—not wanting to say goodbye in case he didn't survive the treatment—and goes through tortuous treatment until he's both cured and imbued with super-strength and regenerative tissue, along with disgusting, disfiguring scarring all over his face and body. The rest of the movie revolves around Wade looking for Ajax (Ed Skrein), the superpowered man who oversaw his torture, with hopes of being healed by the one man who knows how to do it.

That's really it. Wade gets cancer, Wade finds a weird cure, Wade seeks revenge on one person, Wade tracks that one person down. But man, does he and this film's crew have a rollicking time along the way.

Visual gags, fourth-wall bursts, out-of-nowhere pop-culture references, knowing winks about real-life stories, ill-fitting soundtrack choices, hilarious curse-word portmanteaus, and exploitation-level violence burst from the edges of nearly every scene in the film. We'll spare you the annoyance of having those gags spoiled, but unexpected wounds to certain body parts and phrases like "gargling balls" set the tone for this film's dialogue and visual vocabulary. This film is beyond the taste threshold set by pretty much any other major comic book film ever released. You've been warned.

While the film's sense of humor hovers around "average American teenaged boy," this version of Deadpool actually retreats tastefully from some of the more woman-hating content found in the anti-hero's earliest comic appearances—back when he emerged as a virulent reaction to 1990s PC posturing. That's not to say Reynolds' Deadpool is in any way a feminist hero, but his jokes about sex and violence usually tilt more toward "weird" than "hateful," which I appreciated. I laughed hard and I laughed frequently—and I gotta admit, I went into convulsive fits after the film's funniest masturbation-related joke. You'll know it when you see it, and you'll definitely see it.

In less nimble hands, this material may very well have fallen flat, but we as viewers and Deadpool fans really lucked out with Ryan Reynolds. The actor was clearly born to play this role, jumping from sarcastic to cutting to pained to painful at a moment's notice, all while nailing his every comedic and action-filled beat with equal aplomb. Reynolds is a better Deadpool than Hugh Jackman is a Wolverine, or Christian Bale is a Batman, and he's nose-to-nose with Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man.

Cutting the Cable

Up until now, I've described a film that could annoy newcomers and leave longtime Deadpool fans plenty pleased. But there's a really weird vice-versa situation at play here, and it comes in the form of Deadpool's canon and licensing issues.

Should you arrive at a Deadpool screening with high hopes for X-Men or X-Force character cameos or other strides toward comics continuity, you've got another thing coming. 20th Century Fox is behind this film, though Marvel Studios/Disney own most of Marvel's intellectual property, and the result is a world seemingly disconnected from the greater Marvel universe.

There are even disconnects with the Deadpool comics themselves, much to the movie's detriment. Ajax, for example, is a much more toothless supervillain than the one who brutalized the comic version of Wade Wilson, which negatively affects that entire portion of Deadpool's origin tale by opening up gaping plot and logic holes. In fact, the entire "how Wade turned into Deadpool" portion of the movie drags in both length and pacing so much that it borders on the edge of satire in practice.

Meanwhile, Vanessa lacks both the mutant abilities and duplicitous origin story of the Vanessa found in the comics, while the sole X-Men cameos from D-list characters Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead are hampered by overly droll performances. We didn't necessarily need X-Force's Cable as a right-hand man for this film to feel exciting, nor did we need to see Deadpool's comic love interest Siryn slink around for true authenticity. But we sure would've liked to see a good cast of momentum-building characters or a heartier dive into the Deadpool comics' range of globe-trotting, eyebrow-raising vigilante missions to beef up what plot actually exists here. That's not to discount the monumentally spot-on work by comedy titan TJ Miller (Silicon Valley) as Wade's friend and mission assistant Weasel, but he's the only other notable actor to really make a mark alongside Reynolds here.

It's up to Reynolds to pick up a lot of the film's slack—and deliver cutting insults about the film itself, particularly its licensing issues within the Marvel universe. In good news, he is successful enough to edge Deadpool into "gotta see it" territory. But only just so. The action scenes are solid, the pacing is rough, and the cast is serviceable, but the Deadpool-caliber gags, as well as they're written, truly shine when delivered by Reynolds. He is the reason why you'll remember this film's funniest, most intense moments—until Marvel reappears with a worthy Deadpool sequel, hopefully replete with some actual plot and worthy mutant companions.

Listing image by Marvel