Deadpool (2016)
February 11, 2016 2:05 AM - Subscribe

A former Special Forces operative turned mercenary is subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopting the alter ego Deadpool.

When comic book "artist" Rob Liefeld somehow got paid for drawing Deathstrike from the Teen Titans and writer Fabian Nicieza noticed and gave the character the real name of "Wade Wilson" as an inside-joke, Deadpool was broadly speaking born.
However it wan't until 1997 when Joe Kelly started writing the Deadpool standalone comic that the character really came to life. "With Deadpool, we could do anything we wanted because everybody just expected the book to be cancelled every five seconds, so nobody was paying attention. And we could get away with it."
posted by Just this guy, y'know (87 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
The movie studios have more confidence, the sequel has already be greenlit. (is greenlit a word?)
posted by sammyo at 3:56 AM on February 11, 2016


I realised after posting this that it's not yet released in the US. It was released yesterday here.
It's a good film though. I found that the trailer both did and did not do it justice. It's not nearly as crude overall as the trailers would suggest, it's smarter, and a lot of the funny comes from subverting the genre expectations of both film and of superhero film. I guess it's hard to really convey the genre and media convention breaking style in a trailer (although perhaps a lot of the alternate trailers did do that)
But it also succeeds in being a pretty good superhero film, sort of despite the genre breaking.

I'm not sure where you'd go with a sequel, more of the same? I suppose?
I'd watch that.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:22 AM on February 11, 2016 [4 favorites]


I saw it tonight and it was so so good. I will second just this guy that the humor was a lot better than I expected; I expected frat movie humor, and instead it was (while crude) very smart and very funny.

The music placements were excellent, the breaking of the fourth wall was handled deftly, and there were a ton of self-referencey comic book shout outs.

(It did not pass the bechdel test.)

My comment to a friend afterwards was "That was so not a movie for children. It was barely a movie for me. I can't wait for the sequel."
posted by joycehealy at 7:43 PM on February 11, 2016 [9 favorites]


not only a lot of self-references in this most excellent of movies, but a couple of cross-comic film universe references that I figure had to be handled *very* delicately due to licensing issues. But if you know your FOX vs. Marvel films, they'll be apparent to you. Also, for the Love of Gawd, stay to the very very end of the credits.
posted by alchemist at 4:01 AM on February 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


After it was over, we turned to each other and exclaimed "How the fuck did that get made?!"

Because it was pretty much pitch perfect adaptation of Deadpool from the comics, ampped up to wonderfully crass degree that earned its R rating. From the very beginning of the opening credits, the movie just delivered exactly what the trailers communicated.

A really nice touch was that the opening action scene was pretty much from the trailer. So once that was over, you were in the wonderful territory of not knowing exactly what was going to happen, which was a fun delight. And the 4th wall breaking and commentary was just so hilarious. "Colossus, why are you the only X-man in this picture? Makes me think this movie budget could only afford 1."

Colossus: "Come, we take you back to Professor and talk about this."
Deadpool: "Which one, Stewart or Malcavoy?

The cross cutting between what was happening now and the backstory was great. At this point in superhero films, origin stories are usually lame and best kept to a minimal. This one was handled with style and humor that made it enjoyable and not just slog.

Offhand, the only thing that was disappointing was that Pool's relationship with Al wasn't really explored, just felt kinda put there. Also, the action sequences were a touch too chaotic, a bit more of control so we could see everything would have been nice. But these are minor points, the movie was helluva lot of fun and I'll probably see it again at some point.

I just hope it does really well at the box office, so more R rated superhero/fantasy films appear.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:18 AM on February 12, 2016 [7 favorites]


"Colossus, why are you the only X-man in this picture? Makes me think this movie budget could only afford 1."

?
There was also Negasonic teenage warhead wasn't there?
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 7:11 AM on February 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


There was also Negasonic teenage warhead wasn't there?

More of Colossus's trainee and the Big C is more of third tier character in the movies, so NTW is even less than that.

So, technically you're correct, but that wasn't the point of the joke.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:20 AM on February 12, 2016


NO, true. Sorry I just remembered the line as him saying the studio could only afford 2 x-men and suddenly wondered if she was cut from some versions or something.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 7:26 AM on February 12, 2016 [3 favorites]


Yeah. I liked this far more than I expected to.

Would liked to have seen a little more genre-subversion (in a genre that desperately needs some), but Deadpool seemed really confident in what it set out to do, and did it well.
posted by schmod at 3:51 PM on February 12, 2016


Yeah, he says 2 X-Men, not 1.
posted by I-baLL at 6:22 PM on February 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


I went into the movies with my expectations set pretty low. I don't frequently enjoy comedy movies, because so much of it is slap-stick and fart jokes. Call me happily surprised! There was just enough of everything and not too much of the things I don't like. I agree with joycehealy's sentiment on the humor.
posted by INFJ at 2:40 PM on February 13, 2016


I also found the non-liner explanations of things enjoyable. For example, Deadpool stabs and pins Francis during the early portion's car-chase action sequence.. but we don't learn until after that, that Francis doesn't feel pain. That part made me pause and go: Oh, that's why he didn't seem bothered that Deadpool ran a sword through him..

There was a lot of really nice touches. I liked that we never saw Vanessa's boobs.. even with the sex scenes and her working in a stripper bar. To be honest, there seemed to me to be a good balanace of male-gaze and female-gaze gratuity.

I guess it was nice for an R rated movie to not throw all caution to the wind and include nudity for nudity's sake.
posted by INFJ at 2:53 PM on February 13, 2016 [7 favorites]


I mean, the full-frontal in the strip club was a bit gratuitous even for the setting, but we also had Deadpool fighting naked so it comes closer to evening out than most other movies with extraneous boobs.

In any case, this was the rare superhero movie that was exactly as good as I hoped it would be. There were tons of little touches and comic references that cracked me up (BOB! AGENT OF [COPYRIGHT VIOLATION OMITTED]! I did not expect that.), very few jokes that flopped, good fights and a surprising fidelity to the idea that Deadpool is such a jester because of his profoundly awful backstory.

Also, after his roles in three X-Men movies as "strong guy who never talks," it was nice for Colossus to have any personality at all, even if he was taking a page from Cyclops' most stick-in-the-mud self.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:56 PM on February 13, 2016 [7 favorites]


It worked, overall. Though as mrs graymouser said when we were leaving the theater, the love story was kind of "dumb dumb dumb." I mean, it was sweet and all, but a touch gratuitous and it did pull damsel-in-distress bullshit for its ending. The comedy was what made it, though it was darker than I was expecting.

I loved that they managed to make basically two fight sequences the core of the picture. The freeway battle was epic, and the thing I really liked about its use was that they told the origin without making you wait for the movie to become interesting like most superhero origins do.

I found this guide that goes through all the references and background material used in the film. It was one of the more dedicated superhero movies to using lore and background from the comics instead of just making shit up and using the broad strokes.

The moments that made it for me were the taxi rides (particularly the one with Colossus in the back seat) and the moment where Deadpool cuts off his own hand and still flips Colossus the bird.
posted by graymouser at 7:57 AM on February 14, 2016 [10 favorites]


I liked this as much, if not more, as I was hoping I would. My favorite joke was "Relax. . . and have a happy International Women's Day."

And along those lines, I was pleasantly surprised at how positive the (incredibly raunchy and perverse) sexuality was in the movie. I mean, it wasn't perfect, but overall it was very much on the enthusiastic and ongoing mutual consent side of things, with no undertones that a woman who enjoys sex must be damaged or unworthy in some way. There was nothing titillating or Lolita-y about Negasonic Teenage Warhead, not at ALL, either. I was really hoping the movie would stay away from that well, and I was very pleased that it pretty much did.
posted by KathrynT at 11:51 AM on February 14, 2016 [23 favorites]


I could have done with less torture hospital, but overall this movie was a much better experience than I expected. The opening credits were masterful.
posted by graventy at 12:10 PM on February 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Interesting interview with the guy who edited the movie. He hints at a number of things they tried to get the tone just right for this movie. There was more torture hospital, but they realized it went on too long, so they cut it back. They tried to tell in linearly, but it just didn't work, so they cut it up balance out the serious stuff with comedy. Really neat look at the creation process.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:22 PM on February 14, 2016 [6 favorites]


And along those lines, I was pleasantly surprised at how positive the (incredibly raunchy and perverse) sexuality was in the movie

Deadpool is the ONLY R-rated movie in American history to make over $100M on its opening weekend.

And it "shows" pegging.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:26 PM on February 14, 2016 [8 favorites]


One interesting reference I noticed was that Wade is wearing a Rent shirt during the whole discussion of whether or not he's going to leave, when they just used a series of holidays to tell a love story ultimately involving terminal illness. Which, you know, is pretty much what Rent did.
posted by graymouser at 5:50 PM on February 14, 2016 [20 favorites]


And it "shows" pegging.

‘Deadpool’ Pegged for $130 Million Debut, Setting Presidents Weekend Box Office Record

Headline writers live for this shit.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:22 PM on February 14, 2016 [15 favorites]


Saw it today and loved it. It's not the greatest movie, but it's the greatest possible Deadpool movie. They completely nailed (pegged?) the character and tone.
posted by Itaxpica at 7:30 PM on February 14, 2016


Wade and Nessa's calendar fuckfest was the most romantic falling-in-love montage in cinema history. I'm in awe.

For all the stupid jokes about guys "tricking" their girlfriends into watching Deadpool on Valentine's Day, the movie had all the emotional and story beats of a great romantic comedy.
posted by nicebookrack at 11:07 PM on February 14, 2016 [6 favorites]


Also, I can't speak for every couple but I wasn't the one who insisted on seeing it opening weekend....
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 5:23 AM on February 15, 2016 [8 favorites]


1. The building codes in this universe are appalling. Dr. Xavier needs to start training some civil engineers.

2. Are we supposed to believe that Deadpool has never bottomed?

Apart from that small bit of bottom-shaming, I also thought that the romance worked surprisingly well. I haven't seen many films portray affection this well.
posted by schmod at 9:47 AM on February 15, 2016 [5 favorites]




I've never been that big of a fan of Deadpool, but I changed my mind when I heard that Negasonic Teenage Warhead was going to be in it. She bears no similarity to the comic character with that name, except being a teenage girl, and that's OK, because Grant Morrison killed her off very early in his X-Men run (she's named after this song), and I always thought that it was a shameful waste of a great name. Plus, we got this great little moment, in the middle of a fight.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:28 PM on February 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


To be fair, with a name like that, she's only gonna last 7 years, tops.
posted by schmod at 2:30 PM on February 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


And along those lines, I was pleasantly surprised at how positive the (incredibly raunchy and perverse) sexuality was in the movie.

I liked that there was more naked DP than Vanessa, and that she wore a realistic waitress outfit, and put on a reasonable coat to go outside in rainy weather. AND THEN as "the kidnapped girlfriend for whom the hero will finally do as the villain asks", her character kept wearing the coat during the kidnapping and subsequent scenes-which had no rape threats!! She also set herself free and continued to see past his exterior appearance. And kudos to the fight scene for DP's deliberate throwing of the sword for her rescue even though it left him minus a weapon.

I want a movie about Vanessa.
posted by beaning at 6:19 PM on February 15, 2016 [13 favorites]


AND Vanessa uses the thrown sword to cut herself free and then stab the bad guy in the back! This movie didn't pass the Bechdel test, but all the prominent women characters got to kick ass.

I want a movie about Vanessa too! In the comics Vanessa / Copycat is a mutant with cool shapeshifting powers, but she also hits a lot of the Tragic Sex Worker tropes, and she was fridged to give Deadpool angst (until Marvel retconned her death). I was very pleasantly surprised that Vanessa survived this movie with both her life and dignity intact!

I'm not sure what future Movie Vanessa has with Wade or the X-Men, especially with Ryan Reynolds suggesting he'd like DP to get a boyfriend in future movies—but it would be great if the movies explored her own ties to X-Force, without Vanessa automatically ending up dead. Bonus: more Morena Baccarin!
posted by nicebookrack at 7:06 PM on February 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


When I saw Stan Lee's cameo, I immediately regretted that the memoir of his I worked on came out before this movie. Because that cameo begs to be added to the pages covering the cameos he's done.
posted by culfinglin at 8:55 PM on February 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


Well, that was a welcome hilarious antidote to the UltraSerious/ForKids comic book movie spectrum. As surprisingly sharp as Chronicle, much funnier than Rainn Wilson's Super, perfectly calibrated to fit into Fox's larger universe...just a generally great piece of loud, smutty American schlock.

Especially loved the raunchy sex and the casual homoerotic stuff throughout. Lots of action movies use queerness as a SCARY BUGABOO but you never get the sense that Deadpool (painful anal aside) is in any way horrified by queerness. That was really refreshing. Failing the Bechdel Test and the lack of any African-American role at all beyond the one guy who gets his head punched in the blow job scene are all I can think of as criticisms. (Well, that and making me guffaw at hideous bloodshed, which I'm sure is made easier because I live in a society where, so far anyway, I don't see massive numbers of body parts chopped off and blown up on a regular basis.)

Once I shrug those off it's the most fun action movie I've seen in a while, and that includes Fury Road.

‘Deadpool’ Pegged for $130 Million Debut

Ha. Including international sales it made over $280 million this weekend. Something tells me we'll be seeing more raunchy, sarcastic, self-referential superhero movies from mainstream Hollywood real soon.
posted by mediareport at 9:52 PM on February 15, 2016


omg you guys we are thisclose to a Nextwave movie definitely maybe becoming real

a world in which a hit movie has chibi Deadpool riding a cartoon unicorn that ejaculates rainbows is a world in which live-action Nextwave is a stronger possibility
posted by nicebookrack at 10:03 PM on February 15, 2016 [6 favorites]


"and the lack of any African-American role at all beyond the one guy who gets his head punched in the blow job scene"

Uhm, you might've missed one major African-American supporting character in the movie
posted by I-baLL at 10:18 PM on February 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


I meant major character, but yeah, she was funny.
posted by mediareport at 5:37 AM on February 16, 2016


(also, I was drunk :)
posted by mediareport at 5:45 AM on February 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


Saw Deadpool on Sunday and was overall really happy with it. The marketing has been so genius, I was a little worried that the movie wouldn't live up to all the hype they'd built.

I was a little horrified at how many people had brought their little kids with them at the showing I went to. Must have made for some interesting questions on the trip home.
posted by oh yeah! at 7:58 AM on February 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


In addition to the other things people have mentioned here, I liked the Hugh Jackman cut-out and the Ferris Bueller nod post-credits.

Yeah, Vanessa was a non-powered woman in a battle with a super-powered dude, so I can cut her some slack for being a damsel in distress. As was pointed out, she still extricated herself from the chamber, cutting herself in the process and managed to stab the dude and help DP, who I guess was a damoiseau in distress while she did that. There were plenty of ass-kicking females in this movie, and moreover Colossus got socked in the clams for being a cliché gentleman and protecting his opponent's modesty.

I was a little horrified at how many people had brought their little kids with them at the showing I went to.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I went yesterday after work and some dude who had brought his two three-ish-year-old children to the movie walked out after the pegging scene.
posted by tempestuoso at 8:03 AM on February 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


Oh, man, the best "bringing their kids to an R-rated movie" story that I have is when I went to see the movie, Road Trip, in theatres. The guy in front of me brought his kid who looked no older than 3 and in one scene an older lady gives the main female character a vibrator and the 3-year old kid in front of me literally said: "Hey, look, Dad, it's a vibrator!"

To this day, I can't imagine how the kid learned about them.
posted by I-baLL at 8:35 AM on February 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


Saw someone bring a kid who couldn't have been more than 4 to Kill Bill Vol. 1. Couldn't hear what the kid was saying, but it sounded like a question. FFS.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:13 AM on February 16, 2016


Speaking of the portrayal of women:

(1) It's a small thing, but I like that they let Vanessa be actually angry at Wade, and then repulsed by his deformity, before inevitably pledging to stick with him. Makes her more of a character and less of a trophy, especially after she'd been absent or damseled for much of the movie.

(2) The way Gina Carano was costumed and shot as is exactly how I wish WB would treat Wonder Woman on film. The only time the camera didn't emphasize her strength was the "wardrobe malfunction" gag, and hey, even Colossus got a couple of crotch close-ups. Fair's fair.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:25 PM on February 16, 2016 [8 favorites]


(1) It's a small thing, but I like that they let Vanessa be actually angry at Wade, and then repulsed by his deformity, before inevitably pledging to stick with him. Makes her more of a character and less of a trophy, especially after she'd been absent or damseled for much of the movie.

Interesting, one of the things I liked about Vanessa was that she never damseled. At worse, she was out of her league with Ajax and Angel, so couldn't literally defeat them. But she did what she could. Hell, just the fact that she tried was huge step. Damn, the bar has been pretty low, hasn't it?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:24 PM on February 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


Oh, I definitely appreciated her freeing herself and stabbing Ajax too, but she was still kidnapped by the bad guy and used as the motivating factor to bring the hero to their final showdown (at a junkyard, no less!), and usually that comes with certain relationship tropes that are subverted way less often than the rescue itself.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:36 PM on February 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


Such a fun movie, with unexpected depth in the relationship between Wade and Vanessa. I knew the basics about Deadpool, although I never read many of his comics, and saw the movie with my husband, whose only exposure to the character was the trailers for the movie I played him. We both had a great time, partly because my husband is a sucker for an absurd and scatalogical insult and was thus in his element, partly because the movie was such a brisk, funny ride with good action and enough depth so that you actually cared about the story and weren't there just for the boom-bam.
I want more Negasonic Teenage Warhead.

I wonder if this movie could actually get me into the X-Men movie franchise, which I had given up on early in the game despite those comics being the ones I was most involved in. A really great, R-rated Gambit movie would be fantastic, even if I'm dubious about Channing Tatum being right for the part.
posted by PussKillian at 6:47 AM on February 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm not saying it's funny to chop someone's head off, and then hook kick it into someone else's face. But I couldn't stop incredulously whispering "whaaa" with a gleeful smile on my face during the fight scenes.
posted by P.o.B. at 10:04 AM on February 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


Quick question, does anyone recall Ajax short little speech as he was first putting Wade into the oxygen chamber? It got mumbly for me. Something about "I could blahblahblah... but I don't care."
Also, didn't Colossus carry both Negasonic and Angel Dust out of the explosion?
posted by P.o.B. at 10:18 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I-baLL: To this day, I can't imagine how the kid learned about them.

As a parent of two young boys, I can imagine a number of ways kids learned about a vibrator. Kids who get into everything + kids who are inquisitive + parents who don't lock up all their "adult" items + parents who don't soften adult topics (but at the same time don't make them explicit) = lots of opportunities for life lessons at an early age.

I kind of overlooked the fact this was rated R, and was surprised about the (healthy, fun) sex. I mentally lumped this with all the PG-13 comic book movies. I'll ditto everyone who was pleasantly surprised at how much fun this was, and how much gender balance there was. Given the source material, pretty good job all around.


Quick question, does anyone recall Ajax short little speech as he was first putting Wade into the oxygen chamber? It got mumbly for me. Something about "I could blahblahblah... but I don't care."

Wasn't it something about keeping him in there for the whole weekend? Something about that much time being excessive and unnecessary, and he could be kind and limit to the maximum strain necessary to awaken his mutant genes, but he didn't care enough to be nice.

Also, didn't Colossus carry both Negasonic and Angel Dust out of the explosion?

Yup, and apparently Angel Dust disappeared from later shots. Plot hole or a crumb in the trail to the next movie?
posted by filthy light thief at 10:37 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


I enjoyed this.

I really should not watch trailers though because I a) would prefer going in without knowing some of the jokes and b) get super annoyed when there's something in the trailer that doesn't make it in the movie.

Vanessa had a line about not being a damsel in distress in one of the trailers, but it was nowhere to be seen in the movie, which was a bit of a let down.
posted by ODiV at 10:48 AM on February 18, 2016


ODiV: I really should not watch trailers though because I ... get super annoyed when there's something in the trailer that doesn't make it in the movie.

This is weird to me - I guess movies are still being shaped when trailers get distributed, but you'd think key moments seen in trailers wouldn't get cut from the theatrical version of the movie, but this happens enough that missing trailer scenes is a category on TV Tropes, which opens with a preamble on why this happens:
Most trailers are put together by companies that have no idea what is or is not going to get cut from the film, but this doesn't really help the poor bastard that only came to see the scene that didn't make it in.

This may, however, be justified by the fact that the movie is still being edited as the trailers are released. Since the editing process may take months and sometimes only finish mere weeks before the theatrical release, it is rather common for the trailer scenes to either become a Deleted Scene or be replaced by an alternate take in the final cut.

In fact, such scenes can be found in nearly every movie with a sufficient amount of promotional material.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:58 AM on February 18, 2016


I think the missing trailer scene there gets explained in the film editor interview linked above, explaining why things got cut:
For instance, when the main character’s girlfriend gets kidnapped, we had a whole bunch of funny jokes during or after [the] kidnapping. [We were] just like, "This is not going to work." They're funny, but this is the wrong place to laugh, because now you're no longer engaged with the emotional stakes of "I've got to get my girl back." So, we kind of treat that emotionally, really, for whatever, 60 seconds, and then we get back into jokes. And so it's like, there's enough for you to digest the emotional reality of the situation and then get back into being Deadpool, and so it was kind of finding that balance.
Apparently they felt that Vanessa being a snarky badass there while being kidnapped undercut the seriousness of her actually being kidnapped.
posted by nicebookrack at 1:41 PM on February 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


That's too bad that they cut Vanessa being a bad ass while being kidnapped. I waited the whole film for her to say that line from the trailer about not being a damsel in distress and punching Ajax.

Ah well, it was still an amazing movie.
posted by patheral at 10:16 AM on February 19, 2016


Also, I don't think having Angel Dust disappear after the helicarrier blew up is a plot hole. I mean, couldn't Colossus have secured her in (what he thought was) a safe place? It's not out of the realm of possibilities. She was unconscious after all if he was carrying her out.
posted by patheral at 10:19 AM on February 19, 2016


I'm not sure I understand. Is the idea behind the "plot hole" that Colossus wouldn't give Deadpool a speech while a villain escapes off camera... again?

And not to overthink it here, but the Vanessa stuff from the trailer is wasn't a cut "scene", but at least two separate ones (line and punch). Pretty sure she wasn't saying the line when being kidnapped, but later on, possibly before being tied up for the final confrontation. The punch is not her hitting Ajax, but Angel, when she tries to get away from Ajax in the alley.
posted by ODiV at 10:36 AM on February 19, 2016


Saw it last night, agree with most of the comments here, but additionally I really enjoyed the scenes with Al. The Ikea thing was hilarious, and I think one of the funniest lines in the whole movie was Deadpool telling her he had stashed many kilos of cocaine somewhere in the house, "along with the cure for blindness".
posted by A dead Quaker at 7:53 AM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]


Please Hollywood, make more movies with a sense of humor like this. Though not too derivative. I will give you all my money, thanks. Deadpool is now my second favorite superhuman next to Taylor Hebert.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:21 PM on February 21, 2016


And on rewatch I have to say I don't find the pegging scene to be bottom shaming. I didn't say anything based on my first impression because I thought I might have missed something, but to me the scene is simple.

It's very erotic, they are both willing to try it, one partner quickly realizes it's a no go, and then it immediately stops. That's the ideal model for partners experimenting together with something that ends up not working, imo.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:57 AM on February 22, 2016 [3 favorites]


On the second viewing, it read as reluctance to try it and not enjoying it. For a Deadpool movie, I would have expected him to be all about it, if not at first, then certainly in the midst of it. Because Deadpool. And Vanessa. Raunchy seemed to be their thing.

Then add in the fact that it was International Women's Day and Wadepool is acting like a reluctant kid and it's easy to see how people would read that scene in all sorts of ways.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:01 AM on February 22, 2016


Things I liked:
  • It was short. That's not a backhanded compliment...it was pleasingly retro for a superhero movie to run just 100 minutes.
  • It's a superhero team-up film where the other heroes were seemingly picked out of a hat. Again, not an insult! I loved that it felt like a random issue of a comic between story arcs, like "Okay, Colossus and one of the teenage mutants are in this one-shot issue, right on."
  • The shotgun approach to the humor. The meta stuff and the fourth wall breaking didn't do it for me, but Deadpool (and the film itself) keeping up a constant stream of quips and non-sequiturs meant I was laughing at least every fourth or fifth joke.
  • It felt lived in, in a way that none of the other big name movies do. In this film, Colossus finds out about Deadpool's rampage from the kitchen TV while he's eating cereal. Imagine how Bryan Singer would have staged the same scene: everyone in some sort of war room, already in costume, with 15 widescreen panels showing different angles, satellite shots, HUDs, etc etc.
  • Related to the above I really loved that they let Francis have a scene early on, when he's pinned to the bridge, that showed even him smirking at one of Deadpool's putdowns. It didn't really humanize him—his characterization was pretty weak—but it at least made him feel a bit more relatable.
  • My favorite part of the film was by far the scene where they let Wilson cry about his diagnosis. Fuck, that was great, and I'm so glad that the movie didn't play it off as him just being sad for his girlfriend. I can't think of another superhero franchise, not even in the MCU, that would let its hero be so realistically vulnerable. That, and not the humor or the R rating, felt like the real revelation of the film.
The things I didn't like can mostly be chalked up to the movie just not being made for me, which is fine. But I will say that I felt the movie was a little soggy in the middle. Once we got out of the initial flashback, and especially once we got to the hospital, the film started to drag a bit. I know they had to cut $7M out of the budget at the last minute, and I feel like whatever they cut was replaced with hospital scenes.
posted by Ian A.T. at 11:23 AM on February 22, 2016 [7 favorites]


"In this film, Colossus finds out about Deadpool's rampage from the kitchen TV."

I love that its clear that the x-Men and DP know each other and that the former know him well enough to want to recruit him. So simple and establishs a larger world for the movie and characters.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:40 AM on February 22, 2016 [6 favorites]


I just saw this in Malaysia. Asides from the pegging scene (and apparently the IWD line???) the rest of the movie made it unscathed by censors. All the swear words and crotch shots and gore and EVERYTHING. Normally this would be grounds for a ban but somehow it all lives.

Deadpool's cool but I wish he'd pay Dopinder.
posted by divabat at 6:38 AM on February 23, 2016 [13 favorites]


Speaking of Dopinder, I feel pretty bad for him. It's bad enough that the police are going to find him at the scene of an accident with his cousin in his trunk. I mean, that's on him. But they're also gonna find a whole bag full of (I assume) unlicensed guns.

I'd love it if DP2 opens with Wade visiting Dopinder at the prison and apologizing for that, before getting on with the Cable action.

Also, Keira Knightly for Cable, for sure! Cable is such a ridiculous character, and there's no real reason why he can't be she. Just genderswap it and run with it. If people complain, well, it's Deadpool! He told you!
posted by explosion at 10:52 AM on February 24, 2016 [4 favorites]


Female Cable
posted by FallowKing at 11:24 PM on February 24, 2016 [4 favorites]


Ryan Reynolds is a dude, so he can be the recent sank-like-heavy-elements Green Lantern movie and still get to make this flick. Which is a good thing because this was as hilarious as I hoped, and kept not going to places that I expect R rated movies to go. Lots of positive sexuality discussion, no sexualized violence, and Morena Baccarain is just the woman to tell Wade he's being an asshole.

Fuckin hilarious. And, yeah, Kiera Knightly for Cable. Sure!
posted by rmd1023 at 5:28 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was disappointed at how seriously the movie took itself. There was plenty of riffing, but there was still enough love story and torture dungeon and emoting about revenge that through much of it I was squirming with a mix of boredom and embarrassment. In an action-comedy, that kind of po-faced stuff is a torture dungeon of its own.

I wanted something a lot more camp. A non-stop action setpiece with big Batman '66 sound effects. This was just a pretty conventional superhero movie with a blue streak.
posted by painquale at 2:32 PM on February 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


I was disappointed at how seriously the movie took itself.

DID YOU NOT SEE THE CREDITS?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:12 PM on February 26, 2016 [4 favorites]


Finally saw this and I'm not sure if I loved it but had a great time. There was a trailer for the next Brian Singer X-Men film before this and after watching this, it's going to be hard to go back to watching self-serious and bloated stuff like that again.
posted by octothorpe at 7:15 PM on February 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


I totally thought it didn't take itself seriously in JUST the right ways, and can't wait to go see it again.

As someone with zero background to the character, I delighted in the humour, pacing, acting and was even more so delighted with the break of the 4th (16th?) wall.

For someone who goes to the theatre once or twice a year, this will be a rare situation (first time actually) where I'm plotting to go see it again, in the theatre.
posted by olya at 3:28 PM on February 28, 2016 [2 favorites]


Went last night, finally (thanks, toddler), and enjoyed it but not quite as much as I thought I might.

(BOB! AGENT OF [COPYRIGHT VIOLATION OMITTED]! I did not expect that.)

I missed this somehow. When was it?

I really loved Negasonic smarting off to Colossus about the benefits of being an X-Man. A house that blows up every few years? Matching unitards?

Ryan Reynolds is a dude, so he can be the recent sank-like-heavy-elements Green Lantern movie and still get to make this flick.

Don't make my costume green! Or animated! Not to mention the trading card in someone's wallet in the opening flipping-car scene. Nice nod there with the coffee cup with "ROB L" written on it.

I think my favorite of those was the one that's not lampshaded at all, when Al sends Wade over to the recruiter with something like "Maybe it'll move the plot along."
posted by phearlez at 6:41 AM on February 29, 2016 [3 favorites]


They verbally name-checked Liefeld as well.

I'm so happy that Negasonic was not "sexy goth teen", particularly after seeing some of the concept art on io9, here
posted by rmd1023 at 10:04 AM on February 29, 2016


I saw that io9 article and I agree, but you realize that the concept art was based on the original character (who was in a total of three comics). I'm glad they went with the unitard too, but I don't blame them for starting with the original character.

(BOB! AGENT OF [COPYRIGHT VIOLATION OMITTED]! I did not expect that.)

I missed this somehow. When was it?


It was in the third act when Deadpool was fighting all of the agents. He spared "Bob" from Jacksonville. Knocked him out instead, asked about his wive, &c...
posted by patheral at 10:36 AM on February 29, 2016


Oh I took it to mean - and it seemed sensible given the other things in the movie - that there was an outright line as quoted above. "Bob! Agent of [dubbed over]!"
posted by phearlez at 11:08 AM on February 29, 2016


I agree with painquale. I did not like this movie. I didn't know much about Deadpool or this movie, but based on what I'd heard I thought this was going to be the superhero version of last year's Spy -- a really funny, not very serious take on a familiar genre.

Instead this was much straighter and more conventional than I was expecting. It hit all the regular beats of an origin film, the character is simply an X-rated, adult Spiderman, and the flashback structure of the film most closely resembled an episode of CSI. I was particularly disappointed by the opening credits -- I thought 'a British villain,' 'some hot chick,' etc. were brought up as foils to be dismissed and that none of these characters would appear in the film. Silly me.

I particularly disliked the torture scenes in the middle. Their evocations of recent American torture, including waterboarding and Abu Ghraib-style electrocution, were at best tasteless and at worst cynically exploiting some of the US's most heinous acts.

I did like the pizza delivery scene toward the beginning, and the reappearance of the taxi driver toward the end. Morena Baccarin made the best of a fairly cliche character, and T. J. Miller was great.

To me its 'maturity' mostly came through in its vulgarity, which made it seem a 16-year-old's imagination of adulthood. My father, the diehard comic book lover, rated it a 5 out of 10, and I'd tend to agree.
posted by crazy with stars at 11:05 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


Just went to see this with Mr. Freedom - he's the Deadpool fan. I thought it was hilarious but the middle dragged a lot. I don't think it was too MUCH "torture hospital", per se, but it just didn't skip by as quickly or as gleefully as the rest of it.

I was bummed that this bit from the trailers was cut out.

The music I think was the most masterful part of it. Extremely, extremely well done. Great choices.

Also, right at the end, someone was carrying a copy of Hugh Jackman's "Sexiest Man Alive" People Magazine issue, and for some reason that was the funniest part to me!
posted by chainsofreedom at 2:28 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also, happy International Women's Day today, everyone. Hope you're celebrating. :-D
posted by chainsofreedom at 5:33 AM on March 8, 2016 [10 favorites]


The best part to me was that the whole revenge thing was pointless. Francis couldn't fix him and Vanessa didn't care anyway.

Well that and when he threw the hubcap at Francis on the bridge. Actually the whole Colossus fight sequence was hilarious.
posted by fshgrl at 7:50 PM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]




Finally saw this. Over the top but fun.

Had a thought though... "There's no cure" for his deformity, but he can regenerate baby smooth hands? Why not cut off his entire cheeks? Then carve the flesh off his forehead. Then his nose and ears. Then scalp him. Shouldn't that produce all new tissue with no deformity?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:41 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


"There's no cure" for his deformity, but he can regenerate baby smooth hands?

They might start out baby smooth, then the rest of the tumors spread back in.
posted by radwolf76 at 12:46 AM on March 29, 2016


Yeah, the implication is his mutation is essentially his cancer. His whole body is one giant tumor, growing out of control but harnessed into a beneficial form. If I were him I'd look into getting some synthetic skin masks (just keep them out of direct sunlight).

My wife and I watched it last night, and I enjoyed all the comic book callbacks, especially the references to the MCU. I don't know what's sillier, the fact Marvel movies are split down the middle (with very strictly negotiated borders) or the fact to really enjoy them you need to have watched many hours of the movies that came before. I liked the action figure referencing the shitty Deadpool from the wolverine movie, and while as the strip club scene's boobs were gratuitous I thought it was refreshing to have a movie strip club that actually looked like a strip club (I'm looking at you, Sin City).

Also last time I checked, Colossus can turn his skin off and on, so I guess keeping him metal at all times is done for comedy effect. I mean, what's funnier than a living Soviet statue eating Cheerios?
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:17 AM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


If I were him I'd look into getting some synthetic skin masks (just keep them out of direct sunlight).

He's learning to live with a lot of things.
posted by phearlez at 8:18 AM on May 9, 2016


Honest Trailers (feat. Deadpool)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:18 PM on May 10, 2016


Watched this again last night and noticed a Bitcoin sign in the bar which was pretty funny all by itself.
posted by ODiV at 9:16 PM on May 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


I enjoyed this! Definitely didn't expect to see a sort of reworking of the Four Yorkshiremen Sketch incorporated, which was definitely a nice surprise.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:32 PM on May 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ryan Reynolds Personally Paid for Bea Arthur's Likeness. That's dedication to the role.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 5:20 AM on June 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


Good movie. Managed a real comic book feel EG: the numbers on the primers.
posted by Mitheral at 10:12 AM on October 6, 2016


Everyone talked about how this was some subversion of the genre or something, but it was just a totally standard origin story movie with some Family Guy humor. Boring, mostly, aside from the fight scenes which were ok, and too low in number compared to paper thin character building and Ryan Reynolds getting tediously tortured. Not good.
posted by codacorolla at 8:39 PM on January 21, 2017


OK this was fun. I liked the idea (as long as it lasted) that being an angry asshole was his super power.
posted by rhizome at 12:31 PM on January 5, 2020


> The best part to me was that the whole revenge thing was pointless. Francis couldn't fix him and Vanessa didn't care anyway.

If Wade had just gone home to Vanessa, Francis probably would have never learned he was still alive and even if he did probably wouldn't have bothered to come after him.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 9:48 AM on June 8, 2021


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