Jon The Blogcentric

Surprise, this is a different kind of superhero story.

DISCLAIMER: I know this review is late. I’ll admit that this is a common thing of mine that right after the Oscars, I become too tired to do blogging for a while. So please excuse the lateness of my review.

Just before the Oscars were about to be awarded, I admit that I went to see Deadpool. All this buzz about an R-rated superhero movie and setting box office records for R-rated movies. I was tempted to see it. I’m glad I did.

Now I will admit that this was a big risk for Marvel to release an anti-hero movie especially since they’ve had many a comic book hero made legendary because of their movies. They have a reputation  of delivering entertaining movies that win big at the box office and even give children, as well as kids at heart, heroes with positive messages.

Deadpool is something else. Actually Deadpool is not a made-for-the-movies anti-hero. Deadpool was created by a Marvel comics cartoonist back in 1991 for another comic series as a supervillain.However Deadpool’s popularity evolved over the years since. Yeah, like I said in my review of Straight Outta Compton, anti-heroes and jerk characters were all the rage in the 90’s more than any other decade.

The surprisingly mammoth success of Deadpool came as a surprise. I think it was a big success because Deadpool reminded us of our like of anti-authority jerks back in the 90’s. Gangsta rap may have had a lot to do with it but but it was like our thirst for jerk character after jerk character was unquenchable back then. Mind you Deadpool had to come at the right time in order for us to be won over by him. I felt that releasing a movie like Deadpool in February was a smart idea. The summer time is the time for superhero characters that are family-friendly. The ones that are meant to win the biggest movie crowds of the season. A February release was better because there’s not as much competition at the box office. And it paid off big-time with the first-ever February opening weekend of $100 million or more.

It should be no surprise that Ryan Reynolds was back as Deadpool for his first-ever feature-length film. It should be a fact that Reynolds was cast as Deadpool since he was described in a 2004 Marvel cartoon as ‘Ryan Reynolds morphed with a shar-pei.’ Reynolds himself even played Deadpool in a 2009 X-Men movie. Here Reynolds was funny as one of those hateable characters whom you actually end up liking for some dumb reason. Morena Baccarin was also good as Vanessa, the one person that can actually keep Wade’s head on his shoulders. Actually Vanessa’s love for Deadpool and her ability to bring him to his senses is what keeps him from being completely hateable.

Ed Skrein was good as the villain but came across as basic as your typical villain in popcorn movies with nothing that really stood out. Tim Miller did very good as a first-time director. Giving such a film like Deadpool to a first-time director could have been seen as a gamble for Marvel but Tim did things right. Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were not first-timers. In fact Deadpool is their third feature-length script. They do a very good job in giving the film the needed humor and sass for such a character like Deadpool.

Possibly the most surprising thing about Deadpool has to be its surprisingly huge box-office success. The $132.4 million it made in its opening weekend shattered opening weekend records for the month of February, the winter season and for R-rated movies. It also became the first ever R-rated movie to have an opening weekend of $100 million. As of now its $346.9 million makes it the third-highest grossing R-rated movie ever. The record is held by The Passion Of The Christ with $370.8 million. It’s possible it could break the record as it held onto #5 this past weekend in its sixth week of release.

Now there’s already talk about a Deadpool sequel. I’m not surprised about that given the success of the movie. There’s also been talk of more R-rated superhero films in the future. I will say that the box office success of Deadpool may fuel the desire to shell more of them out but Deadpool’s success is not a guarantee toward a new phenomenon of R-rated superhero movies. Sure, I was entertained by a smart-aleck wise-cracking anti-hero but I’ll bet if another one was shelled out, I’d be tired of them. I will admit this film does kind of remind us how we still have a liking for anti-heroes although not unlimited like it was in the 90’s. It’s not the case like back then when the jerk phenoms won us over but made everyone else who weren’t like them either look like a joke or look forgettable. Sure we may like an anti-hero like Deadpool but I’m sure by now, we prefer our jerk-characters and anti-heroes in doses. We can only appreciate so much nowadays. Besides Deadpool only made it look good to be an anti-hero for those two hours.

Deadpool is the surprise hit of the winter and the surprise of movies this year. It made having an anti-hero character look refreshing and even charming. However I don’t think it will start another anti-hero revolution again. Deadpool charmed us for those two hours but time will tell how much further he can charm us.