Deadpool

There has been a lot of anticipation for Deadpool, right from the trailers a few months ago. The movie officially opened last week and thank goodness, it is a success and receives a lot of positive comments. Honestly, I am not really into Deadpool. I only know that he is somehow related to X-men, he is an anti-hero (rather than a superhero), and he is well known for his blabbering. It is the promotional material just before the Valentine's Day which won me over as I enjoy self-depreciating humour.

If you are like me and are looking for a superhero movie with plenty of humour, you will be somewhat disappointed. Deadpool feels more like a comedy with a superhero. For an R-18 movie, the superhero plot is surprisingly very childish. The movie is essentially telling about Deadpool's beginning and despite all the fights, Deadpool is simply looking for the guy who destroyed him to fix him. When he does not get what he wants, "bang!" there goes the bad guy.

With the rating, I am expecting a lot of gory spectacles in terms of the fighting and killing. I am more grossed out with the gore due to punching and kicking of the faces as the damage and blood is quite realistic. Those slow-mo bullet shots kinda downplay the level of goreness for the guns. Seeing decapacitated heads flying for the first time is quite disturbing but I am sort of too immune after that. I love realism and when you cut someone's head, blood will surely spurt from their neck like a fountain. Hmm.. it seems that the R-18 is not exactly for the violence.

So it is because of the sex? Well honestly, despite the boobs, butts, and the raunchy sex scenes, this is not a sex movie and the sex stuff is not that long/many. That means, the major reason for the rating will be with the number of times dicks, fucks, and shits being mentioned. I think these 3 words are really overused that there were things I missed because all I could hear were the dicks, fucks, and shits. I support the use of well-placed and well-intended curse words but this movie is really overusing them to the point that I feel that they just randomly include them as frequent as possible just to show that this movie is different from any other superhero movies.

In terms of the comedy, I think I had plenty of laughter. As I mentioned earlier, I like self-depreciating humour so I like the Green Lantern (movie failure) references. Those references to X-men will surely make you laugh too. However, there were moments when I felt bored and I thought that the movie was trying too hard to be funny. It is like there are 1001 jokes here so surely some will hit and some will miss. That explains why some people think that the movie is funny while others think that it is corny.

As a fan of both comedy and superhero genre, Deadpool mixes both genres well and I find it entertaining. However, I do think that the movie is over-rated by the fans and definitely it is not the best superhero movie out there. The action pales in comparison with other superhero movies, the plot is non-existent, and the humour may not be everyone's cup of tea. I maybe biased because my favourite superhero movie is still the first Avengers movie: great action scenes and humour that stems from well-timed sarcastic comments peppered here and there. But to remove any bias-ness, I always go back to the same one question if a movie is indeed that good: do I want to watch it for the second.. third.. fourth... times? Unfortunately, my answer for Deadpool is a no.