He did not really look all that dashing in his first appearance. In fact, he was pretty mundane, all things considered. Why he was given a comicbook mini-series, Marvel trading cards, full comic series and an entire franchise is anyone's guess. This character came a long way from being someone that a lot of people thought stole Spider-man's costume (which was comically proven partially right). Deadpool took on a strange life of his own and that led to more and more and more wacky antics, 4th wall breaking, along with some strangely gory and angsty storylines.
Deadpool is literally an entire spectrum of his own. If there is anything that has ruined him over the years, it is an over anxious and psychotic fanbase. There are normal Deadpool fans who just like to watch him and his zany appearances in media, then there are people who cosplay as him and use that as an excuse to be a complete ass. Do not approach these people, please, they are usually not very stable individuals.
X-men Origins: Wolverine
Then there came Ryan Reynolds, who is outspoken in his love for the character. When the time for casting the character came, Ryan was first in line. The only problem was that he was cast first in X-men Origins: Wolverine. Yes, he was part of the Weapon X Program and yes, much of his insanity comes from that experimentation. His healing factor is better than Wolverine's because of his cancer and guess how much of that backstory was in this Wolverine story! Zero! They ruined the character and it looked very deliberate. Baraka Pool, as he was so lovingly called, was one of the worst ideas ever put to Marvel (Pre-Phase 4) and that only made Deadpool 2 all the sweeter an experience.
Here, though, they apparently had no idea what kind of fire they were playing with. Not only did they show a distinct lack of any knowledge for the character, despite having a fanatic playing him, but they outright can him from 90% of the movie, only to bring him back with butterknives poking out from his hands and making laser eyes while teleporting. When Ryan was able to make his jokes and crack his gags, it was actually some of the better parts of the film.
So, Fox took the character, saw how lot's of people liked him, and thought they could take away the mercenary's mouth, giving him lot's of different powers and he would be even cooler. It had the exact opposite effect. Not only did "Baraka Pool" enrage fans, but people downright decanonized him. This was on top of the fact that the guy heading Weapon X gave him a DOS interface with commands like "Attack" typed on a keyboard. This is some of the most laughably maniacal thinking there is. I get it, this was back in the past when computers weren't all that great, but at least some villains would make buttons for this. What happens if you make a typo and try to say "Stop attacking" but type "Stomp attacking"?! Not only did you undo what you wanted to do but now you've made it messier!
In a way, this version of Deadpool did bring about some very lavish memes and everyone put a clown nose on him after a while. He was a great punchline for later iterations of the character, but when you take in the fact that it wasn't Reynolds in the "Weapon 11" outfit, it's much easier to separate them. They obviously learned from this mistake very quickly.
Deadpool The Movie
Ryan Reynolds put his own ass on the line at Fox Studios and swore up and down that he needed creative control and Deadpool needed to be rated R. To prove his point, he put together a "leaked footage" trailer that made the internet go ballistic! This made the studios see that there was profit to be had and it made Ryan a hero to all comic book nerds.. The movie is no masterpiece but it was a very fun experience at the box office. This was the movie we needed. It parodied, not only Baraka Pool, but even Ryan's other flop at the theaters, Green Lantern. This had the backstory, the character, and it had a limited amount of X-men but cashed it in on an awesome Colossus.
The movie's pacing is good, though the backstory being interwoven through the main narrative did make it a little unbalanced. The awesomeness, though, comes from the humor and the action combined. There are some low brow, high brow and 5th and 6th wall destroying. The taxi driver parts were surprisingly hilarious, though the relatively low budget of the movie did suck when it came to the final showdown. They couldn't use "ALL OF THE GUNS!" like he wanted because the driver had them in his car, but even that was handled with a lot of laughs.
The man himself, Stan Lee makes a cameo when he didn't normally make cameos in the darker Marvel movies. He's awesome, as always, and this entire movie really spoke for the fans and to the fans.
Deadpool 2
This movie was a shocking mixed bag. There were some very high points, but then there were some points that really shouldn't have been put in the movie at all. There was a very large, well kept secret in this movie when it was initially released with its trailer. We all thought that there was going to be an actual X-Force because there was going to be Josh Brolin as Cable. This was a ruse, and all of the ones they get for the team are killed off except for Domino.
Domino and Cable are the two elements of the film that they get right in just about every way. Domino, while the character model is a little eye-rolling, is very beautiful and actually quite charming. Zazie Beates looks like she's having a little too much fun and her smile is actually quite infectious. I just really wish they could have just done away with the white eye ring. It was an alright gag but it took away from her initially. Cable is just an all around badass and I wish they used him more. Brolin brings his A-Game, no matter what. They give him the awesome guns and the awesome tech along with a strong sense of moral fibre. He is determined and Deadpool is sure as hell not going to get in his way.
What they did not get right is the villain and a lot of their darker gags. Ripping Deadpool in half, randomly killing people and the truly disgusting parts of this movie make it a very hard movie to rewatch. There is acid vomit and other bodily fluids on display that do not land. Juggernaut is a great example of a misused character. The concept of his involvement is good, but making him totally CGI was questionable, because that limited his time on screen a great deal, along with Colossus. The fight between them was decent, if not a little disappointing. It turned into another gag, this time involving Juggernaut's ass and that didn't help.
The time travel at the end of the movie was another mixed bag. The Hitler joke was a hair too far, but the Baraka Pool gag made me stand up in the middle of the theater and shout "YEEEEEESSSSS!!!!" Ever since X-Men Origins, this has needed to happen. This was actually parodied and the fans dreamed it would happen. Deadpool 2 made it happen and that made the movie worth it just a little more. It's a good movie, but it felt it needed to outdo the first one on every front. We could have been happy with the same maximum effort, I think, with a bit more story instead of extreme gags that push the limit of both time and shock value.
Deadpool and Wolverine (Spoilers)
This movie brought gags and gags that push the limit of both time and shock value ad nauseum. It was clear that there were several other entities at work here. It is worth noting that this was when Disney had grabbed the rights to Deadpool from Fox and decided to finally use this movie as a desperate attempt at profits. It was an attempt to give the fans what they wanted in every form. Deadpool 3 became a cashgrab and an opportunity for both Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman to write their own checks.
It took everything terrible from the second movie, dipped it in nostalgia and fanservice, then fast tracked it into theaters, hardly looking at it. This movie goes off the rails and when you think it might get back on those rails, new rails form and it goes off of those as well. To say that this was a dizzying experience is barely even scraping the iceberg's tip. The story took a backseat to absolute chaos and Deadpool/Wolverine hate banter. Reynolds and Jackman were the stars of this movie in every sense of the concept.
It was great to see Jackman not only come back as Wolverine, but also don the colors was a great breath of fresh air. The gags where Deadpool is looking for a new Logan is very funny and I did know all of them other than the Wolverine on the X Cross, wasn't familiar with that one. The fan service is good and I did enjoy seeing Blade, X-23 and a lot of the smaller cameos here and there.
The gags took it way too far on way too many occasions. Whoever thought bringing in the entire Deadpool Corps in a huge crowd was a good idea was very wrong. That was a grotesque example of way too much all at once. The plot needed more time sit and simmer, and the audience needed more time to breathe before the story decided to hit the haywire button again. This was all brought to a head with a very horrible villain. She looks like and probably is a fan character that someone decided to drag up out of nowhere. Professor X's sister with HORRIBLY OVERPOWERED telekinesis? Are you kidding me? An entire UNIVERSE of badguys from both MCU and Fox to play with and you roll a zero? Disney? Do you ever want to make money again? Because you're not acting like it!
This woman was probably one of the worst parts about the entire film. Her power gets intolerably incoherent as to how it actually works. How in the hell can she possibly just laugh off being impaled by Wolverine's claws and then just bat them away? Johnny Storm's death was just unnecessarily gory and the gag just hollow.
As you can see from this review, this movie is a shoddy mess, but it was also a fun ride. It certainly beat the stuffing out of anything Disney is pumping out of their sewage duct lately. The worst part about it was it was supposed to be a swansong for the Fox Marvel Universe and it did more to damage its legacy than celebrate it. It was nice to finally see these two in one movie the way they should have been in the first place. It just would have been nice to have a better story and villain rather than the choppy dimension hopping mess we received. Oh, and maybe stop with the Logan movie jokes at the first of your films. Seriously, try new things.
Deadpool the Video Game
If you thought this was a good idea, yeah, it really is! Deadpool's game actually has some innovation to it and there are some genuinely decent ideas put into this title. Then there are the many moments where it thinks it is more of a hoot than it actually is. There are some jokes here that go on for entirely too long, and there are some jokes that are in very poor taste. Then there was the "joke" gameplay that only serves to slow down the pace and make the game more irritating.
In the beginning, the jokes are actually hitting pretty hard with how Deadpool decided to jump up and make a game. Through the first half, these different touches where they want to "spice up" the gameplay with gameplay like Zelda and other retro callbacks, the jokes land pretty well. The moment it started pulling characters out of nowhere and making them die in stupid, off-putting ways, this title becomes more cringeworthy and juvenile than anything else. Mr. Sinister is not one of my favorite badguys, but the disservice they do to his character would be enough to make any creator a bit miffed to say the least.
Then the game has the gall to actually add in a stealth section with the most jank controls imaginable. It does this with tongue planted firmly in cheek and seems to giggle with every step you take in this miserable experience. This wouldn't be so bad if you didn't already have some of the most monotonous repitition in hack-and-slash mechanics. Then there are a plethora of 3D platforming sections. You get some variety with upgrades to shotguns and assault rifles, but really, it's more of the same at the end of the day. If this is your thing, that's fine, but this game still does it to a horrific degree. The relief you feel with different game segments with the gags and gimmicks save this game from being a solid brick of a slog.
The story seems to go on forever, and this is not a good thing, given its chaotic nature. It is exhausting to get through this script and hearing the same jokes over and over again. The cut scenes are funny for the most part, but when it takes the piss out of Wolverine and some of the older characters that are meant to be more serious, things just feel grimy.
Deadpool the Lunchbox
Deadpool, as a character, has massive storytelling potential, but many do not seem interested in seeing that part of it. Many Deadpool fans seem to think that his jokes and gags are all we really need, so long as he can cut people up and regenerate. The fact that he talks to himself in multiple voices, will openly react to situations from and outside point of view while making snark, and ride a unicorn seems to make some of the more surface-level fans happy.
The real problem is that he has been hyped up so much and given so much notice that his joke tends to lose steam the more you take in his products. He is a spoonful character; someone who is best in moderation, and the media is giving him to you in the truckloads. You can tell when someone has clearly had too much of him when they call you excessive names at the smallest notion that Deadpool should spend any duration off the screen.
Sometimes, it is good to laugh at the screen, but Deadpool seems to prefer this instead of real storytelling. Sometimes, we want a comicbook story. Somtimes, we want him to act as an anti-hero and fight an anti-villain. When you read the comics, this happens a lot less. A lot of the time, it's Deadpool being a snarky asshole who is only out for himself and yeah it's funny some of the time, but they make it keep going and going.
This is not an anti-Deadpool article in the slightest. It may seem down on the Merc with the Mouth, but this is a fan speaking from a fan's perspective. The chaos and the laughs are fun, but when you really look at what he has done in the comics, it is over-glorified because of his popularity. Deadpool gaining ultimate power and fighting a cosmic entity just doesn't feel right. Him being inserted into storyline after storyline that shouldn't involve him should not be the premise just to hear writers think they're clever. The unicorn riding joke is funny, but when you see him trotting along on the unicorn, there should really be something going off in the mind saying "Wait, where in the hell have we gone?"
Now, do writers still get Deadpool right? Oh, of course they do. There are several occasions when we get episodes like Ultimate Spider-man or specials like The Hulk vs Wolverine, he is showcased in pure animated bliss. On occasion, too, there are still some decent comic book storylines for him. He's Deadpool, afterall, and he became popular for a reason. His sarcastic humor is a great relief from all of the over-serious hobnobbery. Deadpool has his place in Marvel and that's poking fun at its stupidity and shortcomings.Yes, he makes fun of his own shortcomings too and we like to do that here at Planet Virtua. We're not trying to take Deadpool gags for our own. We must maintain our dignity to some degree. Virtua Chimichanga.
