DEADPOOL - review

DEADPOOL
Director: Tim Miller
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, T.J. Miller, Ed Skrein, Karan Soni, Stefan Kapicic, Brianna Hildebrand, Gina Carano

Synopsis: This is the origin story of a former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts the alter ego Deadpool. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humour, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.

Well, well, well, I finally got to a session of DEADPOOL and in the words of my BFFs teenager "it was everything the DEADPOOL story should be and more". Now I trust this kid because he knows what's what when it comes to the superhero world, I just like to watch them so I don't know much about the accuracy, but he does, so when he says it's good, you know it's good. The stars aligned this week and my BF and I managed to wrangle a morning off together, so I bundled up my crochet and we toddled off to catch the early morning session at his local cinema. After I came to terms with the fact that 2 tickets and two bottles of water was over $50 (that doesn't happen at my local independent cinema), we settled in to catch the latest instalment in the ever growing Marvel Universe.

DEADPOOL had a rocky start, but thankfully some leaked studio footage, it became a much talked about film at the 2014 Comi-con and from what I've heard, fans are pretty darn happy with the end result. DEADPOOL is a renegade, foul-mouthed, anti-hero, but he sure delivers a lot of heart with a huge side of sarcasm.

Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is an ex-Special Forces operative with a dishonourable discharge, turned mercenary, who lives a shady life, but manages to find his match in Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). Unfortunately he is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and in a bid to protect her from seeing him decimated by the asshat that cancer is, he takes up some shady characters on their offer to help him kick his cancer to the curb by unlocking his dormant mutant genes. After undergoing some special kinds of torture at the hands of Ajax (Ed Skrein) and Angel Dust (Gina Carano), he is left with rapid self healing powers, but he is no longer his super beautiful self. He sets out on a mission to hunt down Ajax to get him to reverse the damage to his looks, or watch the malevolent douchecanoe die a slow and painful death.

I'd probably want to kill the person that made me look lie that too

Image via Marvel 

His sidekicks are apparently well known in the DEADPOOL storyline, Weasel (T.J. Miller) and Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), but they don't feature too strongly in the film, they leave plenty of room for the development of Vanessa, and her relationship with Wade. What I found with DEADPOOL was that the characters in the film were all there for a purpose rather than a bunch of fodder characters. It was as refreshing as seeing Wade continuously breakdown the fourth wall during the film. I appreciated the fact that the film took the piss from the opening credits all the way through to the end, it shows that studios are moving away from the stock standard formula of making a superhero movie and bringing something different to the screen. Well played script writers, well played. Heavy credit given to the writers, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, they have done an amazing job with this script, fast paced, witty, dark, and heartfelt, they have given their actors a solid platform from which to jump into the Marvel Universe, and DEADPOOL has skyrocketed to the top of my faves list for the superhero genre.

I love an action film with a love story - it's got everything going for it

Image via Marvel

DEADPOOL really does have everything going for it - a hit in the feels, smooth action sequences, excellent tie-ins to the universe, plenty of expletives and a sense of humour that strongly aligns with my own. If going to the cinema isn't going to make you broke, then I highly recommend heading out and forking over the 20-something dollars and then some to go and see this on the big screen. If you're a superhero fan, then you're in for a real treat. If you're not so much into it, but have a sick sense of humour and fire off expletives like a drunken sailor, then you'll probably enjoy it too. Looking forward to seeing more of DEADPOOL on the big screen. And don't forget, stay for the post-credit scene!

4 out of 5

Xoxo
The Blonde Bombshell

SELF/LESS - review

SELF/LESS

Director: Tarsem Singh

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Ben Kingsley, Natalie Martinez, Matthew Goode, Victor Garber

OK, so here's the deal, SELF/LESS is getting a pretty bum rap from a lot of critics out there, and I can appreciate why, but for all it's plot holes, replications, lagging and aesthetic blandness, SELF/LESS will have some appeal with the general public (GP). 

Here's how the film goes: 1%-er Damian Hale (Ben Kingsley) is dying. His body is riddled with cancer that cannot be cured, so upon finding a mysterious business card he discovers a man (Matthew Goode) and a company who can transplant his mind into a lab-grown body so he can go on living his life. Hale is the kind of 1%-er who thinks his cheque book can solve all the problems in the world, including the ones with his estranged daughter (Michelle Dockery), so he throws down 250 million big ones and goes ahead with this "shedding" process. In goes Hale and out comes Edward (Ryan Reynolds), not a bad trade if you ask me. 

waking up in a new bod - Ben Kingsley goes in Ryan Reynolds comes out 

images via Universal Pictures

Edward begins his rehab process, including getting a new life story, learning to be a human again (because apparently transplanting your brain into another body means you have to learn all your fine motor skills again), and taking the anti-rejection medication daily. One skipped pill leaves Edward crippled by hallucinations that feel way more like flashbacks, and leaves him questioning the whole shebang. Delving deeper into the whole mess he finds out that his brand, spanking new body is not actually brand, spanking new and once belonged to a man named Mark, who had a family and made a life changing decision to save his daughter. 

Chase, fight, chase, fight, blow torch, gun fire, chase, yell, frighten the hell out of people who thought you were dead, chase, fight, blow torch chase. Apparently the afore mentioned company doesn't want him to find out about the whole bod snatching thing (one can only imagine why), and the whole thing goes belly up. 

Tarsem Singh is an awesome filmmaker, giving us gems like THE CELL, and I had high hopes when I heard he was on board for SELF/LESS. Unfortunately he doesn't quite hit the mark with SELF/LESS, not all his fault - some blame must lay with the writers here. The film doesn't delve into the myriad of philosophical issues it raises and barely touches on anything with real meaning, which is a shame because it could have had much more depth than it did. Aesthetically the film didn't really work for me as well as some of Singh's other films, and the flow of the film was pretty clunky and lagged a little in the second half. 

There is a lot in this film that rings a familiar bell and that isn't surprising, there are ideas, themes and plot twists from pretty much every bod-swap movie ever made, in particular SECONDS, a piece of cinema from 1966 in which a wealthy but unhappy banker gets a facelift and ends up looking like Rock Hudson. Sadly all the borrowing makes the film feel very same-samey, and had the writers chosen to do so they could have made it less sci/fi-action and more sci/fi-drama and explored some of the issues the other bod-swap movies don't do. There's a veritable smorgasbord of options in the narrative of this film and no one even takes a sniff, let alone a bite. Shame I say. 

hello  blow-torch

image via Universal Pictures

Ben Kingsley introduces us to Damian as a cruel, heartless, 1%-er who cares for little more than money and power even in death. Reynolds' version of Damian is a reformed man with a heart that has appeared out of no-wheresville and doesn't gel at all with Kingsley's Damian. Massive plot hole there, both versions of the character are perfect for the part of the story they're in, but they don't go together, there is no character development that shows us how we get from one to the other. Matthew Goode brings a nice spark to his jerk-hole character (CEO of the shedding company, Albright), which had someone else played that role seemed stiff, but he brought a nice little something-something to life in Albright. The other supporting cast do lovely things with the little screen time they have, and in my opinion deserved more. Cut out the gratuitous and never ending action, and put a little bit more meat into the story!

I get the feeling that Reynolds is trying to branch out away from Hollywood heart throb to tough action guy (think Jason Statham style, who would have been a nice fit for this role), but I don't know that it's really working for him. GREEN LANTERN worked for him because of the genre and the romance in that film, and I am just not sure that sci/fi looks good on him. I mean, most things look good on him, but I don't think he's quite got whatever it is that this film needed. He brought a great balance of humor, emotion and action, but something about him just didn't sit right. Maybe it was the script, maybe it was him, maybe it's me type-casting him, I don't know, and I'd be willing to give him another try in a film like this to see what happens. 

Goode & Reynolds in a little shoot out - that's bullet proof glass yo!

image via Universal Pictures

For GP who aren't into this genre and who haven't seen a bod-swap film before, and are maybe only catching it to see what Hollywood heart-throb Reynolds is up to of late, then I think they will find the film full of exciting twists and turns, some great action scenes - hello blow-torch - and an all round decent enough film. For those who are into this kind of thing and are familiar with the genre, I think you'll be disappointed. Singh has put together an enjoyable film, but it is predictable and a bit flat which ruins all the good things he does do. Overall I think SELF/LESS could have been amazing, but it was just too much of a mish-mash rehash to make it. I don't recommend spending the 20-something dollars on this film, wait for it on Netflix or Foxtel or Apple TV or whatever medium you use.

2 out of 5

xoxo
The Blonde Bombshell