Marvel fanboys have been wetting themselves about Deadpool. A super hero movie, with both great action and swearing, it is marketed perfectly to the teenage boys that are its natural audience.
From the point of view of someone who is far from the targeted demographic, I would say that this film is better than the recent, increasingly bloated, X Men, Avengers, Captain America etc efforts. Quite lean, and told without a lot of heavy baggage or unnecessary myth making, it is, on the while pretty entertaining. Ryan Reynolds, as the title character has some good, scathing, one-liners and some funny scenes with TJ Miller, and Morena Baccarin tries to make a decent impression in her underwritten role as the love interest, but is little more than eye-candy.
However, there are two main flaws with the movie. The only good action sequence, a car chase and the gunfight that follows it, comes at the start of the film. The big action sequence at the end is both dull and totally derivative. Whilst there are some good gags, more than half of them appeared in the ubiquitous trailers, so lost their impact.
I’m sure this will continue to make hay at the box office, and will have a raft of sequels and cross overs, but I found it ultimately a bit of a damp squib.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10