Movie review: ‘Deadpool’

There’s so much mass-media mockery and so many pop-culture potshots in Deadpool that it’s tempting to watch it with Google at the ready.

But this is both the movie’s strength — some of it is hysterical and subversive — and its drawback. Director Tim Miller, in his debut feature, throws so many in-jokes and outlandish, juvenile nonsense at the viewer that it’s easy to overlook the fact that the film, especially in its final third, falls into formula and is not nearly as revolutionary as it pretends to be.

Based on the cult Marvel character Deadpool, who first appeared in comic books in the early ’90s, it’s very different from the rest of the company’s cinematic universe.

More anti-hero than hero, Deadpool — who has to wear a costume because of his major disfigurement — has little desire to save the world.

Instead, at least in this origin story, his mission is much more selfish and personal. He wants to exact revenge on the evil guy who turned him into a creature who must shield his hideousness from public view. It’s The Revenant with samurai swords instead of a bear.

But that’s not how it starts. The handsome Wade Winston Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is a mercenary turned low-rent superhero, saving young women from being stalked by sketchy pizza-delivery boys and the like.

He falls in love with prostitute Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), and they seem destined for a life of impoverished contentment.

Then he gets the bad news that he has terminal cancer. It seems his only hope is a shady, back-alley “treatment” to be performed by a guy named Ajax (Ed Skrein). The bad news: his good looks are gone. The good news: His cancer is gone — and he has superpowers. Score!

But he’s still angry about this whole looking-like-a-monster thing.

The slyly uproarious Reynolds, who co-produced and had wanted to make Deadpool for years, plays the character with just the right amount of surly charm and smart-mouthed, bro-next-door believability.

And his chemistry with Baccarin has enough spark to lift it heads and mask above the usual level of romantic relationships found in movies like this.

Then there’s the memorable supporting cast, ranging from the aforementioned Uggams as Deadpool’s no-nonsense, sightless roommate Blind Al to T.J. Miller (Silicon Valley) as the deadpan owner of Deadpool’s favorite bar/hangout.

Tim Miller, working from a script by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, keeps things moving quickly and shows a facility for impressive action scenes as the film careens through its relatively brief 108 minutes.

The result is that Deadpool succeeds where other irreverent send-ups of the genre like Kick Ass and American Ultra failed. Definitely stay through the final credits for the final in-joke and, whatever you do, don’t miss the opening credits either.

Still, Deadpool sometimes is too clever and snarky for its own good, and the confluence of over-the-top mayhem, do-you-kiss-your-mother-with-that-mouth trash talk, and jokey cynicism can’t stop this hard-R take on the generally PG-13 Marvel universe from hurtling toward predictability.

By the end, Deadpool feels like just another cog in the superhero, blockbuster machine. Rest assured, there will be a sequel if this one does well.

The Marvel assembly line churns on.

This story was originally published February 11, 2016 at 1:46 AM with the headline "Movie review: ‘Deadpool’."