This weekend Deadpool shattered records when it opened to $132 million. Another impressive Marvel overperformance, right? Not exaclty. While Deadpool is based on a Marvel character, the film is far from the Cinematic Universe that calls Disney home — and there’s good reason for that.
Before we jump into that, first let me give you my review of the film itself:
Movie Review
Right from the start, Deadpool gives you a great perspective of how the story will play out. It’s a love story, but not your conventional love story and, if you are familiar with the main character, you will know why. Without giving too much away, it’s a story about a simple guy who is fairly blunt and honest in his thoughts and opinions. He falls in love with his dream girl and, in typical superhero fashion (or in this case, antihero), something terrible happens and it’s time to press start on his mission. Along the way, a few interesting characters come about. There is the love interest, superhero friends who join in, and your stereotypical British villain. Well, actually, most of these characters are stereotypical but in a comedic way that adds to the story brilliantly.
The creative team of Tim Miller (the director of the film) Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, (the writers) do an amazing job of staying true to the character and weaving a hilarious but action-packed story. I personally loved the subtle tie-ins to the X-Men universe and how Fox is trying to give the audience a taste of what’s to come in the future, which I will go into further detail later on. The cinematography was also very well done. A few nods to the comic style as well as to the actor himself who plays the title character, Ryan Reynolds. The use of breaking the fourth wall was not too overdone which I appreciated and actually helped with moving the plot along.
This wasn’t Reynolds’ first time bringing a comic book character to life, as he played Green Lantern. Unfortunately, the film suffered from bad reviews. However, he does redeem himself as Deadpool, marvelously bringing the no-holds-barred character through seamlessly. Of course, the film has to have action involved. I will say this up front that this film holds nothing back. It was also rated R for a reason so I can’t stress enough that I personally feel that at least anyone under 14 should not see the film. The film has plenty of vulgar language, nudity, violence and gore. With that being said, for fans of action and superhero films you are not going to be disappointed.
My favorite aspects of the film was the music choices. There was a wide variety of music that reminded me of the soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy. It really helped push the scenes along and let the audience know what was going to happen next without giving too much away. The one thing with Marvel films I always look forward to are the Stan Lee cameos and this one by far is his raunchiest cameo to date.
Overall this movie has the perfect blend of comedy and action while staying true to the character’s origin story and tying in others for the future of the franchise. I highly recommend seeing it as long as you are of age to do so. As far as taking underage children, I suggest being cautious and to remember that Deadpool isn’t really a kid friendly character. Per fashion with all Marvel films, be sure to stay after the credits for that special bonus scene.
Fox’s “MCU” vs Disney’s MCU
Contrary to popular belief, Deadpool is not a Marvel film made by Disney but by 20th Century Fox. How is this possible you may ask? Back in 1985, franchises were offered up to different movie studios which created a big mess and explains why Marvel themselves can’t bring the characters they created into the cinematic spotlight. Therefore, certain studios own the rights to certain characters in the film world. As we know, it was actually Paramount (in conjunction with Marvel Studios) that pretty much brought superhero movies back to life with Iron Man before Disney purchased Marvel and assumed distribution for films that were already in Paramount’s pipeline. With that they were able to create many more films eventually coming to what we know today as the really big blockbuster superhero films such as The Avengers. Disney has these films set up where they are interwoven into each other’s stories. Incidentally, that’s something that Deadpool aims to do as well.
To start, Deadpool‘s film rights are owned by 20th Century Fox, which also owns a few others, the most well known being the X-Men and Fantastic Four. Both of these franchises are on the same level with the Avengers when it comes to superhero team movies. However, the Fantastic Four films just never seem to do well whereas X-Men has always been a crowd favorite and exceedingly popular. The X-Men films have recently returned with a new image, including an amazingly star-studded cast, new director and excellent use of storylines from the comics. As we have seen from the trailers, two of the X-Men members even make appearances in Deadpool. This insinuates that Fox plans on uniting their superhero worlds for future films. It has also been reported by several news sources, including Ryan Reynolds himself, that there will be a sequel and that another X-Men character will join in. With that, it’s easy to see that Fox is taking a page from Disney’s book and expanding their MCU universe with the characters they have.
Now, to be honest, we will never see Disney make a superhero film the way Fox made Deadpool for several reasons. The main one being the most obvious — the graphic and offensive nature of the character — which could also be their downfall in a way. Afterall, it is Disney; they have a reputation for giving quality entertainment to their audience which is mainly families. The Marvel films that they create are actually pretty suitable for children and families in general. This could possibly limit how much they can show off their characters and how much they can stay true to them.
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With Deadpool, Fox and the filmmakers were able to stay true to the main character of the film while catering to their audience whereas Disney has watered down a few of the characters quite a bit compared to their comic book counterparts (take, for example, the decision to leave out Hank Pym’s questionable past and make Scott Lange the cinematic Ant-Man instead). Also, certain plot points have not gone over too well with a few fans in their films. On the other hand, with Fox’s decision to make their film rated R, they were able to get as graphic as possible. Disney can’t get too graphic and risk the R rating nor would they. In my opinion, Fox may have a bit of an upper hand once they get the ball rolling but, for now, Disney is doing a good job keeping their audience invested in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that they have created.
It is very interesting to see how these two studios can take different paths when it comes to making comic book films but still have the ability to serve their perspective audiences good entertainment. Marvel has given movie studios jumping aboard the superhero movie train plenty of material to work with but when it comes down to it, they have to make sure they stay true to the stories and characters. Rest assured we will have an abundance of superhero films to choose from for years to come.