Deadpool Film

*Originally published on 6/9/09



Earlier this summer, my roommates and I saw X:Men Origins: Wolverine. I'm a DC guy as you all know, still, I was excited to see Ryan Reynolds play the role of Marvel anti-hero and comic relief character, Deadpool. It was perfect casting. Reynolds himself is a big fan of the character and was eager to take the role.

I, like everyone else, was mortified with what they did to him. The few minutes Reynolds has as Wade actually work extremely well. He's a smartass mercenary who never shuts up and annoys everyone around him. It's not the bugnuts insane, fourth wall breaking character we know, but it was an effective take. Seeing as it was Deadpool before he was Deadpool it worked.

After that though, it went downhill. Do I still need to put a spoiler alert at this point? Well, if you are still worried about spoilers, be wary cause there'll be a few in the coming paragraph. Basically what happens is that Wade is turned into Weapon XI, a weird looking Frankenstein-esque mutant with no mouth (that's right, the merc with a mouth has no mouth!). He's armed with adamantium swords that emerge from his forearms much like Baraka's claws as well as Cyclops' optic blasts.

Suffice to say, fans were not pleased with this new take on the character. The talks about a Deadpool spinoff were not met with enthusiasm at this point as we weren't sure how a movie would work. If they had kept Wade as Wade it would've been fine. That was a much closer presentation of Deadpool than the "actual" Deadpool. I would put money down to see a movie about Wade, that thing that they called Deadpool though? Not likely.

As bad as it was, it wasn't beyond salvaging though. Hear me out on this, Deadpool is deformed. That's why he wears the mask. In the comics he got cancer and signed up to get the healing factor. The two didn't mix well and it resulted in all sorts of tumors so he put on the mask to cover it up. The movie Deadpool is certainly unpleasant on the eyes so they could easily use that as the explanation. The problem lies in the claws and the optic blasts. Cyclops shouldn't have been in the movie in the first place and the claws looked ridiculous. If you can find a way to negate those (maybe he puts ruby lenses in the mask so that he can see and decides to ignore the claws in favor of the traditional guns, swords and bombs that he prefers) than you don't necessarily need to "reboot". I do like how they used John Wraith's teleporting ability to work it into Deadpool's array of powers (in the comics he teleports via a device on his belt). That was clever, I give them credit for that. The rest though, didn't work out so well.

Fortunately, Fox got the message and the upcoming Deadpool movie will ignore the Wolverine movie. Ryan Reynolds will still be playing the role and he said in a recent interview that he will make sure that it is much closer to the comics. I really wish Fox had just surrendered the rights so that Marvel Studios could get their characters back. If Marvel Studios had released a Deadpool movie starring Reynolds, it would've been quite glorious. They have the perfect actor for the part with Reynolds, the movie just needs the better writers and directors to sync it up like they did with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. As it is, I fear for what we are going to get as Fox doesn't exactly have a strong record with these comic adaptations. Hopefully Reynolds' influence will yield better results.

There has been talk of Cable making an appearance. I know he and Deadpool had a long run in comics, but I don't know if this is the movie to introduce him, maybe in the sequel if it gets made, but not for the first film. This should keep the focus on Wade himself.

A Deadpool movie should be great. A blend of intense action, ridiculous one liners and some dark humor. It would be sad if the potential of this project ended up going untapped.