Is there anything Simon Kinberg cannot do?
As a producer, he has been wrecking it in Hollywood for 20th Century Fox, Lucasfilm, Marvel characters and film in general. Since 2007, he has made it his cinematic mission to correctly tell the X-Men story for the big screen.
Something had to be done after the unmitigated disasters that were “X-Men: The Last Stand” and “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” Though they were opportunities to introduce new characters, the filmmakers went about it all wrong. Director Bryan Singer left the franchise and put too much faith in his polarizing project, “Superman Returns” and Fox depended too heavily on looking cool than actually being cool.
Mixed in those confusing years (2006-2008) was a character called Deadpool. “Origins: Wolverine” may have crippled the franchise for a short time, but fans walked away saying the most entertaining part was Deadpool, played by Ryan Reynolds. However, that was not saying much.
Writers David Benioff and Skip Woods took too many artistic liberties with Deadpool, completely ignoring what made him resonate with comic book fans through the ’90s and early 2000s. Some of the strangest ideas were sewing his mouth shut, not giving him his red suit and giving him super speed. It made no sense, it baffled audiences and it made people wonder if Deadpool would get the proper movie treatment he deserved.
That being said, Reynolds seemed like the perfect choice to do the character justice. He plays off his fast-talking comedic style, along with his ability to bounce from sarcasm to melancholy and tap into cliches of superheroes.
Perhaps most telling of his diverse talent was the 2010 movie “Buried,” about a man who is buried alive and attempts to escape. Reynolds gave a gripping, cringing performance — cementing the reason to give Deadpool a second chance.
Fast-forward to 2014. The X-Men franchise reaches its highest point and continues its strong pace to this day. Putting Kinberg and Bryan Singer in charge has improved on comic book movie standards that Christopher Nolan established with his Dark Knight trilogy. The tag-team filmmakers have proven that no matter what zany characters you put on screen, the source material is strong enough to work without tampering with it.
Nothing could be more telling of this element than the event, “Deadpool.” I use the word “event,” because this is not just a movie. It is a statement, it is a re-telling of comic book stereotypes, it is a look into what makes great comic book movies and what makes terrible comic book movies. How ironic that Ryan Reynolds starred in two of them (“Origins: Wolverine” and “Green Lantern”) and how ironic that he returned to give the Deadpool character justice.
Fox threw out every bad idea that was in “Origins: Wolverine.” The company then turned around and gave the project to its golden child Kinberg and allowed Reynolds to co-produce.
One could boil down “Deadpool” to one word: bold. Not only is “Deadpool” one of the best R-rated comic book movies, but it is also the first film Tim Miller has ever directed. His only previous contributions were creating opening title sequences for the 2011 remake of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” as well as the opening for “Thor: The Dark World.”
Everything was riding on this movie. It is fair to say that “Deadpool” was a risk. If the movie was bad, studios would never make another R-rated comic book movie again and it would have severely limited what characters could be in movies.
Hollywood has refused to take risks in recent years, at least in the mainstream world. Almost every movie seems to be either a re-telling, an adaptation of a book, a reboot or something derivative of a pervious installment. Having “Deadpool” fail would have been disastrous for comic book movies.
Reynolds could have walked away from comic book movies after “Green Lantern” bombed, but he stuck around, waiting for his moment. With that in mind, “Deadpool” is his greatest role ever. Reynolds was born to play this character. You do not see Reynolds on screen. You see Deadpool and he is brilliant. He is a character that knows he is in a movie, that knows he is from a comic book. Everything in this movie succeeds because of it.
All the way from the opening credits to the after-credits scene, the film is packed with comedy, fun, excitement, love, horror and the constant need to break the fourth wall. It takes a very committed actor like Reynolds to pull it off, and it takes excellent filmmakers like Kinberg and Lauren Shuler Donner — the latter has contributed to every X-Men film to date.
Breaking the fourth wall is hard enough, but telling the story in a non-linear fashion is also difficult. This script probably looked like a mess on paper, but leave it to the magic of movies to make it work.
I will not talk about the story so that it is not spoiled, but what I will say is that there are a slew of moments where “Deadpool” properly balances humor and seriousness. Even though the film is not your average comic book movie, as Deadpool continuously tells us, it ironically and intentionally wedges itself perfectly into the collection of great comic book movies the world has received in the last two decades.
Audiences will walk away with their faces hurting from laughing so hard and they will drive home that night reflecting on what “Deadpool” means to movies.
In the 21st century, filmmakers have this faithfulness and respect to comic book characters and a desire to tell quality movies about them. It is fair to say that popular American mythology during the 20th century consisted of comic book characters. They speak of conflicting ideologies, characters with supernatural capabilities, hyper-fictionalized scenarios of villains from other planets. But one thing they all have in common is the ability to be human — to hope.
We are only 16 years into this new century, and at the height of popularity in the movie world are superheroes. “Deadpool” has opened the floodgates. Perhaps time is too far away to tell, but I believe comic book movies will own this century. The possibilities are endless now. We can now have a movie that tells the stories of Galactus, Cable, Wonder-Woman, Apocalypse, Dr. Strange, Gambit and many others all correctly.
Studios need to be cognizant of the fact that too much money and popularity rides on these properties. If Disney, Fox, Sony or Universal decides to gamble with any of these characters, one slip-up could ruin their reputation. “Deadpool” is the perfect example of the studio and the writers doing it right. It is now the highest grossing R-rated film to date and it is perhaps the greatest comic book movie ever made.
And for the record, Stan Lee gives his best cameo ever.
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