I Spent Valentine's Night With a (Regenerating) Degenerate

My all time favorite character from the Marvel universe has to be The Merc With a Mouth, Wade Wilson A.K.A. Deadpool. Often referred to as the Regenerating Degenerate, Deadpool is a morally flexible mercenary who gained the ability to heal from pretty much anything you can dish out thanks to the same experimental program that created Wolverine. But what makes Deadpool unique is the fact that he is aware of his own fictionality and often breaks the fourth wall to speak directly to the readers of his comics. A habit which other characters take as a sign of his insanity.

Yes, he can see his thought bubbles. Marvel Comics

 This month Deadpool finally got his own movie after a less than stellar representation was included in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (the less said about that the better) and since my Mom happens to be a bit of a comic nerd too we went and saw it on Valentine's Day. When I originally heard that they were making the movie I was excited, when I heard that Ryan Reynolds was playing our hero I was super excited, and when they announced that they would be going with an R rating I was over the moon! Like many fans I believe that if they had tried to down the violence, language, and generally dickery surrounding Deadpool enough to get a rating below R it just wouldn't have been the same.  The fact that Ryan Reynolds is a fan himself was a great comfort since he was intimately involved the development of the script.

Very intimately. 20th Century Fox

When the movie began with a slo-mo action sequence overlaid with classic opening credits including names like "the hot chick", "the comic relief", "a CGI character", "a gratuitous cameo", and referring to the writers as "the real heroes" instead of the actual names of the individuals being referenced I knew that somehow things had gone very right with this incarnation. The rest of the movie didn't disappoint either managing to wrap a surprisingly touching love story in the gratuitously violent behavior we've all come to associate with the Regenerating Degenerate while not going overboard with the breaking of the fourth wall, and Wade's bones. It's hard to believe that 20th Century Fox actually cut the budget for the movie by about $7 million dollars when you see all the amazing effects that made it to the screen. The writers even managed to use the budget cut as fodder for Deadpool's habit of breaking the fourth wall turning a literal negative into a positive in the process.

That is a gun in his pocket, and he is also excited to see you. 20th Century Fox

As is common with any book to film adaptation there were some changes to details but nothing that I would consider to be detrimental to the story. Instead of being created as an offshoot of the Weapon X program this version of Deadpool is created in a "mutant factory" and while that takes away his direct connection to Wolverine it doesn't change Deadpool himself that much. Another notable change was to the powers associated with Negasonic Teenage Warhead, who in the comics is actually a mutant with Psychic powers and not one who explodes, in order to make them better suited the character's name.

Overall, Deadpool delivers as an incredibly faithful adaptation of the source material and doesn't disappoint the fans who practically rioted this film into existence after the test footage was leaked. So if you enjoy superhero movies, have an irreverent sense of humor, and don't mind bloody fight scenes I would highly recommend going and seeing Deadpool. Oh, and make sure you stay through the credits. You won't be disappointed.