Director: Tim Miller
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, T.J. Miller
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. Recently I’ve been trying to get over my physical media absolutism, if for no other reason than digital copies have been included with a lot of the discs I have bought over the years, and I’ve just been letting them languish as flyers in cases for so long. Incidentally? Anything now owned by Disney—including the Fox X-Men films, like Deadpool—will let you redeem your digital codes long after a possible expiration date is listed. Anything owned by Warner Bros. won’t let you even think about it. In fact, if you try to redeem a a GIF of David Zaslav appears on the screen and suggests you have an improper relationship with your mother.
Did I Like It: As I began this re-watch, I was honestly surprised that I haven’t watched this one since starting these reviews. But then I kind of got it. While Wade Wilson is a unique presence in comic book films, his humor works best on initial viewing, and on subsequent re-watches begins to resemble the noises—but not the material—of a Robin Williams stand up routine at best, or the ill-fated “Mr. Monopoly” bit from Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995). Those might be two extremes, but the snesible middle ground may be to describe the whole affair as an attempt to jam a mid-2000s Judd Apatow comedy into the CGI-laden trappings of a superhero movie. Even seven years ago was Judd Apatow still making Judd Apatow comedies?
The film works at its best when it leans less on the merc’s mouth and more on trying to subvert expectations, especially where its awareness that it must be a cheaper version of the X-Men movies that haphazardly inspired it. Luckily, there are more than enough of those moments to make the entire film something more enjoyable than a chore.