‘Deadpool’ is bad enough to be the future

Maybe it doesn’t matter that we’re not made to dislike the characters we see getting killed, so long as some violent death is depicted onscreen, which is maybe all audiences want — and all they ever secretly wanted.

Onscreen, he seems to know that he is a fictional character, or at least that he is starring in a movie.

[...] at the heart of the film and overarching everything is a creepy assumption, all the more creepy in that it might be true:

Audiences will root for the most repellent of characters, so long as that character is identified as the protagonist.

[...] in this era in which half the public is going around taking and posting pictures of themselves, in which self-love has broken free of all social constraint and shame, and self-forgiveness is infinite, perhaps every protagonist is acceptable.



[...] when Deadpool announces early on that he’s going to kill a bunch of people, we’re supposed to think that’s interesting, and when we soon see him shooting and butchering various characters on a highway — heads blowing off, etc. — we are either to find this entertaining or assure ourselves that he has his reasons.

[...] there is all that spectacle to enjoy, the quick cuts that render action scenes unintelligible and the sprays of blood that make it all worthwhile.

In flashback, we meet him in his original incarnation as Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), a bullying ex-military man working as a strong-arm guy for hire, muscling and intimidating people for cash.

Deadpool is supposed to be the funny superhero, but really, what’s so funny about a character acknowledging that he is in a movie?