Film review: Deadpool (15)

If, like me, you’ve pretty much had your fill of Marvel comic movies and the whole superhero genre in general, then bare with me because rather than opening up yet another - quite frankly, ridiculous - corner of that endlessly silly, male-dominated, cliche-ridden, stupor inducing universe, this film may well appeal to anyone who has often wanted to scream at the screen during one of those oh-so over the top set pieces the makers of these films love so much.

That’s because Deadpool is, to all intents and purposes, self-aware. Which is an odd thing in and of itself and while we’re not sure whether it’s good or bad at this stage, it’s certainly a breath of fresh air and comedic relief to the often over-serious ‘the entire human race is about to be wiped out’ scenarios which seem to be the fodder for pretty much every superhero movie since the dawn of time itself.

So, let’s get the story bit out of the way first. Grit your teeth for if you have to.

Former Special Forces operative Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) discovers he has cancer that will rob him of his dream life with his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). So far, so yada yada yada.

He (the ridiculously good-looking and surprisingly funny Reynolds - anyone catch him on Graham Norton recently? He even had Will Smith belly laughing) is offered a ‘second chance’ (wow, you can almost see the scriptwriters turning over ever stone to find a new concept) by The Recruiter (Jed Rees), who works for an experimental program known as Weapon X (again, they really must have stayed up all night long to come up with that one. You can almost envisage the meeting in which they pitched it - ‘So, what are we calling this... new weapon thing?’ ‘We’re calling it... Weapon X, sir.’ ‘Good, good, original. I like it.’

Anyway, this X weapon promises to induce a regenerative mutation to the cancerous cells.

Wade undergoes treatment and is transformed into a mentally unstable hero called Deadpool, who is blessed and cursed (ah, the eternal quandary of life) with accelerated healing powers, disfigured skin and a politically incorrect sense of humour, the latter being almost the point of the entire movie.

Aided by best friend Weasel (TJ Miller), Deadpool vows revenge (as you do when you’re a wronged superhero) against Ajax (Ed Skrein), lynchpin of the Weapon X programme, and his superhuman henchwoman Angel Dust (Gina Carano - but who the heck comes up with these names?)

So, Deadpool promises to be more calisthenics rather than upper body workout. If you’ve already glimpsed the online trailers which were “accidentally” leaked, according to Reynolds and you liked them, then it’s odds on you’ll not regret shelling out for this movie.