So Valentine’s day has come and gone and all the while, many more couples would have sat in silence while staring across from each other, wondering why they even bothered to pretend to care. However at the cinema this time around, it seems to be that even Hollywood’s gotten a bit bored of just chucking out the usual romantic stories for everyone to drag their significant other to, whether they like it or not.

Aside from the continuing Oscar bait being shown, of which various amounts of hype would be increased for various creative endeavours as a result of last night’s BAFTA awards, there were a couple of strange choices to arrive onto our 4K rendered cinema screens. First on the roster to investigate, was Marvel’s Deadpool, which on the face of it should be complete and utter rubbish, considering what Fox had allowed to happen with the character during the events of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Ladies, he’s available for funerals and birthday parties….

It was a minor miracle even that the film got into production, as it was only due to a leak of some CGI-based test footage that Fox then decided to green light the project itself.

Ryan Reynolds during the two minute test footage gave a glimpse as to what we would expect from Deadpool, the character himself, aka the Merc with a mouth no less dispensing one liners and bad guys with the same amount of effort. It was quick, funny, full of swearing and excessively violent. Something which actually come to think of it, has been very seldom seen from anything recently done within the Marvel Universes that Fox, Marvel and Sony have been putting out there.

It kind of harks back to when comic book films were starting to be made and that there were several releases which were far more violent and dark than what you would expect. The likes of Wesley Snipes turning up as Blade with kick ass music showed what could be done with the medium, while the last real release of a marvel property to feature true ultra violence was none other than the last Punisher film, Punisher War Zone which for all purposes was a flop at the box office.

Having asked the director Lexi Alexander during a Skype Q and A session if Punisher: War Zone would have fared better being released now then back in the early 2000s given the rise of Marvel now, she did admit it was rather a difficult question to be answered.

Hi there, are you paying too much for your car insurance?

It seems then that this then, was a bit of a gamble for Fox. Would the viewing public be finally ready for more adult material with the type of violence that would make even an X-Man vomit?

After all, the character of Deadpool is not exactly shall we say, politically correct. In fact, he’s the type of person who happily set back the women’s movement about 50 years while taking a giant dump on Sly Stallone’s head, just for a laugh. Deadpool has also been known for breaking the fourth wall, chatting with the audience when he felt like it, which again may have been difficult to translate to the big screen.

Well we are going to give a little away here to give you an idea of what to expect from it, so while we may be remarking on some of the details here, it’s nothing compared to actually seeing what happens on screen. I suppose that it’s also fair to say that there will be some bias here as I am a bit of a fan of el Deadpool, hell the damned PC case is covered with comic images of our red wearing wisecracker.

The story of Deadpool starts off with the world’s arguably best title sequence in terms of calling the cast and crew various names like asshats and they even tell us there’s a British villain in it too. Certainly one of the more original ways to start off things and gives a little taste of what’s to come along with a lovely view of in progress carnage. And then our happy go lucky scamp Deadpool is travelling along in a taxi cab, having a chat with a down on his luck cabbie who’s lost a girl to a rival.

Pretty people together, what more could you want?

All seems moderately pleasant, save for the “advice” given. Cue an abrupt stop on a motorway, and then we see our hero drawing in crayon while listening to music while sitting on a bridge. Then he spies on some big black 4x4s and then just jumps down, landing in one of the passing vehicles and proceeds to f*ck everyone up.

A lot of what’s been written so far, I can’t believe I’m writing.

But going on further, we have a back and forth of how our hero began life as Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds, big surprise), a guy who solved various issues it appears for whoever needed it while hanging around a bar with various other unsavoury types who shall we say, kill people for fun and money. The barman, played by T.J Miller is his best friend, who also decided to bet on him in a, wait for it, deadpool as being the one who was going to die…. You see, foreshadowing!

But along comes the love interest Vanessa, in the frankly far too gorgeous woman from lots of stuff by now, Morena Baccarin. Who apparently is also a prostitute. I sense sexual chemistry!

Cue some lovely scenes with Wade and Vanessa doing naughty to various days of the year to celebrate and then we get the bombshell. Wade has Cancer and along comes a weird fella in a suit to give him a way be cured. Wade leaves Vanessa behind so she can get on with her life in case it goes south and that’s when we see the birth of deadpool, through what can only be described as torture at the hands of the British villain who was the chap in the recent Transporter Refuelled film which was shall we say, a bit pants without Jason Statham in the driver’s seat.

Cue some extra scenes with a couple of X-men, one of whom has a really cool or ridiculous name depending on what way you look at it, a blind woman at a Laundromat who then turns roommate, some lovely discussion about Wade’s appearance after he mutated into the self-regenerating merc with said mouth, and we seem to get the jist of how we got to the point of where Deadpool is killing various bad guys. By the way, the British bad guy kidnapped Wade’s girl. Oh dear.

Why yes, I shouldn’t have replaced Jason Statham as Frank Martin, but hey, work is work…

So after all that, you’re probably wondering if this is going to work. After all, given the nature of the project and those involved, that they were aiming high, by aiming low in terms of decency, they had a lot to prove.

However, this is possibly going to lead onto one of the first problems with the film. Some of the scenes you already will have seen due to the mass marketing and extraordinary amount of which was ongoing for Deadpool in the first place and sadly, a lot of the impact and laughs will be going awry. They are still funny, just not laugh out loud.

The American centric humour as well may get lost in translation, especially over in the UK, you can count on one hand who is going to be familiar with Rosie O’Donnell. Some of the scenes, between characters such as Wade and The Barman, were a bit too forced in terms of shoe horning in jokes as well can be somewhat breakneck speed too, so if you’re laughing at something, you probably will have missed two other jokes which happened just at the same time. Perhaps a reason for a subsequent viewing?

What of the bad guys themselves? Well given the part they have to play in the origin story and the fact that Fox can freely use the word Mutants (Thanks legal contracts ensuring separate Marvel Universes!), they were serviceable but not exactly the stuff dreams are made of. Sure you’re going to not particularly like the British main villain played by Ed Skerin because he’s a nasty piece of work, but it wasn’t someone who you would remember too much in the future. Perhaps that was the point, especially towards the final encounter on a… I guess disused aircraft carrier? It was something big anyway.

This later sold for £50 on ebay….

But what the film got right was a hell of a lot. It was actually serious when it needed to be, showing some actual consideration to emotions and conflict when Wade was contemplating about how to see Vanessa when his head had the appearance of a giant testicle. And remarkably, it wasn’t always about Deadpool himself, it was about the interactions with others.

The two X-Men characters to show up here, were actually pretty funny, mainly as they continued mostly to be what the idea of super heroes we now have and just the fact that Deadpool was maiming, killing and just doing whatever he felt like was a wonderful contrast as a result. This was most exemplified when Colossus (voiced by Stefan Kapicic), the metallic X-Man was trying to ensure that a bad character’s modesty was maintained during a fight when … well, you’ll just have to see. Stan Lee’s cameo in this is just a sight to behold and there’s no way, you wouldn’t be at least smiling when you see him and what’s he’s doing.

The fourth wall parts were very well done, including remarking on the film’s budget, a fourth wall break inside a fourth wall break, and even asking which Professor X Deadpool was going to be forced to see by their actor’s names was just a joy. The references to Ryan Reynolds’s previous roles were a very nice touch. Hell even a taxi driver has a sub plot which progresses out of control later, which you don’t even see coming.

Hi to the only two X-Men they could afford!

All in all, the film succeeds more than it would fail. Perhaps the better way to think about this is, a comic book film with some super heroes as opposed to a comic book super hero film. Simply because Deadpool being a hero is….err….debateable!

Without a doubt, this was one of the best over the top violent and actually funny comic book films to come out and I am more than happy to be able to recommend this to you all, even to feminists who object to Deadpool as an entity in general! It’s a good laugh and just for what it is, it’s a very good joyride and remarkably you do want more at the end.

The fact that a sequel has already been greenlit now, shows that Fox perhaps will have a bit more faith and maybe, even Marvel too given that they now have the rights back to Blade and the Punisher. Adult violent comic book films it appears, when done right, do indeed have a place on the big screen next to their vastly more popular brethren.