Deadpool (film)

"Whatever they did to me made me totally indestructible... and completely unfuckable."

A 2016 movie directed by Tim Miller and starring Ryan Reynolds as Marvel's premiere Anti-Hero, Deadpool, the Merc with a Mouth. Wade Wilson, former special-ops commando turned merc and occasional champion of the little guy, finds love with a stripper named Vanessa Carlysle, and then learns he has terminal cancer. A mysterious recruiter offers him a chance to both cure his cancer and turn him into a superhero, and although Wade initially rejects the offer, at a low point in his life he changes his mind. Slipping out of Vanessa's bed and life without a word, Wade accepts the offer, and then finds it's not what he was promised -- instead of being a secret government super-soldier operation, it's a private super-slave manufacturing program, run by a British psychopath and mutant named Ajax Francis.

After a process that amounts to weeks of literal torture, Wade gains an awesome power -- he's become all but immortal, but at the cost of becoming horribly scarred and disfigured over his entire body. Ajax Francis claims it's something he can fix, but also gloats that it doesn't matter as Wade is destined to become a human weapon under someone else's control. Outraged at the idea, Wade engineers an escape that leaves Ajax Francis thinking he's dead. With the help of his friend Weasel, Wade creates the Deadpool persona in order to hunt down Ajax Francis and force him to fix his appearance. Until then, though, Wade feels he cannot return to Vanessa.

Complicating his search for revenge and restoration is Colossus of the X-Men, who wants Deadpool to join the team. Accompanying Colossus on his mission is gothy trainee X-Man Negasonic Teenage Warhead.

Starting in the middle of the action, as Deadpool is finally closing in on Ajax Francis, the film mixes fourth-wall-breaking exposition with multiple flashbacks (sometimes even nested flashbacks) to fill in the audience on Deadpool's Backstory and set the stage for its final escalation and showdown. Although quite small and intimate by Marvel standards, the resolution -- set in an abandoned, incomplete SHIELD helicarrier -- is still exciting and satisfying.

Easily the funniest and raunchiest superhero film of the decade, its mix of self-aware post-modern sensibility and classic Marvel action has been hailed by numerous reviewers as both refreshing and revolutionary.


 * Actor Allusion: Many many for Ryan Reynolds, including a brief but very visible shot of a picture of him as Green Lantern during the opening credits.


 * Alliterative Name: Wade Wilson.


 * Anti-Hero: Deadpool, full stop.  He explicitly disavows being a hero several times, although as of the earliest flashbacks in the film he is taking small, low-paying jobs where he helps "the little guy" rather than making bigger money as a merc.

"Deadpool: And you are...? Negasonic Teenage Warhead: Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Deadpool: Negasonic Teenage... what the shit? That's the coolest name ever!"
 * Awesome McCoolname: What Ajax Francis has renamed himself to have.
 * Angel Dust.
 * This is also Deadpool's reaction to learning Negasonic Teenage Warhead's codename:


 * Bad Guy Bar: Weasel's bar, called "Sister Margaret's Home for Wayward Girls".  Sort of.  It's a merc hangout, and its denizens aren't quite criminals, but they're all very dangerous.


 * Badass: Most of the core cast; it's a superhero movie, after all.
 * Everyone who drinks at "Sister Margaret's Home for Wayward Girls".


 * Badass Longcoat: Negasonic Teenage Warhead wears a black trenchcoat when she goes into the field.  Pity it doesn't survive the use of her powers.


 * Birds of a Feather: Vanessa is very much a female version of Wade Wilson.


 * Brick: Colossus.  Also Angel Dust, aka "less-angry Rosie O'Donnell".

"Deadpool: This guy's got the right idea... He wore the brown pants!"
 * Bring Me My Brown Pants: Explicitly invoked by Deadpool when he explains to a small army trying to kill him why he wears a red costume ("so bad guys don't see me bleed") -- and then points to one of them and says


 * Bullet Time: Many of his fights include extended bullet-time or a slow-motion so slow it's almost the same thing -- and of course, in the midst of it, Deadpool can react and comment at the audience ' s rate of perception.


 * The Cameo: Stan Lee, as required by Federal law.  In this Marvel film, he's the DJ at a strip joint.


 * Camera Abuse: Deadpool flicks gum onto the camera lens in a cab, then cleans it off.


 * Cannot Spit It Out: Wade's unable to go back to Vanessa and tell her what's happened to him; he tries several times but chickens out each time.


 * The Cape: Colossus, very much so.
 * For all her apparent ennui and disinterest, Negasonic Teenage Warhead seems to be very much The Cape as well.


 * Captain Superhero: A couple monikers in this form are discarded by Wade and Weasel while coming up with his new codename.


 * Casting Couch: Deadpool claims it took sexual favors to someone whose name rhymes with "Poolverine" to get the movie made.


 * Catch Phrase: Ajax Francis:  "What's my name?"
 * And of course Deadpool's "Maximum effort!"


 * Chekhov's Gun: Blind Al's little pistol.
 * Dopinder the cab driver's romantic troubles.


 * Cluster F-Bomb: Pretty much all of Deadpool's dialogue.


 * Composite Character: Negasonic Teenage Warhead -- who is a telepath/TK in the comics -- replaced Sam "Cannonball" Guthrie in the script and had a lot of his powerset grafted onto her both to match the existing story and to better fit her code name.


 * Conspicuous CG: Colossus.

"Colossus: I'm taking you back to the Professor. Deadpool: Which one?  MacAvoy or Stewart? These timelines can get so confusing."
 * Continuity Nods: Numerous to both the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe (regardless of who owns what rights) and the original Deadpool comic book.  Among them:
 * The Weapon X program.
 * A half-built SHIELD helicarrier.
 * Bob, agent of HYDRA.
 * And:


 * The Corrupter: Deadpool accidentally . When it's revealed, Deadpool pretends to disapprove of his actions, but in reality, he's very proud, adding that he should kidnap the girl too.


 * Crossover: With the X-Men, especially with the presence of Colossus and Negasonic. With Deadpool lampshading it, wondering which X-Men continuity it is.


 * A Date with Rosie Palms: Deadpool makes several comments about masturbation, including the infamous "I'm touching myself tonight" from the first red-band trailer.  Also, a Flash Forward out of a Flash Back overshoots and drops the audience briefly in a moment where he's humping a unicorn plushie in his bed before he rewinds the story back to the right point.


 * Boom! Headshot!: A triple one, during the freeway fight.

"Weasel: I'd come with you, but I don't want to."
 * Dirty Coward: Weasel.  And he makes no bones about it.


 * Dual Wielding: Deadpool with his twin katanas and Ajax Francis with axes.


 * Evil Brit: Ajax Francis, explicitly identified as such in the opening credits.


 * Expressive Mask:: Deadpool's costume includes one, although how is uncertain, since it's apparently completely mundane in origin.


 * Fail O'Suckyname: Ajax Francis. No wonder he tried changing his name to sound more badass.


 * "Falling in Love" Montage: Played with, in that almost all we see of Wade and Vanessa's growing love and closeness is moments from their sex life.  And often extreme or kinky ones at that.


 * Flashback: Much of the first hour or so of the film is a series of flashbacks, sometimes nested, explaining how things got to the point where the credits started.


 * Good People Have Good Sex: Defied?  Neither Wilson nor Vanessa are conventionally "good" people, but they apparently have one hell of a sex life before he leaves her to find a cure for his cancer.

"Deadpool: You're not gonna want to see this."
 * Gory Discretion Shot: Deadpool reaches out and turns the camera away before torturing the Recruiter.


 * Gosh Dang It to Heck: Colossus is constantly trying to get Deadpool to moderate his language.  Especially around Negasonic.


 * Goth: Negasonic Teenage Warhead all but radiates "goth" even when she's wearing bright yellow.


 * Groin Attack: Colossus is subjected to this by both Deadpool and Angel Dust.


 * Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Vanessa.


 * I Have Your Hot Stripper Girlfriend/Fiancee: Ajax Francis kidnaps Vanessa in order to force Deadpool into a final confrontation.


 * In Medias Res: The film starts with its credits slowly navigating through and out of the best-known moment from the trailers and the earlier proof-of-concept footage -- the highway fight -- and then spends about 90% of its first hour or so flashing back to explain how we got there.


 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Even before becoming Deadpool, Wade Wilson was already something of a crazed mercenary who had no illusions of being a hero though he's shown to be care about those harmed by people worse than him. Indeed, one of his motivations for going after Ajax Francis is to make sure no one else had to suffer as he did.


 * Left the Background Music On: Inverted/subverted/perverted.  The Background Music is always the background music, but Deadpool can hear it -- and can cue it.


 * Line-of-Sight Name: "Deadpool", for the mortality betting pool at Weasel's bar.


 * Medium Awareness: Arguably Deadpool's #2 superpower.


 * Murder the Hypotenuse: The solution taken by Dopinder the cab driver to his romantic issues, with Deadpool's encouragement, in a D-plot.


 * My Suit Is Also Super: Mixed.  Colossus' singlet gets ripped up in his fight with Angel Dust.  Negasonic Teenage Warhead's trenchcoat and other wear is vaporized when she activates her powers (though her black-and-yellow X-Man uniform is unharmed).  But Deadpool's costume -- which is apparently entirely mundane -- seems to heal with him.  And then there's its Expressive Mask...

"Deadpool: Wow, a fourth wall break inside a fourth wall break. That's, like, sixteen walls."
 * No Fourth Wall: Deadpool is continuously addressing the audience.  Lampshaded in a flashback that happens when he explains who Blind Al is, and then his self within the flashback addresses the audience:


 * Non-Indicative Name: The Bad Guy Bar is called "Sister Margaret's Home for Wayward Girls".


 * Noodle Incident: Whatever that mission in California was. Also, Wade's time in the special forces in general.


 * No Sell: Deadpool breaks bones when dishing out fruitless attacks on Colossus. His, not Colossus'.


 * One-Hit Polykill: At least one notable instance during the freeway battle, where he takes out three goons with one bullet and a triple headshot.  The whole post-accident freeway sequence may count, as he has only 12 bullets at the start and far more than a dozen opponents.


 * Post Modernism: Deadpool's Medium Awareness lets him manipulate the film from inside in ways that range from simply moving the camera away from something he doesn't want the audience to see, to fast-forwarding and rewinding.


 * Power Walk: Deadpool, Colossus, and Negasonic Teenage Warhead approaching Ajax Francis's redoubt in the partially-constructed helicarrier.


 * Reaction Shot: When Deadpool moves the camera away from his impending torture of the Recruiter, we instead get to see the horrified reactions of nearby onlookers.

"Deadpool: Wow, this is such a big house, but it's only the two of you here. It's like the studio didn't have enough money for another X-Man."
 * Real Life Writes the Plot: The filmmakers were forced to work under a tight budget, which required changes in characters and plot from the original script.  Several X-Men and related characters were written in and then written back out because the CGI costs for realizing them would have been prohibitive.  Similarly, Deadpool's action scenes -- particularly the climax -- were scaled back, primarily by the device of having him forget his guns and ammo.  Lampshaded when Deadpool goes to Xavier's school to get reinforcements:


 * Robotic Torture Device:


 * Running Gag: Ajax Francis.


 * Shot in the Ass: Happens to Deadpool.


 * Shout-Out: To Tim Burton's Batman with the tagline used on much of the promotional advertising:  "Wait 'til you get a load of me."
 * And to Ferris Bueller's Day Off in the Stinger.


 * Sir Swearsalot: Deadpool.

"Deadpool: She's got range, who knows?"
 * Stinger: An after-the-credits sequence which copies the famous post-credits scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, in which Deadpool not only tells the audience to go home, but also tells them they're not going to see "Sam Jackson ... with an eyepatch and saucy little leather number" as part of a Teaser for Deadpool 2.  He does promise that Cable will be in the Sequel, played by "some big guy with a flattop, like Mel Gibson, Dolph Lundgren or Keira Knightley".


 * Superhero: Yes and no.  Thoroughly embodied by Colossus, who spends the movie trying to recruit Deadpool into the X-Men, and actively lectures him on what it takes to be a hero.  Averted equally thoroughly by Deadpool himself, although he does finally leave himself open to the possibility of becoming one in the last moments of the film.


 * Super Human Trafficking: The entire plot of the movie is driven by the fact that an unnamed group of villains has discovered a scientific process for triggering latent mutations in people with the right genetic potential. So they find people with the right genes who are already in desperate life situations, wave profitable recruitment offers at them, and get them into the laboratory... and then imprison them, torture them, break their wills, mutate them, fit them with "control collars", and then sell the resulting lobotomized "super-slaves" to Third World dictators, arms dealers, crimelords, and whoever else has a sufficiently large pile of money, a profound lack of ethics, and a job opening for a super-powered enforcer and killbot.


 * Take That: Multiple shots are taken at Green Lantern, and even more at X-Men: Origins, particularly for what it did to its version of the title character.
 * Deadpool himself is an intentional parody of Slade "Deathstroke the Terminator" Wilson from The DCU; one of Deadpool's early attempts at a costume in the movie clearly evokes Deathstroke's "one-eyed" look.
 * At least one shot is taken at the studio for limiting their budget. See Real Life Writes the Plot, above.


 * Talking Is a Free Action: At one point Deadpool talks at normal speed during bullet time.


 * Three-Point Landing: Deadpool calls this a "superhero landing" and points out when Angel Dust is going to perform one.  Then he applauds when she not only lands, she does the optional head snap.


 * Torture Cellar: The Weapon X facility.


 * Torture Always Works: Well, almost always, for what Ajax Francis wants to get out of it -- activation of a subject's mutant genes.


 * Two-Faced Aside: How Deadpool expresses his approval of in the presence of the 2 X-men in the vehicle.


 * Wham! Line: Well... a line involving Wham!, at least.


 * Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: As much as Deadpool wants Ajax Francis dead, he'd rather have him alive at his mercy in order fix his condition, and then kill him.