Movie Review: "Deadpool"

Deadpool (2016)

R

3.5 Stars out of 5

Director                                Tim Miller
Writer                                   Rhett Rease, Paul Wernick
Cinematography                 Ken Seng
Music                                    Junkie XL (Tom Holkenborg)

Ryan Reynolds                      Wade Wilson/Deadpool
Karan Soni                           Dopinder/taxi driver
T.J. Miller                             Weasel
Ed Skrein                              Ajax/Francis
Gina Carano                         Angel Dust
Morena Baccharin             Vanessa
Brianna Hildebrand           Negasonic Teenage Warhead
Stefan Kapičić                     Voice of Colossus
Taylor Hickson                    Meghan Orlovsky
Leslie Uggams                     Blind Al

 

Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.

Juice Newton, 1981

I thought last year I had reached my limit on comic book-movies. They are so similar, I often struggle to remember which “super hero” beat up which “super villain”. In virtually all cases, we are “treated” to some quasi heroic character that often demolishes cities in their endless quest to vanquish some bad guy or group of bad guys that just can’t be beat until the requisite two hour run time has been reached. There is no real confrontation based on skills and strengths that bear any relationship to reality. (And therein lies the root problem: if you are Superman, and as a consequence invincible, there is no genuine dramatic tension as to your character’s peril or its resolution.) However, in 2014 we did have “Guardians of the Galaxy”, and lo I was entertained. That movie’s characters had some abilities, some strengths and weaknesses, and they had a wisecracking raccoon. (And quite frankly, I can’t resist snarky raccoons.) Now, in 2016 we are treated with more sarcasm dispensed by a super hero in “Deadpool”. This film suffers just as all the other comic book-movies do for its derivativeness and predictability of the action scene outcomes. Fortunately, “Deadpool” the movie has a saving grace: Deadpool the character is often funny; at least he’s funny, if like me, you enjoy wisecrackers especially if they are in red tights.

There is a skeleton of story; though in all honesty, it really seems to be there solely for the purpose of allowing Deadpool or his pre-super hero form cut up non-stop at the expense of almost everyone around him. His pre-super character is Wade Williams (Ryan Reynolds). He is ex-special forces and works for some odd outfit that sends out its tough guys to intimidate bad guys that are stalking people. (Or some such; I’m pretty sure all of the targets are truly bad, while our hero Wade and the company he works for just looks bad; at heart, they surely have hearts of gold.). In any event, this company has a kind of receptionist or dispatch agent (it’s not clear) by the name of Weasel (what else) played by T. J. Miller. Weasel is evidently as snarky as Wade, and as such he runs a pool to see who will die first at the company, i.e. a Dead Pool.

And for some reason or other, there is a stripper or escort by the name of Vanessa (Morena Baccharin) that drops by one day, perhaps for no other reason than to fall in love with Wade; which they do. Darn, just as Wade proposes to Vanessa, he drops unconscious. It turns out he’s got some kind of nasty cancer and only a short time to live. Fortunately for Wade, there’s another company out there that is a really nasty company called Weapon X. They go around finding people in trouble so they can activate their dormant mutant genes and then sell off the newly mutated lost soul to the highest bidder. Their recruiter (Jared) comes calling and signs Wade up. He drinks (or has it injected) the dormant-mutant-genes-activating cool-aid and becomes a latent super hero. Along the way he learns to hate the Weapon X leaders, Ajax (aka Francis played by Ed Skrein, and Angel Dust played by Gina Carano). The reason he hates them is because their methods for finishing Wade’s transformation require torturing him following the cool-aid treatment; this converts him from a latent to active mutant super hero. Make sense?

So, there you have the plot. Wade is a good guy that cracks jokes and gets turned into a super-man that heals very quickly, shoots real well, can do acrobatic twists and turns in the air, and oh yeah, crack jokes. He goes after Francis and Angel after he recruits some help from a couple of characters from the X-Men universe. They are Colossus (voiced by Stefan Kapičić) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand). Together, the three of them go and beat up Francis and Angel, and while they are there, rescue Vanessa.

The point though is very clearly not Deadpool’s (the name Wade and Weasel choose for the Super hero version of Wade) origin, or why he’s annoyed with Francis and Angel, or really much of anything that makes very much sense; this is after all a comic book-movie, though one with a sense of humor. That sense of humor is expressed in the very first image (it’s not really a scene). That image is a beautiful long panning/telescoping image of a frozen scene. It plays out to the music of “Angel of the Morning” by Juice Newton. What is the image, does it have anything to do with Newton’s lovely song; um, need you ask? It is a superb example of what can be done with modern photography and CGI. The pan will begin with a close up of a bullet and will telescope back and over a rotating car that contains our hero, one of his recent victims and any number of flying objects, all frozen in time and space. It is a very cool opening, and it gets better as the credits begin to roll. I will go so far to say, this is my favorite part of the movie and is a great introduction to the snarkiness to come. Each member of the cast is describes as a stereotype rather than named. Most of the descriptions are hilarious; most especially those designated as the writers, i.e. “The Real Heroes of this Movie”.

This movie is fun for adults that enjoy sarcasm and don’t mind very dark humor. An example of the latter involves Deadpool’s discussion with the audience as he breaks the fourth wall (which he does throughout the movie) to mention that he forgot his ammo and must confront a large force of bad guys with only twelve bullets. He jokes his way through the ensuing killings as the audience is allowed to see a countdown on the bullet casings from 12 to 1. It is very black humor. There is no doubt that people are dying at the hands of our humorous anti-hero hero. So, if you like very good CGI, pretty decent pacing for movies of this type, rampant cynicism and the associated sarcastic humor, you might well like this movie. I must warn you, though, this is not a movie for kids, comic book genre or not.

 

Book Review: "Lafayette and the Somewhat United States" by Sarah Vowell

Lafayette and the Somewhat United States (2015)

4 Stars out of 5

Sarah Vowell

274 pages

Sarah Vowell has carved a niche for herself in the history section of your local bookstore. With previous books such as “The Wordy Shipmates” (2008) or “Unfamiliar Fishes” (2011), this former NPR editor has shown she is more than capable of blending her snarky/comical vision of American History interpretation with a liberal dose of commentary on the events she summarizes for her readers. In the case of “The Wordy Shipmates”, she described the history of Puritans in 17^th century Massachusetts, while in “Unfamiliar Fishes” she weaved a tale of late 19^th century American imperialism in the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii. Now with 2015’s “Lafayette and the Somewhat United States” she builds a story about one of America’s ardent early supporters, Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert de Motier, aka the Marquis de Lafayette.

The Marquis was a wealthy, recently orphaned, and newly married nineteen year old hungry for glory when he reached America in 1777. He left France with a coterie of like-minded Frenchmen looking to take part in military actions – partly to fight against the country long considered their most determined foe, Great Britain, but also because many of them were unemployed military veterans languishing during an unusual peacetime. Not so with the Marquis, he was the quintessential adolescent male, eager for adventure, lacking in experience, but full of idealism. He reached America at a time when the American congress and their Continental Army were awash with a rich variety of European soldiers and adventurers seeking employment and expecting to walk right into leadership positions within the American army. George Washington, many of his American staff and congress were largely fed up with the whole problem by the time Lafayette arrived. Somehow, his youthful enthusiasm and his connections within the government of Louis XVI made him a party apart from so many of his fellow Europeans. He was appointed a major-general, one without a single soldier reporting to him, and placed on George Washington’s staff. While this was surely not the exact reaction Lafayette had hoped for, his close proximity to Washington allowed him to forge a lifelong friendship with a man destined to become a singular American icon.

Lafayette would after about six months on Washington’s staff be finally allowed to lead a small party into combat at the Battle of Brandywine where he would receive a leg wound from an enemy gunshot. Much later he would play a role in helping to corral the English general Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. What took place between his initial exposure to battle and his final military participation in the American Revolution is where Lafayette really earned his place in American history. Partly because of his enthusiasm for the American cause and because of his connections to the power brokers in the French government, Lafayette was able to lobby the French government for the Americans (alongside Benjamin Franklin and fellow Frenchman, the French Foreign Minister, Charles, comte de Vergennes). Despite his military performances for the Americans at Brandywine, the battle of Rhode Island and the siege of Yorktown, likely Lafayette’s most significant contribution to the American revolution was the role he played in convincing Louis XVI into sending a significant amount of French naval and army forces to America, to recognizing the American revolutionary government, and to lending millions of Francs to the Americans; and after the war, not done yet, he worked with Thomas Jefferson to establish trade agreements between France and the United States. It is abundantly clear; the likelihood of success for the Americans as they sought their freedom from the English without the French would have been exceedingly low.

As one reads through Vowell’s narration of events, the reader may find themselves as I did murmuring to themselves, “I didn’t know that”. Vowell reviews some of the military battles that took place during the War for Independence, but she really doesn’t spend much time on the battles and only a little more time on the back door attempts to persuade Louis XVI to essentially bankrupt his country in an attempt to help the Americans and hurt the British. (Indeed, it is probable that Louis’ efforts for the Americans led in part to his dethroning in 1792, a mere nine years after the 1783 Treaty of Paris granting the Americans their independence from the English.) No, most of the appeal of Vowell’s writing in general and in “Lafayette and the Somewhat United States” in particular lies with her humorous digressions. She is as likely to spend as much time writing of her discussions with the violence-abhorring Quakers that own the land where one of Lafayette’s memorials sits, as she is in discussing what battle the memorial commemorates. That Vowell feels a philosophical kinship to the Quakers is made clear in this book and in some of her previous writing as well.

Another big strength of her work is the manner in which her digressions from the main themes of the American Revolution veer into directions that help de-mythologize the various fathers of that revolution. With few exceptions (Aaron Burr and Benedict Arnold are standouts) primary actors in the formative years of the United States are generally regarded by modern Americans as being faultless. Vowell gives examples of Washington’s temper, of the back-biting and self-serving efforts of several people to displace Washington as commander-in-chief to not only replace him, but to replace him with their own illustrious selves (General Horatio Lloyd Gates in particular, but not uniquely). Or even more amusingly, the grumbling and complaining that came out of the Congress while they were forced to bunk two or more to a room in York after abandoning their early capitol of Philadelphia to the British. Their carping to Washington about losing Philadelphia almost seems to be as focused on their new living arrangements as to Washington’s abilities as commander-in-chief.

In short, this is a highly readable and amusing review of events during the American Revolutionary war against Great Britain. Vowell moves through the many of the primary events in a brisk manner and brings a very curious set of eyes to those events with respect to the manner in which she describes the main actors and their motivations. If there is a weakness to her writing, at least in this book, then it is that there are sections where Vowell ventures so far afield from the central subject material, you may find yourself wondering what became of the Marquis. However, if you have an interest in the American Revolution, are curious to learn more about the Marquis de Lafayette and the role he played in that revolution, and would like this whole tale served up with a vigorous infusion of satirical commentary, then this could be your book. It was for me the third such book by Sarah Vowell I’ve read, and I have more than enough reason to read her next book based on my experience with this particular foray into American history.