Deadpool

There’s the stench of Spencer’s Gifts about Deadpool. I don’t mean the acrid chemical odor of knockoff perfumes; that’s coming from the “Nothing Over $5” store next door. I mean the smell of desperation that comes from lousy gag gifts: “I Love to Fart” coffee mugs, gift-wrapped fake dog doo, and X-rated fortune cookies. Shit bought by loners trying to find some way to express that they have a sense of humor.

Deadpool is the guy who bought the “I’m With Stupid” T-shirt, wears it to a party and then repeatedly tells points to it as proof of his hilarity. I hate that fucking guy. He doesn’t even know what funny is, just how to ape someone else’s poor idea of it. He’s also an attention hog, siphoning it away from more deserving folks.  Like that really cool guy drunk on Watermelon Four Loko who hates himself and hates that he’s been reduced yet again to doing his, admittedly, hilarious broken robot dance in a dark corner and hoping that someone, anyone, will notice him and acknowledge his valuable contribution to comedy.

“I’m With Stupid” Guy never has self doubt, never stops to wonder for a moment if maybe his T-shirt isn’t as original as a broken robot dance. Basically, he’s cluelessly smug. And that’s Deadpool, loud asshole, frat boy raised in a bubble with other frat boys. He’s so sure of himself that for a few minutes in the movie I was playing catch up, wondering if I was missing something because the jokes are delivered with such surety. 

After five minutes, though I realized the wiener gags, boob jokes and poop routines aren’t funny, just relentless. Deadpool comes at you like a very active and very tone deaf commenter on the reddit board for Family Guy.

The movie starts well, the opening credits make fun of the predictability and stereotypes present in all comic book movies. Those few minutes propose a story that will subvert and mock how mechanical and soulless comic book movies have become. What follows, though, is precisely one of those movies, full of clichés and the same old character arcs and motivations, but with boobs, poop, bad jokes and a meandering plot that wears out its welcome faster than the Harelip in a confessional booth.

Deadpool is a handsome asshole who is about to die of cancer until he is made an offer he can’t refuse.  The details of that offer are never made clear, neither is it explained why Deadpool thinks it’s a good idea to trust a complete stranger who operates out of a filthy warehouse. Of course, the experiment goes awry and Deadpool awakens a crispy charred mutant who is pissed off at the equally handsome British bad guy doctor whose hands he put his life into.

The remainder of the movie is comic book revenge bullshit, and also part of what the comic book geeks call the “Marvel Universe.” All that means is other superheroes show up, this time b-string X-Men, as a marketing platform for even more movies, games, T-shirts and other crap you can presumably buy at Spencer’s Gifts. Of course, it also means the movie is predestined for a sequel, as though the people who made it are as smug and confident as Deadpool himself.

Deadpool could have been subversive. It could have followed through on its intro and burned right through its genre, exposed its silly self-importance and market-controlled storytelling. It’s too damn scared, though, to upend the stale, immature world of men-in-tights movies. To actually critique how tiresome and self-important all of this Marvel and DC shit has become would be to bite the hand of the sloppy, mouth-breathing, action-figure collecting fanboy that feeds it. That’s why, despite pointing out the obviousness of the hot love interest and the Stan Lee cameo, it has both.

The socially retarded, 4chan-loving misfits will not tolerate real critique or deviation from the package they love. To them, it would be like getting a Hostess Twinkie made with real cake and filled with real cream. “What the fuck is this shit! I want what I always get! I hate different!”

So Deadpool plays like the gag gifts at Spencer’s Gifts, naughty enough to mildly shock your grandmother, but not enough to be dangerous. Not enough to actually be different, or funny. Two Fingers.