Deadpool

Movie scripts are a tough medium to review. Most of the time what you're reading (if it's a leaked script) is far from the finished product, but you can usually at least see the direction that the writer is going in, and judge the story and characters on their own merits. No crappy CGI to ruin your expectations, no shitty editing, all you're reading is the basest form of the plot of a potential movie.

Sometimes this gives you a false sense of what the final flick will be like. For example, the whole feel of the ending to the Batman Begins script when that leaked made it appear like it was more a part of the old Adam West TV series than Batman: Year One, like they claimed it would be (the Gotham elevated subway train hijacked by ninjas and equipped with a giant laser on its nose cone blasting the water main into vapor [in order to turn the population crazy] as it traveled along to the giant Wayne Enterprises Building in the center of the city where shit would explode just felt way too cartoony for the rest of the story that came before)... and we know that that finished movie was a pretty decent restart to the whole Dark Knight mythos. And other times scripts actually are a spot on indication as to how shitty their eventual film will be (*COUGH* Michael Bay's Transformers *COUGH*)... You never can tell, and you have to just trust in the director in the end.

That's enough shitty set-up. You're wondering what I thought of the early-released Deadpool screenplay (dated April 12, 2010). So let's just get to it.

The story is an origin tale for Deadpool, though thank Christ on a shitter that it's not the Wolverine: Origins Deadpool origin story, if you get my meaning. There are a few jabs at that crapfest movie in this treatment, but luckily nothing canonical, and it's all for laughs. This is a story all about how a low-grade asshole mercenary named Wade Wilson was transformed into the mentally fucked up, always jabbering, superperson/killer for hire known as Deadpool. It's kind of like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm in a couple of ways: yes, it's awesome like Phantasm, but I'm also talking about how half the movie is made up of flashes back (interwoven with "the now") to what made Deadpool the person/mentally-and-physically fucked up specimen he is today. Oh yeah, fear not. Deadpool is beyond batshit insane in this thing. He's not just quirky and goofy and loveable, he's certifiably cut-your-finger-off and stuff-it-up-his-nose bonkers.

We start out watching Wade perform the brutal beating of a pizza delivery guy, then follow him back to his safety zone of Miss Margaret's School For Wayward Girls Bar where he hangs out with other mercs, drinks, and hires a hot prostitute to bang 70 ways to Sunday in what has to be the greatest sex scene ever to hopefully be filmed. Only then do we find that poor old Wade has the most serious and saddest bout of cancer you've ever seen outside of the puppy cancer ward at Cute Pets Animal Hospital. Wade travels the world looking for any kind of cure, no matter how stupid it may sound, only to find that he eventually has to come to grips with his own mortality.

That's when the dick of the film, one Ajax, and his crew find and recruit him for their own human mutation program. Ajax's posse is obviously a shady bunch of freaks, but they promise Wade more life and super powers if he signs up for their gene and body-splicing experiments, though the leader of the group, Ajax himself, does warn him that the cure may be worse than the disease. Wade doesn't give a shit though and only keeps asking "Am I a superhero yet? Am I a superhero yet? Am I a superhero yet?" It gets to the point that Ajax now wants to hurt the annoying man on the operating table, and begins testing his new regenerative powers by torturing the absolute shit out of the now viciously scarred Wade until our protag's had enough and escapes by blowing up the lab and getting Ajax arrested, but this causes an even bigger mental imbalance in the now free merc's scrambled mind.

5 years later, Wade, now going by the name "Deadpool," is rooming with a sarcastic elderly blind woman named "Blind Al" (who I only wish Bea Arthur was still alive to play her in the actual film... so sad... Maybe Betty White?), and biding his time until Ajax gets released from prison so that he can kidnap him and force him to fix up his mutilated, raw-hamburger-like face like he promised he would before all the shit hit the fan when Wade escaped his clutches all those many moons before.

Lots of battles featuring bullets (at least 4,000 in one fight), samurai swords, mutant powers, and thrown cars occur during this story, and everything leads up to a big final fight between Deadpool and his arch nemesis. All in all, a solid introduction to the REAL Deadpool... And that's the script's biggest problem.

See, Deadpool is not a real hero, he's an assaholic merc. An assaholic merc with a mouth who talks to himself, gets hyper violent, is crazily hilarious, loves to fuck hot prostitutes, and who curses like a sailor... All of which leads to a very non-PG13 rating. The problem with that (not that I personally have a problem with that) is that this script is pretty big. $80million+ big. Yeah, they don't have to implement all the slow-mo in-battle jokes in the final product that this treatment is full of that'll really rack up the cost, but dammit, it's those moments (the times when Deadpool will do something pretty fucking awesome, or pretty fucking awesomely hilarious, in the middle of a heated firefight, with bullets zipping around him Matrix-style) that made me smile most.

Okay, let me back up and talk about the good parts of this screenplay. There are many. Number 1) It's really Deadpool. No, it's not the comic's version of his origin story, but it IS the comic's version of Deadpool. This is The Merc With the Mouth that you've been waiting for, even if you didn't know you were or didn't even know who the fuck Deadpool was. He's equal parts total bastard, stand-up comedian, Rambo, Gary Busey (insane), and Golden Girls fan. He'll stop a fight just to make sure you heard his joke in case you missed it with all the bullets and explosions going off all around you, and he'll cut off his goddamn arm just to get away from somebody he's handcuffed to if that person just won't shut the fuck up about truth and justice and shit. He's Deadpool.

Number 2) The Zombieland writers (Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick) who put this screenplay together know comedy, and they made this one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. Open plea to 20th Century Fox (or whoever's making this movie): Do NOT cut out any of the sick and perverted humor in this thing in order to tone it down to get a PG13 rating. That's not who or what Deadpool is. Christ, this thing could easily be the Animal House of superhero/comic book movies. Something that plays forever in college campuses and late night (uncut) on Comedy Central. Almost every instance of blood and gore is funny, every conversation and verbal pissing contest between Deadpool and Blind Al is pants-pissingly hilarious itself, and every time you think shit may turn serious (like 99% of most action comedies do in the last act), the script flips things on its ear and goes for a proverbial football-to-the-nuts shot instead.

And the lines are (get this) FUNNY. These guys know good humor — physical, verbal, timing, they understand what makes people laugh. It's not bad puns or godawful, out of character set-up and terrible "comic" deliveries like you've seen in superhero movies like The Fantastic Four, or the shitty old Schumacher Batman movies; it's lines like when Deadpool is facing a gang of well armed mob body guards and enforcers and he says, "You're probably wondering, 'Why the red suit?' It's so if you shoot me, you can't see me bleed." (points to thug) "This guy has the idea. He wore the brown pants." I don't know if this is a direct quote from the comics or not (I've not read every last thing DP shows up in), and frankly I don't care. Actually, it's even better if it was taken word for word from the comic book since it shows that the script writers know to stay true to the source material. But whatever.

Oh, and little throw away lines like when Hooker Vanessa finally sees Wade's new (fucked up) face: "Ew.... But it's a face I'm happy to sit on." I hope to Christ that this movie gets made as-is, and parents take their 5 - 13 year olds to it thinking "Even though it's rated R, I'm sure it's just like those fun Spider-Man pictures. Lil' Billy will love it!" Holy shit! To be there opening night to see those retard parents' faces during the "Christmas-sweater sex scene"! Well worth the price of admission. Anyway, back to the review!

Deadpool was the best part of the shitty Wolverine movie, and they fucked with him so goddamn bad in that story. I already told you he's known as The Merc With the Mouth in the Marvel Comics universe, so what'd they do with him in that flick? They sewed his yapper shut. I... Wow. That's like saying "I know Batman's known as 'The Dark Knight' and all that jazz, but wouldn't it be unexpected and cool if we played with preconceived notions and put him in a bright white costume with a rainbow cape? Aw, so totally not gay and so awesome!" In this script, Wade Wilson doesn't shut the fuck up. Ever. And I love him for it.

Number 3) The fights (as described pretty clearly in the script) are amazing. They read like an action choreographer's wet dream. If captured correctly (without too many short, shitty, hard to read cuts) in the actual filming, it'll replace The Good, The Bad, The Weird as the best gunfighting choreographed movie ever... That's a big "if" I know, seeing as most directors shove the camera 2 feet away from the action and edit all fights like a crack-monkey hooked on shitty music videos, but here's hoping it's allowed to shine. I really want to see Deadpool talking to himself in long takes in the middle of a battle, while spinning his swords like a Cuisinart and bouncing around like a pogostick of mentally unstable doom.

Number 4) Colossus. Yes, the X-Men's Colossus plays a kinda medium part in the story. He's the "good guy" who's trying to get Deadpool to do the "right thing" instead of being a murdering asshole all the time. I normally HATE Colossus in the comics. He's a Soviet loser with a thing for little sisters and 14 year-old Kitty Prydes. He was always such a whiner too (really, I loved him in Age of Apocalypse solely because he's finally portrayed there as the asscock I always took him for), but here, he's just a decent, upstanding member of Professor Xavier's mutant team out to help the more messed up superfolk in society to start acting more, well LESS uncivilized I guess. Deadpool plays off him much better than he ever did Cable in the comics, and that's what counts.

And Number 5) Goddammit, it's just funny. That deserves to be another point.

Okay, you get it — I liked the screenplay. But now you wonder if there was anything wrong with it. Nothing's perfect, you remind me like a condescending teacher readying her ruler for my knuckles. Yeah, there is something wrong with this script, and it's a HUGE fucking problem: Hollywood doesn't have the BALLS to make this movie. It's like a grown-up, hilarious, dirty as fuck, expensive, and even more violent version of Kick Ass.... Well, from that perspective I understand any suit's objections (Kick Ass really didn't roll in the box office returns, and it was a fairly cheap production too), but regardless, this is exactly what they asked for when the decided to make a Deadpool movie. THIS is Deadpool. And I don't think they understand that. They'll look at it and wonder why the protagonist is so mentally fucked up. They'll wonder what all the hyperviolence is all about. They'll shit bricks at the language and funny nudity. They'll wonder why Deadpool makes his elderly blind roommate put together his Ikea furniture... They won't GET IT. Oh, and the price tag for this thing (even if Ryan Reynolds—star!—reprises his role as Deadpool to give it some name recognition) will make them cower with fear and claim they blew their yearly budget on that shitty new kids' CGI animated movie already as they hide their pocketbooks. I will eat a goddamn skunk's asshole and down it with a Rolling Rock if this puppy gets made with this script. And I'll do it happily.

This script (if filmed properly) will be one of the most entertaining as all fuck comic book movies ever made. Yeah, up there with Scott Pilgrim. I give it Three Thumbs Up. And if they can really get that cameo of the real Amy Winehouse for the actual movie I'll give it Four.

Deadpool sucks. He is by far the most overrated piece of comic crap on the market today. Remember a while ago when it seemed that Wolverine was on the cover of at least 5 comics a month, and every issue of Wizard? Well Deadpool's topped that shit with Marvel's over saturation machine pushing him on alt covers to all their fucking monthlies at least once in the past. I think DP just got popular because he MOCKS all the other real comic books, but Marvel doesn't understand this, so they try to sell him now like he's another Spider-man or some shit.

My point is, this movie will not get made because it's the Deadpool that fans want to see, but they're the minority when it comes to movie watching. Instead, if Deadpool ever does hit theaters it'll be a neutered, pathetic, non-killing, funny character like out of a Looney Tunes cartoon. And it'll suck. And fuck Hollywood for it.

This script was alright, but not fantastic. Don't like movie scripts myself, but I only read it seeing as there's no way this'll ever be greenlighted for real, so I figured it was my only chance to see this story.

What? READ a movie script? Ummm, isn't that like the dumbest waste of eyepower ever? Isn't that why people wait for MOVIES? So they don't have to read? Sorry, yo, but that don't fly with me. Plus, I've already seen that Dirty Harry movie. So piss off.

Well, The Dead Pool was an awesome movie, but I won't read the script to it. What's the goddamn point?