Jeff Clark

Professor Shore
July 23, y

Deadpool

“Knock em dead pool boy!” shouts the over exhilarated taxi

driver, as Deadpool himself and two of the X men get out of the

cab for one last hoorah. They walk simultaneously in slow motion

as x gone give it to you, by DMX amps the crowd up for what is to

be the final battle. Sounds a lot like your stereotypical action film

huh?. But is it really how it seems? or did marketing and advertis-

ing sway the viewer perspective towards something the film isn’t?

From the very first teaser trailer I watched, to the very lest scene

of chaos and destruction, every muscle in my body tells me to as-

sume this is a stereotypical action superhero film. From the mise-

en-scene of the characters’ clothing, lighting, and locations, to the

fast paced editing done in post production, you can tell this film is

an action superhero movie right off the bat. But, after watching

the film in its entirety, I definitely have to say that this film is not

what you would expect when it comes to the genre it depicts.

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 This film represents it’s genre of being an action superhero

movie through natural occurring phenomenons, but the script

says otherwise. Ryan Reynolds does an outstanding job lightening

the mood set by mise-en-scene to create the hilariously unique

“hero” Deadpool. Through corny but fitting one liners mixed with

blood shedding homicide, we all get a kick out of his character

Wade Wilson on his journey for revenge. And now I’m at yet an-

other crossroad. Is the film an action superhero movie? or a

twisted dark comedy? Well the answer is, a little of both. Now

usually when watching an “action comedy” the viewer is engulfed

in a lot of meaningless violence and even more laughs to com-

pletely shut out the realism effect that you get from watching a

true action film. But director Tim Miller chose to do something

completely different. He chose to take the main character’s unfair

circumstances, and add a bit of dry, almost sick, humor to his de-

meanor. But how does he do this while still maintaining the illu-

sion of the realism of his surroundings? He uses every other as-

pect of the film aside from the dialogue and occasional character

action to indulge the audience in full on blood bath action. A bet-

ter way to explain this is to take another action film like 21 Jump

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Street. I don't think while watching that movie there was one time

that I felt that Channing Tatum or Jonah Hill were in actual dan-

ger. This is because the film is so full of comedic entertainment

that it almost overshadows the potential danger they actually

could've been in. Now with Deadpool, Miller doesn't use the

comedic one liners as a filler for potential danger, he almost uses

it as an antidote for Wade Wilson’s situation, while keeping the

action occurring around him very much real. This causes for the

occasional laugh in-between edge of your seat, nail biting action.

This is a technique I feel is very lightly used in film today. I think it

worked out to benefit the film, giving it a refreshingly funny yet

tense mood.

Now after touching on how director Tim Miller used mise-en-

scene to create this relentless world around Wade Wilson, I

wanted to describe a specific scene where Miller uses these tech-

niques I described perfectly. The first flashback presented in the

movie takes the viewer back two years prior to the fight scene

through a match cut of his ass. The scene plays out as a pizza de-

livery guy is attempting to drop off a pizza while the customer

claims he never ordered one. Amongst the confusion a two year

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younger Wade Wilson enters the room claiming that he is the one

who ordered the pizza. We quickly find out that he does not be-

long there as the home owner starts to freak out wondering why

the fuck is Wade in his house. Wade quickly silences him by

pulling out a pistol and aiming it at his head. All of the sudden we

have been put in the middle of a potential execution for all we

know. The mood is correct while no music adds to the height of

tensity. The lighting is that of an action film. The homeowner

starts to beg as if he is sure that Wade is after him. But what do

you know the tides change when the pizza boy asks Wade for a

big tip, and Wade politely says, “no can do on the tiperoo” and

shockingly turns the gun on the innocent pizza boy. We now start

to get the feel oh this guy is just crazy. He’s just out to rob inno-

cent pizza boys. We feel this way because of the placement of his

one liners to still make jokes but to be 100% sure they don't get

in the way of his intent to be there. Because as soon as the pizza

boy gets comfortable, he slaps the pizza down out of his hands

and slams him into the wall. He finishes the confrontation with the

whisper of “Even look in her general direction and you will learn in

the worst of ways that I have some hard spots too.” The way this

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scene played out there was a lot of comedic one liners that nor-

mally would actually make me laugh. But at this point in the film

the viewer really doesn’t know how psychotic Wade Wilson could

be. So although wanting to laugh at some times, the overall mood

and realism in the scene caused me to choke the laughs down in

anticipation of what could happen. Maybe its the fact I used to de-

liver pizzas but this scene very much could happen in real life.

This is an often unnoticed scene that I felt the director did a fan-

tastic job of depicting.

The way Ryan Reynolds plays his character in the film, sup-

ports the idea that Gehring backs up in his passage. He claims

that an essential to comedic enjoyment is for the main character

to “inverse” his role to stand out from his imperfections and rep-

resent what he truly is. In the film, Wade Wilson is expected to be

a “superhero” something where from the beginning he claims he

will never be. Although this is truly him, some may argue that he

is denying his true destiny and ultimately failing himself. But ac-

cording to Gehring, it takes a true character to deny what path he

should be taking for a fresh one, even though so many a people

take the road more treaded. This I believe helps solidify his char-

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acter. In another article given to us, Charles Maland explains how

the nightmare comedic dialogue and occasional funny actions

succeed in the film Dr. Strangelove. I feel this article directly re-

lates to the strategy used by director Tim Miller in Deadpool. They

both are ever so slightly adding comedy to gruesome and de-

pressing stories. Maland explains that when depicting these films

with this much serious shit, it is almost necessary for the sake of

the story to spin it up with comedy.

Now, the only thing I don’t understand at this point, why

make the trailer so misleading? After watching the movie all the

way through, I went back and took a second look at the trailer.

Two minutes and thirty seconds long, and I heard not more than

three jokes. It is like Marvel wanted people to think it was just a

straight action film. I honestly couldn't believe how little they ex-

pressed a “”comedy feel” in the trailer. So I gave it a second shot

and took a look at the second trailer. Although a little more

comedic and a couple of recognizable scenes were in there that I

remembered, I still couldn't see why Marvel wasn't pulling the

“come see our comedy” card. But maybe this whole time, it

wasn't a comedy. Maybe it wasn't even an action movie. Maybe

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these were distracting dialogue sequences and enticing gun fights

to cover up the true genre that this film belongs in. Is this a love

story? Yeah that is right I said love story. I mean think about it, he

even said it was a love story at the very beginning of the film. And

at the end of the film, the story comes full circle ultimately de-

feating his main problem in the story, his fatal illness and the po-

tential of losing the love of his life. Sounds to me JUST like a love

story. Happy ending and all.

Through high points and low points, Deadpool had me at the

edge of my seat the entire time. I enjoyed a good laugh every

now and then and even got to see the guy get his girl back in the

end. Although at some points I had to weave through confusing

advertising, I feel that the mixture of different genres was able to

make this film unique in it’s own way. If anything, the genre it

falls under should be Deadpool films. But I think the overwhelm-

ing amount of naturally occurring phenomenas righteously makes

this film a comedy, shot in the setting of pure action.

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