2. Directed by: Tim Miller
Produced by: Simon Kinberg, Ryan Reynolds, Lauren Shuler
Donner
Written by: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick
Based on: Deadpool by Fabian Nicieza, Rob Liefeld
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, T.J. Miller,
Gina Carano, Leslie Uggams, Brianna Hildebrand
Music by: Tom Holkenborg
Cinematography: Ken Seng
Edited by: Julian Clarke
Production Companies: Marvel Entertainment, Kinberg Genre, The
Donners’ Company, TSG Entertainment
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Dates: February 8th 2016 (Le Grand Rex), February 12th
2016 (united States)
Running Time: 108 minutes
Budget: $58 million
Box Office: $782.6 million
3. Plot
Wade Wilson is a small-time mercenary. He meets Vanessa and falls in
love. Life is idyllic until one day he is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Things look bleak but a man appears who says he can be cured, through
a treatment that gives him superhero powers. After initially turning him
down, Wilson agrees, and meets the man behind the project, Ajax. While
undergoing the treatment he discovers that it will involve him becoming a
mutant, and he will need to undergo several painful tests to discover what
his mutant abilities are. Plus, Ajax is a sadist. The treatment results in
Wilson getting powers of accelerated healing but also leaves him terribly
disfigured. Ajax tries to keep him a prisoner but he escapes. He now has
two aims: find Vanessa and make Ajax pay for what he did to him. Killing
Ajax may not be as easy it seems, as Ajax is also a mutant and the
meddling superhero Colossus and his sidekick Negasonic Teenage
Warhead keep getting in the way. Wade Wilson is now operating under
an alias: Deadpool.
4. Deadpool as nihilistic
Deadpool does not believe in meaning or intention, in god, does not believe in religion, and does not believe in
morality. Deadpool’s life appears to be without meaning, without purpose, at least there is no fixed point of
reference, rule, or end, but instead randomness and meaninglessness. He is against the idea of a meta-narrative,
being mentally unstable, he seems to never give the same story of life, or to have an identity, and is constantly
creatively thinking about his story. Deadpool dismisses or overcomes the category of living/killing implying the moral
for the category of alive/un-alive implying non-moral. He is characterized more than anti-belief, as non-belief, that is
withholding or suspending religious and moral beliefs.
5. Why/how is it postmodern?
● He is hyper aware that he is in a movie/comic book as he speaks to his
audience, breaking the 4th wall.
● He is a hero with deep personal flaws and a hideous appearance.
● Deadpool can take part in the narrative and comment on it at the same
time.
● Deadpool is a comic figure that manifests the characteristics of
nihilism, deconstruction, and the reversal of power roles (these are
aspects of the postmodern mood in Derrida and Foucault).
● This tension, between the old world and postmodernism, is played out
in a couple different ways in the film. Colossus is constantly asking
Deadpool to cut out the shenanigans and join the XMen, as if to rope
him into the role of a good superhero family friendly, righteous, and so
on.
● Deadpool’s humor is largely driven by this sense of cynicism and ironic
distance. Whether he’s being tortured, or about to be gruesomely
maimed, Deadpool remains unphased in the face of what would
normally be considered high stakes situations. Even the tension of
combat scenes are undercut by self aware humor.
● He risks nothing. He just makes fun of everything. Deadpool doesn’t
claim to be a good guy.
