After it was shown to the Central Board of Film Certification in Mumbai last week, I learnt that Deadpool was offered a U/A (under 16 not allowed unless accompanied by adults), if they deleted some content, otherwise the certificate would say A (for Adults Only). The distributors were happy with an A rating, so the content was left intact. But the question that arose then, as it had arisen when I learnt that it was rated R abroad, was why is a super hero comic cartoon character film being restricted to adults? Isn’t the largest target audience for such films in the 12-24 age-group? It is, but not this time. Deadpool is certainly not kids’stuff. Yes, they might enjoy the self-deprecating, campy, bristling, acerbic and punny humour. They might find the stunts and animation dazzling and enthralling. But there is a generous dose of stuff that is sexually explicit, and choreographed violence that ups the ante in this genre. Certainly not child’s play!

Wade Wilson is a New York mercenary, with a difference. His brief includes beating-up pizza delivery boys who stalk teenage girls. One day, he meets escort Vanessa Carlysle (Morena Baccarin) in a bar, and, after a sizzling sexual encounter, they become romantically attached. Diagnosed with multiple organ cancer, he reluctantly leaves Vanessa, to enlist for a secretive regenerative mutation experiment to cure his cancer, only to be injected with a special serum by Francis Freeman (Edward Skrein) and tortured for days. Wade is flabbergasted to learn that far from curing him, the gang wants to turn him into a mercenary killing machine called Weapon X.

Against the perpetrators’ wildest hopes, his cancer gets cured, but severely disfigures his face and skin. As a bonus, he gains tremendous strength, which helps him escape. But as he cannot come to terms with his disfigured face, he keeps himself away from Vanessa, and moves in with an old, blind, black woman named Al (Leslie Uggams). On the advice of his best friend Weasel, he becomes a masked vigilante. Weasel runs a ‘fight to the finish club’ at his bar, where there are bets place on who will live and who will die. This ‘Deadpool’ inspires Wade to name himself Deadpool. How cool is that?

Bent on regaining his looks and teaching Francis a lesson, Deadpool traces and attacks his gang, one by one. Following a string of leads, Deadpool attacks a convoy of cars on an expressway, and kills all the occupants, but Francis nearly escapes. Deadpool stops him just in time. The confrontation is suddenly interrupted by the X-Men Colossus/Peter Rasputin (Stefan Kapičić) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), who have been looking out for him and have learnt about his whereabouts from TV coverage of the incident on the expressway. They want him to join the team. Their arrival and intervention enables Francis to free himself and run away, and, when Colossus handcuffs himself to Deadpool, on their way back to the X-Mansion, Deadpool cuts off his own hand and escapes back to his home.

Deadpool has a screenplay by school friends Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese (Zombieland, G.I. Joe: Retaliation; Rhett wrote Monsters, Inc., Dinosaur, Clifford’s Really Big Movie). Within a defined universe, they create a no holds-barred, action superhero/ugly duckling-prostitute love-story/stand-up comedy blend, with phrases and lines rattled off at a machine-gun pace, and a strong undercurrent of music. In the original comic series, Deadpool was created by another duo, Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld (X Force, New Mutants) in 1991, plotted and illustrated by Liefeld, and scripted by Nicieza. They were not going to get credit, until they approached Miller, and he made sure they did. Any similarity between Deadpool and Spiderman is purely incidental, while Colossus is both bulky and Hulky. Overall, Deadpool is a visual blend of a medieval swordsman and body-glove comic heroes of the 20^th century.

Animation and CGI veteran Tim Miller (co-founder and Creative Director of Blur Studio; worked on Batman: Arkham City, DC Universe Online, Dante’s Inferno, X-Men, X-Men 2, Daredevil; creative supervisor on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), possibly realising that you can do only so much new in the VFX, CGI and Motion Capture realm, weaves in a heavy dose of sex and sexy jokes. Reynolds has said that the atmosphere on the sets was that of a joke factory. “For one joke in the movie, we wrote 16 versions,” he revealed. And it has paid off, for sure.

Right at the beginning, the zany credit titles tell you that the comic-book superhero format is all okay, but you have really come to watch a funny movie. As do the end credits, right till the post credits scene, with Ryan Reynolds in a bathrobe. Sadly many of the jibes are lost on account of the 300 words per minute at which motor-mouth Reynolds talks. (120-180 wpm is normal. Persons with normal hearing find anything above 200 wpm intelligible). Rubbing it in would be your predicament, if you have not seen all the X-Men films, not read the comics and do not remember them (films/comics) backwards. If you are a true aficionado, your laugh quotient will be much higher.

Ryan Rodney Reynolds from Vancouver (National Lampoon's Van Wilder, The Green Lantern, Buried, X-Men Origins: Wolverine) has a whale of a time. Which superhero, who is also oversexed and a compulsive wise-cracker, wouldn’t? Brazilian Morena Baccarin from Brazil was 10 when she moved to New York City with her father, a TV editor, and her mother, an actress, where she studied theatre at the renowned Juilliard School. Which of these CV components made her a sultry siren, we wonder! English actor Edward George Skrein (debut in The Sweeney; Game of Thrones; Transporter Refueled) also goes by the name of The Dinner Lady P.I.M.P., worked as a rap musician prior to his acting career. Anybody who assumes such a name is bound to have sense of humour. After music, ‘Junior Jason Statham’ has learnt how to do action scenes too, and how!

T.J. Miller and Brianna Hildebrand are cool and nonchalant. Taylor Hickson is buxom, and that itself is fuel to the writers’ chuckle engine. Stefan Kapičić gives voice to the Russian accented CGI character Peter Rasputin / Colossus. Andre Tricoteux portrayed him for motion capture purposes. Leslie Uggams is a riot. Jed Rees as The Recruiter is suitably deceptive. Punjab-born Karan Soni (Safety Not Guaranteed, Goosebumps) portrays Dopinder (!), a taxi driver. Deadpool will do things for his career. And Indians, don’t miss the beginning. Imagine present day USA, imagine an Indian taxi-driver, imagine the hero taking a ride in it, imagine the song that is playing in the taxi’s music system. No, not Wham! An old RK song!

Rating: ***1/2

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONHBaC-pfsk