Once Upon A Deadpool Review - A Bleeping Good Time

Details
Category: Film
Published on Saturday, 15 December 2018 19:23
Written by Janet Walker

Once Upon A Deadpool, from 20th Century Fox, presents a kinder, holiday version of the summer blockbuster with our hero recreating the iconic storytime scenes from Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride to begin the PG-13 version.

 

Directed by David Leitch, Once Upon a Deadpool stars Ryan Reynolds, Fred Savage, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Julian Dennison, Zazie Beetz, T.J. Miller, Leslie Uggams, Karam Soni, Brianna Hildebrand, Shioli Kutsuna, Eddie Marsan and amazing group of supporting actors, both credited and uncredited.

The film opens with a fully costumed Wade aka Deadpool, played by Ryan Reynolds, sitting beside of Fred Savage in a room that looks exactly like the beginning scenes of The Princess Bride. As Fred tries to reason Deadpool explains the "rules" to this milder PG-13 version never stating the obvious even as the two cover most current topics happening on the Fox Lot.

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The blatant, smart and strategic move by Fox to take the holiday box office title, isn’t really talked about and one can bet by cleaning up the bleeping language and cutting some of the over the top, comedic violence, the MPAA knighted the title with the coveted PG-13 rating thus allowing the teen crowd to meet Wade and his new and improved circle of friends.

So for those who have seen Deadpool 2, we know it is a family movie and as in most families pinnancles of great joy can become, in a moment, unfathomable sorrow. So it is with Deadpool. So while he is figuring out how to end the pain he is rescued by mutants and taken to a safe house to heal.

We meet Firefist, played by Julian Dennison, who has broken away from the mutant headmaster, played by Eddie Marsan, and is destroying the world around him. The mutants and those in training show up trying to disarm the situation.

Of course, Wade seems to have a knack for charging into situations with the best intentions and somehow the plan implodes on impact which pushes him into a situation that causes him to rethink his next move and suddenly what was the worst case scenario has become the best case scenario. This eats up screen time and takes the audience on an emotional roller coaster ride as Deadpool, so likable, and heartbroken, is acting irrationally and so now the audience is sympathetic.

 

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Once Upon a Deadpool is really just a better version of its original self. The same fight scenes, the same plot, the same unusual characters, the same mutants would seem like the same and yet with the addition of Fred Savage, as himself, creating The Princess Bride scenes from his role as a child.

The banter between Deadpool and Fred Savage is sassy, smart and funny. Josh Brolin returns as Cable, as does the rest of the Deadpool 2 cast. Without the language distractions, Once Upon a Deadpool is smarter than the first.

 

As always Deadpool who really only wanted a family finds out that sometime those misfits that surround us every day are the ready-made family quirky, original, sensitive and fun that we’re waiting to find.

Once Upon a Deadpool maybe just a way to leverage the holiday box office by adding a few scenes to an already released film and over the last decade since I have begun reviewing films in audiences and industry crowds never have I seen the entire theater stop, pause, stand perfectly still, stop all conversation and then sit back down as they did at the end of Once Upon A Deadpool when the brief interview snippet with Stan Lee, who recently died, popped up on the screen.

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Those who left early missed out not only on the takes and spoof fun but also the interviews. Lee was one of the greatest creators of superheroes the creative world has ever seen, and quite possibly as his life spanned just shy of a century, perhaps the greatest creator many of us will ever know.

Once upon a Deadpool is a bleeping good time. It is playing in theaters everywhere. See it.

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