Mind if I'm honest with you for a second here? I don't know what the hell I'm going to be writing about today. Earlier on I saw Deadpool, which was actually a pretty fun ride except, unfortunately, for the character of Deadpool himself, played by my absolute favourite actor ever, Ryan Reynolds. My gut instinct is to say that this maybe isn't Reynolds' fault, except that, hang on a sec, it's apparently been a pet project that he's been wanting to get off the ground for ages, so nope, sorry, not gonna let him off the hook.
Anyhow, I felt incredibly grubby afterwards so I wanted a palate cleanser, something sweet and funny and clever and almost certainly made without the involvement of a major US studio. This brought me back, as it often does, to The Day of the Doctor, a feature-length episode broadcast in 2013 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the BBC's iconic sci-fi show Dr. Who.
By this point, I had over three hours of material to think about, and that's where I am now, irritable and overstimulated and wondering vaguely whether I'd have a decent subject to write about if only I went and found something else instead. My gut says no, so here I am, with Deadpool lingering in my mind like the wet patch after an ill-advised and possibly syphilitic one night stand.
I think what's driving me loopy here is that I could have really enjoyed it if only the lead character had been less like the wank fantasies of a future school shooter. Heck, I enjoyed the titles immensely, with the way they neatly skewered the tropes that sometimes bind comic book movies just that little bit too tightly. I certainly wasn't against all the fourth wall breaking, either - it felt inventive and playful, and god knows that's something the genre could do with more of.
The sidekicks were far more endearing than we've seen in any Marvel movie other than Guardians of the Galaxy, too, with the CGI Colossus (voicework: Stefan Kapicic) positively adorable, a lump of sentient steel with the heart of the grandmother you always wanted but would never have owing to some serious advocaat issues.
None of this, however, can manage to compensate for Deadpool himself being, bluntly put, a raging cunt. Showing him putting the frighteners on a teenage girl's stalker doesn't establish his good guy credentials, particularly when said stalker is clearly a teenager himself and no match for a dishonourable discharge (pun only partially intended) from the special forces. Granted, Deadpool himself is constantly reiterating that he isn't the hero, but 1) It's his damned movie, 2) None of his actions incur any real consequences, 3) There's apparently a sequel in the works, and 4) Not a single one of the prolonged torture sequences he endured included the bloody laryngectomy he clearly so desperately needed in order to be less eminently slappable. Actually, no, scratch #2, his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin, also moderately endearing) does slap him at one point, but y'know what? Female on male domestic violence also isn't okay.
Other things that also aren't okay? Using a character's pansexuality as a selling point for how transgressive and revolutionary a character is and then making them the sort of camp, vaguely predatory nominally bisexual creep that your friendly neighbourhood homophobe holds up as an example whenever they're on a particularly violent paranoia jag. If you kiss someone while you've got them pinned up against the wall and you're threatening to kill them? That's not sexual attraction, it's just a slightly rapey power trip and again, calling yourself an antihero doesn't make it cool, it just makes you a cunt managing, against all the odds, to out-cunt yourself in a cunting competition.
So, guys, there you go - why not spend a fun afternoon watching Deadpool sometime soon? Then it can turn you into a happier, classier person. Just like it did me.
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