Deadpool is an effects test by Miller to prove a feature is possible. It’s unclear, in terms of a narrative, if the ninety second short answers that question in the positive but it doesn’t much matter. These ninety seconds of a strange masked comic book character directly addressing the viewer are phenomenal.

There’s a certain smugness to Ryan Reynolds’s performance–the titular, very skinny character is CG, but Reynolds did the motion capture and voice–but Miller makes it work. The comic timing of the test footage is what’s so spectacular.

A feature length version would probably be tiresome unless it was just one high quality action scene after another.

Miller gets everything right–the bad guys, the mood, the music–he’s proposing the idea of a superhero action movie, with lots of CG, but on a human action movie scale.

It’s a neat idea… but probably wouldn’t work out.

Highly Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Tim Miller; based on a character created by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld.

Starring Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool).