Where do I even begin to describe my experience with Deadpool? The was released a week ago and already made $491.9 million world over, rendering it the highest grossing R-rated movie ever in the history. While I loved watching X-Men movies, I have to admit I am little out of sync with the sequels, and with the advent of movies like The Avengers (and it sequels), Guardians of the Galaxy and other comic heroes, I am become clueless as to whose universe these characters belong to.

What got me intrigued about Deadpool was the hype it’s generated and a large number of glowing, positive reviews cropping up everywhere. My twitter and Facebook feeds were full of friends praising this movie. I just HAD to know what the hype was about.

Deadpool stars Ryan Reynolds (useless in The Green Lantern but superb in Deadpool) as Wade Wilson, who tells the audience that this movie is a love story, and so we dive into his meeting with his girlfriend Vanessa. Soon, he is diagnosed with cancer, and undergoes a private treatment when he is approached by a secret organization. Turns out, this private organization is looking to make super soldiers. Wade is subjected to torture by Ajax aka Francis (this is where he tells us that is now a horror movie!). Wade manages to escape, and discovers he has healing powers. His mission becomes to hunt down Francis, which forms the crux of the story, as he teams up with Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead.

Having watched it tonight, I understand why Deadpool has become such a huge hit.

There are several things you do need to keep in mind though before watching this movie.

1. Deadpool is rude, vulgar, foul, crass and has jokes that are filled with sexual innuendos. In one of the opening scenes, Deadpool talks about rubbing the smooth underside of a certain body part, and that sets the tone of the jokes that follows throughout the movie. For us in Pakistan, one sex scene was censored but that didn’t ruin the movie experience as such. Keeping that in mind, Deadpool has become one of those rare R-Rated movies that can be a fun and enjoyable night out.

2. Deadpool is popular with comic book fans because he breaks the 4^th Wall, something I wasn’t aware of. This means that he stops doing what he is doing, and speaks to us audience. In a middle of a fight scene, he will turn around and speak to us, as if he’s taking a break from the movie. In another scene, when he is about to kill a bad guy, he pauses, and turns the camera away so we don’t see anything. This breaking the 4^th wall becomes a huge novelty factor and engages the audience in the movie to a large extent.

3. Deapool is a movie that takes no shame in making fun of pop culture, X-Men, superhero movies and so is full of such self-referential jokes, which if you don’t pay attention, can be amiss. There are some other really funny jokes too, ranging from Wham! to ‘don’t make me green’ to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. A lot of the younger aged audience was laughing a lot, while others in the older aged market weren’t necessarily laughing as much.

One of my favorite in-joke was when Deadpool has a conversation with a blind woman attempting to assemble an Ikea furniture. They have a full blown discussion over which Ikea piece is good or not (Ikea gave the makers of the movie their blessings to allow them to make fun of Ikea!)

Deadpool has become that movie that audiences seemed to have wanted to see for the longest of time, breaking away from the large number of superheroes movies coming out that are more family friendly. I personally enjoyed Deadpool more than the last few superhero movies. Having said that, Deadpool lacks a solid, strong story line but it makes up for that with it’s sense of humor. I would suggest you to NOT watch any trailers, or read any reviews, and go into this movie with no foreknowledge and thus you will enjoy it a whole lot more.

4 out of 5