10 Reasons Why Deadpool Isn’t Like Any Other Superhero Movie

Now into its second week of release, Deadpool shows no sign of letting up at the box office. In just over a week, it has crushed the competition with an almost $500 million worldwide haul. Not bad for an R-rated movie about an obscure comic book hero that casual fans might have never heard of, right? You can probably chalk the runaway success of Tim Miller's film up to a few things. First of all, Deadpool is the first real event movie of the year, following a typically dreary January. It's also something of a palate cleanser after months of serious, worthy Oscar fare. Perhaps more crucial to Deadpool's success than anything else, however, is that the film gleefully distinguishes itself from the rest of the blockbuster field, superhero movies in particular. There's no other comic book film like it; after years of the superhero movie following a similar roundabout pattern, Deadpool takes that pattern and shoots it square in the face. So, on that note, here are 10 reasons why the Merc With a Mouth's solo outing is so different to the standard superhero movie. 10) Breaking The Fourth Wall Let's get the obvious one out of the way first. One of the first moments to really grab the audience in Deadpool is when Wade Wilson stops what he's doing, takes a break from the movie and addresses you, the viewer, personally. This breaking of the fourth wall occurs throughout the film, deployed intermittently to keep you on your toes. This isn't a groundbreaking technique. We've seen characters break the fourth wall in recent films like The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short. But in a comic book movie? Forget about it - aside from a few knowing winks here and there, superheroes in film are almost never even remotely aware of themselves. For Deadpool, it's just part of the character. 9) The Heavy Sex, Violence And Swearing Another immediately obvious one: Deadpool is foul-mouthed, gory and unafraid to break into an explicit sex montage when you least expect it. The context is what makes it so shocking. It's not just that you never find this kind of stuff in superhero movies, it's that you never see it in blockbusters in general. With PG-13 all the rage with blockbuster filmmakers (although not necessarily - studios just make sure most of their big budget films are PG-13 so they can maximize their audience), Tim Miller has broken off from the pack totally by making Deadpool a hard R. Superhero movies in particular are almost always, ultimately, marketed towards kids and teens. So Deadpool containing all the elements usually reserved for adult cinema is a major departure. 8) It's Not Much Of A Superhero Movie At All Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool, is a superhero, living in a comic book universe shared by other superheroes (two X-Men characters make cameos). But his first film doesn't always feel like much of a superhero movie at all. If anything, the genre Deadpool's most resembles is the romantic comedy. Just look at the basic storyline. Deadpool doesn't involve the superhero character trying to save the world; he instead spends the entire film trying to get the girl. It begins with a meet-cute, throws in some conflict to break the central couple apart, then the male hero fights to win back her heart. So while fans will class it as a superhero movie, Deadpool is fundamentally more like an R-rated rom-com, only with superhero trappings. 7) The Jumbled Narrative Though comic book cinema is increasingly trying new things and going in evermore bizarre directions (see: quasi-comedic space opera Guardians of the Galaxy, or all-supervillain team-up movie Suicide Squad), it rarely attempts to shake up the conventional three-act story told in chronological order. Deadpool, however, mixes things up. Beginning in the middle before cutting back and forth between the beginning and the middle leading up to the end, Deadpool is structured more like a Tarantino movie than a typical comic book story. The origins tale at the heart of the film is familiar to the genre, but the way the story's actually told is really anything but. 6) The Direct Referencing Of Our World As much as they might reference our world, superhero movies are more often than not seemingly set in some alternate universe, between our own and a separate comic book version of it. Deadpool is different in that it absolutely takes place on modern day planet Earth. There are references in Deadpool to Adventure Time (check out the watch that Wade wears), Sexiest Man Alive Hugh Jackman, the Taken movies and even Ryan Reynolds himself. Where superhero movies often cautiously distance themselves from our version of reality, Deadpool opens up and lets the world in. 5) The Music Another way Deadpool lets it be known that it's firmly set in our world: the mix of popular music on the soundtrack. Junkie XL provides an original score, but more striking is the selection of pop hits that play, from Juice Newton's "Angel of the Morning" for the opening credits, to Wham's "Careless Whisper" for the closing titles. Guardians of the Galaxy had its own pop playlist, too, but that film had to narratively justify its use of period hits through Peter Quill's possession of a treasured cassette tape from Earth. In Deadpool, the music has no reason, it just is - there's no reason for it other than director Tim Miller (and presumably producer Ryan Reynolds) wanted it in there. 4) It Wants To Make You Laugh First And Foremost Guardians of the Galaxy was, again, something of a minor comic book movie pioneer in that it functioned as a comedy just as well as it did an action sci-fi. But still, the comedy was always the sideshow to the main event. Deadpool, on the other hand, is so packed with jokes that it couldn't be clearer what the film's priority is. First and foremost, Deadpool wants to make you laugh. The basic story is clearly not much more than a placeholder for the panoply of gags. In fact, at times, because the main character is fast-talking and quick-witted, Deadpool comes across like a screwball comedy, throwing line after rapid-fire line at the audience in the hope something gets a chuckle. 3) The Villain Is Something Of A Nonentity Even back before the comic book movie was big, back before it had much of any kind of prestige, you had acclaimed actors like Gene Hackman and Jack Nicholson playing the villains. Since the days of Superman and Batman, superhero cinema has become so much more popular, but one thing has never changed: the finest acting talent is still always brought in to bring the bad guy to life. That this trend is broken in Deadpool is one of the film's few weak points. After the likes of Tom Hiddleston, Jeff Bridges, Robert Redford, Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce (and that's just from Marvel Studios), Ed Skrein sticks out like a sore thumb as Deadpool's big bad, Ajax. It's not greatly to the film's detriment, but the decision to cast an actor as uninteresting and wooden as Skrein seems a curious departure. 2) The Antihero Really Is An Antihero There's always a lot of talk regarding which superheroes in the movies are 'antiheroes', or good guys with a lot of shade. Truly, though, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark can brood and flirt with darkness all they want - at the end of the day, they only ever commit good deeds. Not Deadpool, superhero cinema's first real antihero. Unlike Stark, Wayne and co., Wade Wilson begins his story as a guy trying to get his colleagues killed so he can win a bet, and ends it shooting his nemesis to death in cold blood. This is the only protagonist in a superhero blockbuster that doesn't end his movie having done 'the right thing.' 1) The Film Is (Relatively) Low Budget With its limited locations and largely no-name cast, there's an obviously lo-fi vibe going on with Deadpool. It still cost $58 million to make, but compared with, say, Avengers: Age of Ultron - which cost Marvel Studios $280 million - Fox can certainly look at Deadpool as something of a bargain. And it shows. It turns its limitations into strengths, making the story small-scale and keeping things character-based, but Deadpool is visibly one of the poorest (financially-speaking) superhero movies to grace our screens for a long, long time. The already greenlit sequel will no doubt have a bigger budget, though, which could paradoxically prove damaging - judging by his first outing, this character positively thrives in a more intimate setting.