There are heroes, there are villains, and then somewhere on that spectrum lies Wade Wilson a.k.a Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds). Deadpool’s aggressive – and pretty much brilliant – marketing campaign continues to chug along towards the film’s release next week. Along the way, audiences have gotten a better understanding of the film’s basic premise, its protagonist’s general sense of humor, and the sort of characters that would join him on his journey towards fully becoming The Merc with the Mouth.
One notion that the film has generally shied away from is the concept of morality: good, evil, and the balance between the two. That makes quite a bit of sense when one considers the fact that the film’s lead character can rarely tell these concepts apart to begin with. A newly released infographic for the film aims to clear that idea up for audiences, though.
20th Century Fox has just released that infographic (see below) and it pretty much spells out the allegiance of every character in Deadpool.
The picture tells audiences everything they need to know about these characters while maintaining the typical vulgar charm of the film’s titular character. Within the “Heroes” side of the chart one can see Weasel (T.J. Miller), Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), Colossus (Stefan Kapicic), Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), and Vanessa Carlysle (Morena Baccarin). On the “Douchebags” side of the chart one can see The Recruiter (Jed Rees), Ajax (Ed Skrein), and Angel Dust (Gina Carano). In the middle of all the characters rests Deadpool himself, representing the middle ground on the Venn diagram between hero and douchebag.
In terms of plot elements the picture does not necessarily provide much new insight into how Deadpool’s story will unfold. Despite the moral ambiguity of the character himself, all of the marketing material thus far has presented the three characters on the left of the infographic as straightforward bad guys in the film, while the ones on the right provide some level of support for him on his quest to rescue Vanessa. However, the image does help reinforce the idea that Wide Wilson is not really much of a hero; his motivations in Deadpool seem pure and justified, but he’s a stone cold killer with no qualms about murder legions of henchmen in order to get what he wants.
It raises genuine questions as to what sort of character Deadpool will be by the time the credits roll on the film. As the movie is primarily told from Wilson’s point of view, the audience may not be getting the most reliable information. The word “douchebag” could really mean villain, but Deadpool’s twisted mind cannot process that word, so he merely hears “douchebag.” This would be somewhat reminiscent of Deadpool’s appearance on the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon, during which he used the phrase “un-alive” every time he meant to say kill.
By doing this it seems that the filmmakers - including, director Tim Millers as well as screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Zombieland) - have dulled his more insane tendencies in favor of making him simply a wise-cracking “douchebag.” Whether or not this will help the film in the long run remains to be seen, but as Deadpool has received rave early reviews the hope remains high.
Deadpool opens in theaters on February 12, 2016, followed by X-Men: Apocalypse on May 27, 2016; Gambit sometime in 2017; Wolverine 3 on March 3, 2017; and an untitled X-Men film on July 13, 2018. The New Mutants is also currently in development.
Source: 20th Century Fox
