Peter Berg tried it with 'Hancock' and Ivan Reitman with 'My Super Ex-Girl Friend', the demystifying, the humanizing, or even the satirizing of the super hero concept. After the super spy genre that has been sufficiently spoofed, parodied and dragged back to the ground (famously by the Austin Powers series), it is the turn of the super hero now, who has gotten off to the far end of the frown spectrum (in other words, started to take himself too seriously), to be ribbed, ripped and ridiculed. And Matthew Vaughn's 'Kick Ass' almost pulled it off. The super hero construct by its very nature of existence and operation, opens itself to howls of ridicule with a person in tight costumes walking around with an air of superiority, mouthing ideals and absolutes, being completely anachronistic in his ways, means and thinking. That which has been brushed off as an adolescent fantasy, the super hero, till not so long ago has been prettied up and readied for mainstream consumption, with each variation more outlandish than the other and each iteration more over the top than its predecessor. That it took a 'Kick Ass' to give itself a swift kick in the behind the realize the absurdity of its own existence, is a validation of the age old mantra that realization has to come from within. As the Thakur character growls at Veeru in Sholay 'voh is liye hai ki, loha lohe ko kaat taa hai', it would take only a super hero to cut to size and shred apart the fig leaf of fantasy and misplaced nobility that super heroes usually hide behind. The escapism that he offers, often not any better than the negative nutritional value of fast foods, rings hollow once outside the auditorium leaving behind only the after taste of ever improving and impressive visual effects. So the next time some super hero starts spouting sage like wisdom, all the while engaging in jaw dropping destruction in the name of vanquishing the evil, reach out for the barf bags hidden underneath the seats and hurl away till kingdom come. As that old joke, 'would you sleep with me for a million dollars?', 'may be', 'would you sleep with me for a dollar?', 'what do you think I am, a whore?', 'oh! we already established that sugar, we are just haggling over the price', so goes the self-righteousness of the super hero, particularly after 'Deadpool'. It would indeed be a great surprise if the studios aren't already scrambling hard trying to retool their stable of super heroes with similar self effacing, self doubting nature as 'Deadpool', for, such is going to be the long term impact of this movie, that super heroes no longer have a carte blanche over archaic methods of upholding and dispensing justice, and certainly not without the tongue firmly in its place in the middle of the cheek.
'Deadpool' is just what the doctor ordered to resuscitate the relevance of the super hero who is fast slipping into self spun web of self importance. As that saying, he who knows not, knows not he knows not, is a fool, this movie (or the character) is aware of the absurdity of its existence, and somehow floats over it while also wallowing in it, all with its self deprecation. 'The Avengers' tried this tone, all too briefly, when all the super heroes gather around and rip apart each others identity, before quickly getting back to the job of saving the world from total annihilation (isn't this job title getting too tiresome already, like the beauty queen aspirant's unflinching commitment towards achieving world peace, with that dazzling tiara tucked in her well coiffed hair?) And Deadpool not just retains this tone till the end, but it does it in such a self referential fashion constantly breaking the fourth wall (at one time, the character breaks it twice over and turns to the audience and asks, 'OK, now, am I breaking the sixteenth wall?') that the whole movie experience turns into an expert street performance, where the performer constantly engages the audience with his quick wit and humor. slyly slipping in a bravura feat once in a while. The movie demands a repeat viewing just to catch the number of hilarious throwaway references - 'Wait, X-Men, is it McAvoy's or Stewart's? I always get confused about the timelines', 'You are the mutants I am stuck with !!? Guess the studio doesn't have the budget for an A-lister', 'I don't want to be a Green super hero man, anything but green (referring to Ryan Reynolds earlier misadventure with 'Green Lantern'), 'how many 'Taken's are there? 3? Guess, we have to accept at some point that Liam Neeson is just a bad parent'...and the list goes on and on.... Though 'Deadpool' also indulges in the same super human gimmickry as his more locked-brow brethren, it is just a distraction, a side show, beside the point entirely. Dying is easy, comedy is hard, they say, and by being the funniest costumed avenger ever to take to the silver screen, 'Deadpool' becomes the true super hero of his times. Now, if only Mel Brooks were around (active in showbiz) to helm the inevitable follow up!
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