Director: David Leitch
Runtime: 118 minutes
Once Upon a Deadpool seems like quite an obvious cash grab for Fox, as the entire premise for the film gravitates around a re-telling of Deadpool 2. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what it is. A PG-13 (or M for Australian audiences) version of Deadpool 2, this film was clearly a means of promoting the film for a younger audience who (for some reason) love the Deadpool franchise.
The film begins with (less bloody) footage from the beginning of Deapool 2 as Deadpool kills several nameless henchmen. The scene then abruptly cuts as we are brought into the room from Princess Bride, where Deadpool wakes a haggard and aggravated adult Fred Savage. These new scenes, while few, were actually incredible. The banter between Savage and Deadpool was great and definitely received a few extra laughs from me. However, the choice of Princess Bride as the meta reference was an interesting choice, as the presumed demographic of 12-year-old boys would have missed the majority of this spoof. This could have been intentional, however, and simply added to enhance the experience of the parents that may be dragged to these films with their children. While these new scenes were clear strengths, they were still fundamentally pointless as they didn’t offer much in the way of Easter eggs or additional information as one might hope. Savage does go on an excellent rant about lazy script writing, as well as a great spiel about the intricacies and importance of Cable’s backstory which would make any Marvel fan rejoice.
The original Deadpool 2 scenes that remained were actually the most disappointing moments of the film, as it felt like an ‘edited for television’ version of Deadpool, rather than an interesting re-telling. The audio modified in post-production was gratingly obvious and made certain scenes awkward and bizarre. Some inappropriate jokes still remained, which seriously made me question what the PG-13 rating actually means, while other key moments from the film were modified and it was incredibly damaging to some of the best scenes. Colossus does not get his moment to say ‘fuck’, as he is censored at the worst time, damaging what I would still call a heartwarming scene. During the Fred Savage scenes, they have a wonderful skit where Deadpool plays with the censoring button and it creates a hilarious tale between Savage and Matt Damon and some highly suggestive content. Unfortunately, this was the one and only example of when the censoring actually created an amusing moment, and the rest fell flat. Julian Dennison’s character, Russell, is also wasted as many of his lines or (somewhat) badass moments were taken from him purely because he swore in so many of the scenes he was a part of.
At the end of it all, Once Upon a Deadpool is a worse version of Deadpool 2. Nothing that new, drastic or impressive is added, and if it is added, the film is still not superior to the original. The highlight of the film was hearing the amazing acoustic version of “Take on Me” again, which was removed on the Blu-ray version.
You can tell when the film was edited, and it essentially feels like Fox was testing the waters on whether or not the MCU could have Deadpool join the franchise without damaging the character. Alternatively, the film also could have been targeted towards the small Jehovah witness demographic in order to make an extra buck in the religious circuit. This film lacks the grit the original had and the ‘meta’ jokes seem a little forced and just ‘thrown in’ for the dollars. Deadpool himself makes many references to Fox being money whores and sadly (or ironically?) they live up to this reputation. Don’t be afraid to say ‘fuck’, Fox. Say it three times and you can still have your PG-13 rating. So, if this review is to remain PG-13, I’ll leave you with only one more ‘fuck’. Merry Christmas!
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