Deadpool Review: The Comic Book Movie That Talks Back

Yes, Deadpool is worth watching, and it is worth rewatching. Tim Miller's 2016 Marvel satire is still the sharpest comedy in the superhero genre, because it treats the whole apparatus as a joke and gets away with it. Ryan Reynolds plays Wade Wilson, the movie breaks the fourth wall every time it feels like it, and nobody at the studio had the nerve to sand it down. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 85 percent from 345 reviews. Our rating is 7.5 out of 10.

Spoiler-free verdict: Watch it. A 108-minute R-rated superhero comedy with Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin and T.J. Miller, and the rare Marvel film that treats its own lore as a punchline. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 85 percent from 345 critic reviews and a 90 percent Popcornmeter. You need no plot summary before pressing play.

What Deadpool is about

Wade Wilson was a Canadian special forces soldier, then a mercenary, then a man in love with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), then a man with terminal cancer. A recruiter offers him an experimental treatment that might cure it, and the treatment is run by Ajax (Ed Skrein), whose real name is Francis, and by Angel Dust (Gina Carano), who does not look like a scientist. What the experiment does is burn the cancer out of Wade and leave him with accelerated healing and a face like a road accident.

He survives, he hides from Vanessa, and his friend Weasel (T.J. Miller) names him Deadpool while inventing a costume out of a leather apron and a ski mask. He moves into Blind Al's (Leslie Uggams) house, hunts Ajax's associates, and the film's best set piece arrives: a highway ambush that keeps cutting away to the story of how he got here.

Cast and performances

Reynolds plays Wade as a man who knows he is a comic book character and has opinions about the writer. The performance is funny and, more importantly, it is fast, because the film's joke only works at speed. The role also asks for something most Marvel leads never have to do, which is to carry the film's lies without ever breaking character.

Baccarin plays Vanessa with real warmth and zero patience. Skrein gives Ajax a sneer and a German accent that are almost too much, which is the point. Gina Carano is funny as Angel Dust. Brianna Hildebrand and Stefan Kapicic, who voices Colossus, arrive as the conscience of the film in Russian-accented broad comedy, and they are better than that description suggests.

Karan Soni plays Dopinder, the taxi driver who gives Wade rides, a suit, and the Chimichanga, and he gets more of the film's affection than the plot requires. Michael Benyaer, credited as the Warlord, turns up in Ajax's crew. Leslie Uggams, as Blind Al, gets the only genuinely unprotected line in the movie.

What works

The self-awareness. InSession Film's Shaurya Chawla gave the film an A plus and made the point in one sentence: "Miller's movie doesn't need to be a bonafide masterpiece to be a perfect movie in its own regard, and Deadpool certainly is that." The jokes land because the film never explains them, never waits for the laugh and never apologises for the wink.

The violence and the jokes, which arrive together. Sara Michelle Fetters at MovieFreak.com called it "a fun, hyper-violent, gleefully perverse frolic into the super-powered absurd", and that is the film's whole tonal contract. The National Newspaper Publishers Association's Dwight Brown put the appeal more plainly: "Who needs a hero when you can have an entertaining antihero?"

The economy. It was made for $58 million, shot in Vancouver, and it looks like a bigger film than that, because Ken Seng's photography and Tom Holkenborg's score are doing the work of a bigger budget.

What doesn't

The origin story. Keith Garlington at Keith & the Movies gave it two and a half stars and found the flaw that matters: "'Deadpool' is essentially an origin story and not a particularly original one." The science is boilerplate and the romance is the one everybody has seen.

The strain. The Financial Times' Nigel Andrews gave the film two stars and wrote that "Deadpool tries so hard and is so trying", which is the film's central risk, because the jokes are only funny when they arrive faster than you can think about them. Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian read the same thing from the outside, gave the film four out of five and called the film "neurotic and needy", adding that it was very entertaining.

The screenplay. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick write punchlines, and the second half of the film is a chase sequence with a running commentary attached. The commentary is the best thing in it, and the chase would be more memorable with a little less of the commentary.

What audiences say

All figures checked on October 22, 2026. Rotten Tomatoes has the film at 85 percent from 345 critic reviews, with a Popcornmeter of 90 percent from 100,000-plus ratings, and its critics consensus reads "Fast, funny, and gleefully profane, the fourth-wall-busting Deadpool subverts superhero film formula with wildly entertaining...". Metacritic has a Metascore of 65 from 49 critic reviews, labelled Generally Favorable, plus a user score of 8.0 from 3,659 user ratings. Letterboxd's member average is a weighted 3.71 from 3,031,444 ratings, with 4,946,173 members having watched it and 1,391,013 liking it, and the film sitting in 296,575 member lists. TMDB has it at 7.6 from 33,495 votes. We do not quote IMDb here, because the site blocks our checks.

The Metacritic 65 and the 8.0 user score sitting next to each other are the most honest summary of the film. Critics found it messy and cold at heart. Audiences found the mess the point.

Where to watch Deadpool

JustWatch, which checked 376 streaming services on October 22, 2026, lists Deadpool in the United States on Disney Plus, with a subscription required, and as a rental or a purchase on Amazon Video, the Apple TV Store and Fandango At Home, with Spectrum On Demand also carrying the rental. There is no free tier. The certificate is R, for language throughout, graphic nudity, sexual content and strong violence, and the runtime is 108 minutes.

Current availability, cast details and member reviews sit on our Deadpool streaming options and member reviews page.

Verdict

Is Deadpool worth watching? Yes. It is the rare Marvel film that has more than one thing going on, and the reason it still works is the reason the studio eventually stopped arguing with Ryan Reynolds about it. Lawrence Toppman at the Charlotte Observer, who gave it three and a half stars, wrote that "it's impossible to envision a sequel with pleasure", and Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian called it "an innocent pleasure". Ten years on, both of those sentences look right. Seven and a half out of 10.

Spoiler warning: the ending of Deadpool

Ajax has Vanessa and takes her to a decommissioned Helicarrier in a scrapyard, and Wade talks Colossus and Negasonic into helping him get her back. The fight runs across the collapsing ship, and Negasonic's mistake with the supports brings the whole thing down on top of them. Wade carries Vanessa clear, Colossus carries Negasonic and Angel Dust, and Ajax tells Wade the truth: there is no cure for his face. Colossus asks Wade to spare him, and Wade puts a bullet through Ajax's head anyway.

Vanessa is furious that Wade left her and about what he looks like, and then she sees his face and understands why he never came back, and they make it up. The credits then break the fourth wall one last time: Wade appears in a bathrobe in a parody of the ending of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, tells the audience to go home, comes back to announce that Cable will be in the sequel, and starts reading out casting suggestions for him.