Ryan Reynolds was made for the role of Deadpool, the Marvel meta-merc. His appearance as the character in Wolverine: Origins was horrible, and this is nothing but redeeming, and insanely funny. While the film is an origin story, showing how Wade Wilson (Reynolds) became Deadpool, it also knows to make fun of itself and origin stories.

Wilson is a mercenary, has a relationship with a beautiful and intelligent woman, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). It’s a loving relationship, but things are complicated when Wilson is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

When he’s offered a chance to become something more and have his cancer cured, he momentarily sees a possible future, but Ajax (Ed Skrein) aka Francis screws him over, torturing him endlessly to trigger a latent mutant ability.

He does, but it scars him horribly, and now, Wilson is horribly disfigured, but practically immortal. So Wilson becomes Deadpool determined to hunt Francis down and decide how/if to possibly reveal himself to Vanessa.

Of course, the two story threads combine, and there will be a lot of blood, language, fourth wall breaks and pop culture references as Wilson goes to save Vanessa and get revenge on Francis.

He gets some help from a couple of X-men, Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) and Negasoinc Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), there’s a Stan Lee cameo, and everything about this film seems perfectly designed for Reynolds.

Fast-paced with killer dialogue, and violence, this one is a crowdpleaser from the start, with its ridiculous opening credits and Reynolds’ iconic style of delivery. With snide remarks about superhero films in general, and Marvel movies specifically, Deadpool delivers a perverse and brilliantly enjoyable take on the superhero movie while establishing its own launchpad for a franchise.

Who wouldn’t want to see Reynolds do a bunch of Deadpool movies? And can you imagine a cameo in one of the already-established MCU films? It’s got to be coming.

Tightly-paced, and making maximum effort when it comes to editing, effects and its sense of fun, while still allowing you to invest in the characters, Deadpool is just fun. It’s a wonderful riff on everything we’ve seen in superhero movies, from the landings to the costumes to the morals, it’s all up for grabs and is skewered relentlessly and joyously. It’s done with love, but that doesn’t mean it’s not damned funny.

Honestly, I love the fact that Fox let the film be a strong R and that it was allowed to embrace its full Deadpool-ness. I love this film, and re-watching this and the sequel later this week just builds the excitement for the forthcoming Deadpool 3.