Movie Review

Once Upon a Deadpool waters down violence but doesn't drain fun of original

One of the biggest reasons for the success of both Deadpool and Deadpool 2 was its willingness to push past the boundaries of the PG-13 superhero genre and deliver an R-rated experience that was genuinely fun. Now, with the charity-driven Once Upon a Deadpool coming out for a special two-week run, they're testing whether a watered-down version can be popular, too.

Aside from removing all traces of a certain four-letter F-word — along with most of the blood, guts, and other things that would trigger an R rating — the movie's conceit is that Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is telling the story of the film to Fred Savage, re-creating the former child actor's iconic scenes from The Princess Bride.

The story, of course, remains the same, with Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) doing his lone wolf thing until an upheaval in his personal life and the appearance of a time-traveling mutant named Cable (Josh Brolin) forces him to try to put together a team. Cable is on the trail of Russell (Julian Dennison), a young boy with fire-starting powers who will go on to kill Cable’s family in the future.

Just as in The Princess Bride, the film stops in its tracks throughout the film for either Deadpool or Savage to comment on what's going on in the story, with varying success. The breaks contain winking nods for fans of both films, something that would be a lot funnier if Deadpool wasn't already in the habit of breaking the fourth wall in his own movie.

It's difficult to tell how precisely how much material was excised from Deadpool 2, but with Once Upon a Deadpool clocking in at 117 minutes compared to DP2's 119 minutes, complete with five minutes or more of new scenes with Savage, the changes are significant. Anyone who didn't see the original may not notice the difference, but the experience is choppy for those who have.

What's most interesting about the experiment is that it demonstrates just how violent and profane a PG-13 movie can be. The film is being marketed as an alternative for kids who weren't old enough to see the R-rated version, but it's still not exactly kid-friendly. While the consequences of violence, i.e. most blood and gore, are not shown, the body count remains high, and there is still plenty of profanity and sexual innuendo to be found.

Even with all that, the film remains a lot of fun, with a story that zags where you expect it to zig, keeping the audience on its collective toes the entire time. And even though the language is tamer, the barrage of jokes and insults about the X-Men, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the DC Comics universe, itself, and more is as funny as ever.

Once Upon a Deadpool is not a wholly satisfying experience for anyone who has seen Deadpool 2, but with some of the proceeds going to the appropriately renamed Fudge Cancer, it adds a little more heart to a film that already had more than you'd expect.

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Once Upon a Deadpool will be in theaters through December 24.

Ryan Reynolds in Once Upon a Deadpool.

Ryan Reynolds in Once Upon a Deadpool

Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

Ryan Reynolds in Once Upon a Deadpool.

Movie Review

Korean monster movie Hope delivers thrills despite its lengthy runtime

Hwang Jung-Min and Hoyeon in Hope

Photo courtesy of Neon

Hwang Jung-Min and Hoyeon in Hope.

Monster movies can take on all sorts of different flavors, from all-out mayhem to quieter ones where the monster can sometimes be the protagonist. The new South Korean film Hope splits the difference to a degree, delivering action-packed sequences while also attempting to understand the non-humans in a way.

The story starts in medias res, with an unseen creature having already done great damage to a huge bull and laying waste to much of a small Korean town. The local sheriff, Beom Seok (Hwang Jung-Min), tries to take control of the situation in the town, while a group of hunters led by Sung Ki (Zo In-Sung) travel into the nearby woods to see what they can find there.

Thus starts a nearly nonstop, 160-minute epic of each side trying (and mostly failing) to defend themselves against gigantic creatures who seem hellbent on destroying everything in their path. It’s not until 40 minutes into the film that the audience is shown one of the monsters in detail, and the less said the better about what it actually looks like, as the mystery behind it keeps the intrigue going.

That initial section of the film is the best, as Beom Seok — eventually joined by deputy Sung Ae (Hoyeon) — goes on a frantic hunt around the town, always just far enough behind the monster to keep from seeing it. The utter destruction he witnesses and his interactions with various locals are intense and oddly funny, with the hectic conversations he has laced with fear and incredulity over how different people choose to act.

Writer-director Na Hong-jin bounces back and forth between the people in the town and the group in the forest, doing his best to maintain the momentum of the first section. This approach works for a while as each group makes their own discoveries about the creatures and has run-ins with them that more often than not are ill-fated. Using a mixture of relatively good CGI, great production design, and an abundance of gore, the filmmaker shows he knows how to make an effective blockbuster-style film.

The trouble is, he doesn’t know when to stop. Somewhere around the two-hour mark of the movie, the story starts to become repetitive and Hong-jin introduces elements that don’t mesh well with what has come before. For some reason, he decides that some of the creatures should speak, a move that is baffling on several fronts. The biggest one is that they are voiced by English-speaking actors like Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell, but each speaks a non-human language, rendering their performances moot.

Jung-min puts in a fantastic lead performance, one that requires him to vacillate between abject terror and in-control leadership. In-Sung is almost as good, although his character requires him to play one note over and over again. Hoyeon, who some may recognize from Squid Game, delivers an extra shot of energy when she enters the film, something she keeps going despite her character being forced to say some bad lines.

If Hong-jin had kept the focus Hope a little tighter, the sci-fi thriller might have ended up toward the top of this year’s films. But by choosing to extend the story into territories that don’t add much to the plot or make much sense, the filmmaker puts a damper on what was a fun and brutal monster movie.

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Hope is now playing in theaters.

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