The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

First things first; we all know that Deadpool is no family film. Nor is it your everyday Marvel Comic’s adaptation. It is, in fact, every bit as a gutsy, cheeky and an incredibly fun as you’d imagined, but it’s also a film that, when stripped down to the bare bones, deals with the basic idea of an antihero better than most.

Wade Wilson (Reynolds) is a skilled and potty-mouthed gun-for-hire who meets and forms a connection with strip-club waitress, Vanessa Carlysle (Baccarin).  However, the fairytale romance hits a wall before it’s even really begun when Wade is diagnosed with a cancer that has spread to his liver, lungs, prostate and brain.  As is usually the case with this kind of set-up, our protagonist finds a potential way out through an experimental procedure operated by a shadowy group which will not only cure his cancer, but help tap further into his abilities. Wade is left permanently disfigured as a result and distances himself from Vanessa as he embarks on a journey of revenge against those that wronged him.

Driven by a sense of impudence, wit and profanity for the sake of profanity, Deadpool takes full advantage of its R-rating with an enormous amount of filthy jokes, dirty-one-liners, bloody acts of violence and even a number of raunchy scenes –  the latter of which Cairo film goers will not see in cinemas.

Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, those who are familiar with the comic-book version of the Deadpool will appreciate the fact the director Tim Miller has managed to stay as true to the character as possible, while building the film on an endless stream of pop culture references and self-referential humour – we often find Deadpool breaking the fourth wall to make a wise-crack comment, for example.

Having played Deadpool in the badly-received and generally troubled X-Men Origins: Wolverine back in 2009, Reynolds is as committed to his role as he ever has been and any doubts about him being the man to fill Deadpool’s very big shoes have, not just been cleared up, but absolutely obliterated, while Homeland’s Morena Baccarin proves to be a good on-screen match as Vanessa.

Deadpool is not completely flawless, though; while appearances of visiting X-Men, Colosus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, link the film to the series and adds a fun element that will be appreciated most by Marvel fans, the supporting players seem interchangeable, including the villains of the piece. Ajax (Skrein) and Angel Dust (Carano) are generic antagonists that at no time every really feel like a match for our hero. More importanly, the storyline is a little too formulaic and boils down to very basic take on an origin story, while the fact that it is so heavy on pop references means that it almost certainly won't age well. At the same time, however, it’s set the bar for the many, many, many superhero films to come in 2016.