Deadpool was good

 

I love to be fashionably late to events, it's like my biggest desire as a resident psychopath to be the guy strolling in after the party is over and tasting all the left-over snacks that nobody has even touched because this is a party and people don't eat at parties. (Seriously- no one ever touches the snacks! What's up with that?) Hence was one of the reasons why I waited several weeks before finally going to see Deadpool and Wolverine- second was my belief that Deadpool was an 18 because I heard it got an R Rating- but apparently in England 'R' translates to a 15 which... I'm only just learning now. Guess that says a little something about the way we and America view violence and the effect it has on growing minds, huh? But enough about me, what about the movie? It was good.

I'm sure by now you've experienced some vast exposé on all members of the cast given that in the information age the very second a movie comes out that spoiler embargo expires. Supercuts of the 'best moments' and 'best cameos' have flooded the Internet, memes have spawned, compilations are complied- all before the film has even officially released on home digital. (I wonder if those little scanner things they use in Theatres even work or if it's just a scare tactic at this point- seriously!) Which is why I'm not going to play it coy like I would if this were a brand new game. Plus who cares about spoiling a movie, seriously? They're meant to be spoiled- that's like the entire point! (Why? I don't know but I'm said that now so I guess I have to stick with it.)

I think the Deadpool franchise was on a bit of shaky grounds ever since the second movie didn't quite hit as acutely as the first. That original movie was scrappy to it's very core and that made it absolutely charming beyond belief. Ryan's Pool was a violent, irreverent, mass murderer with the ability to turn literally anything into a joke- making him like this minus-hero, not even an anti-hero, that drove a war of gloriously irreverent immorality that stood out so vastly admits the sea of increasingly homogenous and vapid superhero projects that all espoused the same virtues, portray the same journey and, crucially, had the same sense of humour. Deadpool was a movie that had to struggle to live and be made- which was represented perfectly on screen.

Deadpool 2, on the otherhand, is a strange case. It was visually much more ambitious, they clearly had an insanely bigger budget to work with and spent that building up a powerhouse of a cast. But maybe somewhere within that safety an edge was lost, at the heart of the film. I think it shows best in Deadpool's attitude which for the first time ever comes across at predominately altruistic, rather than begrudgingly or accidentally. He wants to save a kid from becoming a serial killing monster in the future because for some reason he connects with the aussie, whereas in any other instance Deadpool would definitely have just killed the kid. Whilst cracking a joke. There was a horrendously prototypical message about the importance of family that clung to every half second of the film and that just wasn't what Deadpool was about. Deadpool is more about what Deadpool 3 is about. 

Yeah, there's some slight hook about 'family' in order to light a fire under Deadpool's ass within the magic box- but the movie is very upfront from the get-go: this is about the excitement of Deadpool finally getting to join the real continuity of Marvel Movies wherein the things he does can actually 'matter'. In typical Deadpool fashion they are very up front about that- just like the ol' 'Pinky, Elmyria and the Brain' opening lyric "It's what the network wants- so why bother complain!" In that way Deadpool's choice to hang around in order to try and save his dysfunctional family is more allegorical of Ryan Reynold's attempts to try and get the FOX era of Marvel movies to be considered valuable and real and maybe even be tack-ons to that old MCU Machine we're all growing sick and tired of.

A common complaint of modern Marvel which makes no sense to me is people's fatigue with Multiverses, for which this movie relies on heavily. I am confused because no one seems able to voice a genuine critique as to why they are objectively bad as a storytelling framework. The go-to is 'well there's no stakes because you can do anything to someone from one universe and they'll come back as a different version of themselves." My challenge is this- literally when has that ever actually happened in a film? It's a common problem with the comics, but the only film that has attempted anything remotely close to that would be Guardians of the Galaxy 3 wherein the resurrection of Gomora is a chief talking point. The only real critique I've seen is that they are overdone to a poor degree- to which I find Deadpool to be rather decent salve to.

Getting to experience all the oodles of cameos tucked away in this movie fresh was a fantastic showcase of the potential of these kinds of stories done right. Of course, assisted somewhat by the meta-leaning of this movie that allowed a lot of leeway in exactly what they could pull and why there are doing it- which for me is really the crux of a Deadpool film. When you get stuck too staunchly on the meat of the movie and the grounded terrestrial stakes of film, those secondary aspects of the film, then you'd be forgiven in not having as good of a time- but that takes a wanton rejection of the very heart of the film in order to achieve. Judge the film for everything it isn't and all you'll see are the mistakes- the clumsy story, the hand-waving plot points, the bizarre interactions- let yourself go with the film and I'd consider this one of the best Marvel movies in their entire line-up.

So it's safe to say that I like Deadpool and Wolverine and as a cap-off for the franchise I think they did a mighty good job settling everything down in a way that I don't think the FOX universe was capable of or even deserved in a lot of respects.  But it's always nice to see someone who holds the utmost respect for something demonstrate the admiration even if you don't full comprehend it yourself. And that's what the movie was, a love letter to a long-departed ex who left your goldfish without food before going off on holiday. Which is to say that I thought the movie was downright marvellous. Such a shame about the next one being Venom 3. Thanks for that, Sony.

Breaking the Fourth Wall

This one's for the Audience

In typical viewing media there are three metaphorical walls. The three surrounding the character that exist within their world, and the fourth which exists only for the audience to peek in. A transparent glass wall that separates the world of fiction from our own. This fragile separation keeps our viewing experience rationalized as it means we witness without being noticed, the characters play their parts without ever realizing they are in a play. But what happens when things don't play out like that? What happens when the characters break that cardinal rule of cinema and look directly into the camera? Is it anarchy? Does the fabric of space time collapse around us? Well no... we usually just get an overdone joke.

A significant degree of 'Modern' story telling in film, TV and now games, have followed the trend of traditional art (one century late) and gone 'Meta'. That is to say, they often like breaching the metaphysical barrier between fiction and reality and acknowledge that they are in a performance. At first this was a little bit quaint, a scandalous break from the norm that gave the viewers a forbidden look behind the curtain. That sort of shared secret between the audience and the character could even become engrossing as they wrap you up in their world by acknowledging your own. But over exposure, as always, as sullied this charming gimmick and turned in into a sour and predictable move. Such to the point that only the quirky (lazy comedy movies) and the committed (Deadpool) still stick to the formula. Even games have given up on this cliche for the most part, however there was a time when it was all over the metaphorical shop of gaming, and I want to approach that today.

Seeing as how I already mentioned already, I might as well start with Deadpool. Not the movie version starring Ryan Reynolds, but the Video game starring Nolan North. (Good lord, both their names are alliterative. They belong in comic books!) Deadpool is a character built around one simple premise: he knows that he is in a comic book and he doesn't care. That has carried over to every piece of media to which Wade had emigrated to and it means the game is inter-cut with many instances of Wade breaking the Fourth wall. Heck, the entire story is driven around the premise of Wade struggling to make Deadpool game after getting his propositions cancelled by the studio and firing his prospective voice actor (Nolan North, obviously.) What follows is a wacky affair in which Wade chases down some vague threat whilst, every now and then, making a snide remark to the camera or even shifting his own reality to fit to some joke. He even personally makes the final fight 10 times harder in order to make it more climatic by cloning the boss. (Sounds more like the actions of a really annoying lead designer, honestly.)

Metal Gear Solid, (ding-ding-ding. I've exceeded my Metal Gear quota for the week!) featured one particularly endearing trait wherein the series would occasionally acknowledges it's own existence for little moments of "Wait, did you notice that?" Metal Gear Solid 2 has that moment when Campbell's AI starts going haywire and he directly informs Raiden that he has been playing the game too long and should turn it off immediately. Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes has the level in which you re-enact scenes from the original Metal Gear and get your game infected with the classic 'FOX-die' virus only to have the actual Fox Engine (The proprietary engine made for the game) save you, And then there were those off-the-cuff moments throughout the game wherein characters would teach you how to play the game by actually saying things like "Press the Action button." (That always annoyed me, truth me told.) But the classic Fourth wall break would have to go make to Metal Gear Solid 1 during the fight with the iconic Metal Gear villain; Psycho Mantis. Things start off with Mantis 'reading your mind' (scanning your memory card) and then commenting on games that you like to play. (Spooky!) They come to a head, however, mid-way through the fight once Mantis starts dodging all of your moves instinctively. Calling for back-up reveals that Mantis is once again 'reading you mind' and the only way to shake him off is to replug your controller into the second game port. (You can see why they don't try cool tricks like that nowadays)

Borderlands 2 is primarily a comedic game at heart, so it makes sense that the team would be a little bit flippant when it comes to creating a solid and believable world. That being said, Borderlands has managed to only subtly prod at the fourth Wall throughout all of it games, but never go the whole hog and shatter the thing. One of my favourite moments for this is when Scooter sends the vault hunters off to bring power to a small settlement, which can be achieved through the acting of clearing monster infested pumps. He commends you for fixing the first pump without prompt and then comments about how weird it was that he knew the task was done the second you did it. (A subtle nod to the same logic fallacy that affects all games with silent protagonists.) The best, however, comes from 'Tales from the Borderland' in a scene wherein the protagonist Rhys is shocked by the fact that he has the consciousness of the previous game's antagonist, Handsome Jack, inside of his cranium. (I guess Cyberpunk was taking notes for this scene.) Handsome Jack plays around with Rhys by threatening to overload his neurons before laughing it off by saying he can't do that. He's still tickled by his ability to  terrify Rhys and, in Telltale game's style, a little prompt pops up in the corner stating 'Handsome Jack will remember that.' By chance, Jack finds himself noticing the little prompt and points to it saying "What the hell?" before it disappears and the scene goes on unabashed.

Bioshock isn't the kind of game that one would usually equate with being 'fourth wall breaking', and that's because it isn't... In the traditional sense. Whilst Bioshock is both a sober and satirical look at a twisted society driven by extremest socialist ideals, it doesn't take much to see how the game aims at video game culture as well, especially in it's twist. Now, I know that the game has been out for over a decade now, but seeing as how the twist itself is one of the best in gaming history I will dance around it here. (Look it up if you really want to know. Or better yet, play the game.) But safe to say, 'that twist' is a direct comment on the way that games incentivize the player by forcing them to do tasks for which the player is not in control. Even when presented with a branching RPG narrative, there are still restrictions to your actions at some point, making the art of video game storytelling almost 'enslaving' in it's execution. Perhaps not shattering the fourth wall wholesale, but defiantly noticing it in a smart way.

One 'Fourth wall breaker' that is well on it's way to becoming a classic is Dan Salvato's 'Doki Doki Literature Club'. That is a game in which the player is initially rolled into a traditional anime-schoolboy set-up only to have everything turn on it's head in the weirdest possible fashion. The first hint of anything going off-script is when Natsuke pokes fun at Monika by joking how she should be the person to talk to about matters concerning fish seeing as how it's in her name. After a moment of confusion, the girl spells it out for us; "Mon-Ika". Eventually, Monika has to wave it away be explaining that the joke doesn't work in the English translation of the game, and we get our first glimpse into the way that things aren't sensible in this game world. The game itself goes into fifth gear at times but, once again, I refuse to spoil things so I'll encourage those interested to seek it out yourself, you won't be disappointed.

Lastly, there is a game that one certainly wouldn't assume would be flippant with it's fourth wall, and yet when it was, the moment was undeniably perfect. 'The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt' was  in development for a very long time and when it came out, critics and fans alike attested that it was worth the wait. The game was especially important for the Developers themselves, CD Projekt Red, as it was the conclusion of the franchise that had put their studio on the map. The team threw their hearts and souls into the game and were rewarded with adoration and fandom from practically every corner of the Internet. But things didn't end there, as the team then moved straight on to creating two DLC's for the game; 'Heart of Stone' and the new-land expansion: 'Blood and Wine'. With the latter DLC being the last time that CDPR would work on The Witcher for the forseeable future, the team ensured there would be a moment of closure for themselves and the fans. At the end of everything, once the day is saved, there is a moment wherein Geralt finally makes the choice to end his illustrious career of monster hunting and retire. Regis comments how the both of them deserve rest after their turmoil and strife, to which Geralt merely responds "That we do." Before looking straight at the camera to let the audience know that he's including us in that statement too. It's a touching scene to tell us all that he has earnt a break and is almost looking for our permission to take it, it was a moment that just felt right.

As you can see there are a great many number of ways that one can play around with breaking the Fourth Wall, and not all of them are lazy and awkward. That being said, I'm glad the trend has fallen off of late, before things started getting as dire as the 'modern art' scene and we started getting 'impressionist video games'. Perhaps there is still space for the odd subtle fourth wall wink in the future, in the same vein as The Witcher 3, but I'd still ask for it to be exercised in moderation before another foul trend starts to build.