“Deadpool” is one of those movies that’s all the more successful for how easily it could have gone so very wrong. It’s suffused with an arch, self-aware wit — its titular hero violates the fourth wall more than Groucho Marx, Bugs Bunny and Ambush Bug put together — yet it takes its romance and revenge storylines just seriously enough to keep us engaged.
It’s a film that’s amused with itself, but thanks to a screwball screenplay by Rhett Rheese and Paul Wernick (“Zombieland”) and a charmingly snarky lead turn by Ryan Reynolds, that amusement is both thoroughly earned and completely contagious.