"Queen of Katwe"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

In chess, the queen is the most powerful piece. Yes, the king is the objective—the piece to capture to win the game. But the queen has got the talent—the most expansive move set. She is the leader of the army, and the determiner of one’s game plan.

And, as the chess coach in “Queen of Katwe”, Robert Katende (David Oyelowo), is careful to point out, in chess, as in life, you have to have a game plan. You can’t just move pieces around willy-nilly. You have to be thoughtful, patient, persistent, methodical. You may not always be able to predict what is going to happen. But you can plan, and choose how to react. In that way, you control your destiny.

Easier said than done—especially for coach Katende’s best student, Phiona Mutesi (Madina Nalwanga). You see, Phiona is from Katwe—an extremely impoverished town in Uganda. She lives with her siblings and (single) mom in a rundown shack, doesn’t go to school, and has to sell maize to help feed her family. So she doesn’t exactly have the time or opportunity to think about her future.

Yet, when it comes to chess, Phiona is an oracle. She can see six, seven, eight moves ahead. She’ll lose her knight, but capture her opponent’s rook three moves later. She’ll cede her rook, only to take the queen down the road.

Phiona has an uphill climb, though, and not just because she has limited time and resources. One of the crappy things about being poor is that not only are you, well, poor, but people also look down on you for being poor. It’s a double whammy. Phiona is just as good at chess as the rich kids across town, but it takes every bit of coach Katende’s gumption and ingenuity to get her into the posh chess tournaments she wants to compete in, and needs to compete in, in order to make it to the next level.

But, as coach Katende says, she belongs there. And once in, she crushes her competition. She mows through girls and boys, younger kids, older kids, kids from other cities, kids from other countries, champions and masters. She is Katwe’s queen of chess.

And, increasingly, Phiona becomes the queen of her life, as well as the lives of those around her. She wins the opportunity to think ahead, to plan ahead, and even captures the means to execute her plan.

“Queen of Katwe” is sweet. It’s warm and touching—the dictionary definition of a feel good movie.

It does have this Disney-fied feel to it, though—the world is one big cartoon that promises everything is all right, people are swell (or at least not super evil), and that justice always prevails. Even the tears feel somewhat inconsequential, like they’re only there to make us feel more warmly toward the characters.

I think this may be a bad thing, though I’m not entirely sure. I, at least, have a gut-reaction aversion to it. It feels a little icky how Disney’s applies their trademark oversimplification and white washing to the plight of people in such dire circumstances. It feels just a little off that a company that charges $95 a day to go to one of their theme parks (more if you want to go to the whole thing) is trying to tackle the woes of poverty.

But I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t beat up on Disney. At least they made the movie in the first place. After all, Phiona’s story is worth telling, and worth watching. So if this version of it comes bursting at the seams with ooh-ey gooey, sugary sap, and makes you feel like humanity is wrapping you up in a warm blanket, then, well, maybe that’s all right.

"Kubo and the Two Strings"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

“If you must blink, do it now,” says Kubo (Art Parkinson) as the movie opens. Kubo goes on, “Pay careful attention to everything you see no matter how unusual it may seem.”

Kubo is right. Get your blinking done during the previews. Because “Kubo and the Two Strings” is a feast—for the heart, mind, and indeed, for the eyes—and you don’t want to miss a morsel.

Kubo is also right to imply that you are in for something unusual. The usual part of the story is that Kubo is a young Japanese boy who lives with his mom in a small village. The un- part is, well, everything else.

First of all, Kubo has magic. When he strums his magical shamisen (which is a lute-like musical instrument), paper figures—people, cranes, dragons, chickens, and whatever else Kubo wants—come to life to do Kubo’s bidding.

This is mostly a parlor trick. That is, until—and here we continue with the un- side of unusual—he learns that he is being chased by his Aunts (Rooney Mara) and Grandfather (aka Moon King—Ralph Fiennes), who killed his samurai father, took one of Kubo’s eyes (yes, he only has one eye), and are looking to snatch Kubo’s other eye so that Kubo, like them, becomes blind to the cares of others. After learning all of that, Kubo needs to repurpose his magic.

Kubo’s mission is to find his father’s magical armor—a sword, breastplate, and helmet—with the help of Monkey (Charlize Theron) and Beetle (Matthew McConaughey). Monkey was once a little wooden figurine that Kubo carried around. Now she is a flesh-and-blood monkey. Beetle—a sort of quixotic doofus (though in a thoroughly disarming way)—was a samurai, but now he is half-man, half-insect, and sports six appendages.

Together they journey across land and sea in search of their treasure, while fending off the stuff of nightmares—a towering skeleton monster, giant glowing eyeballs that can “see into you”, an enormous, dragonesque bug, and, perhaps creepiest of all, two magical sisters hovering above the ground wearing lifeless, colorless porcelain masks, mocking their victims with their raspy, ethereal voices (This is a kid’s movie?).

Unfortunately, “Kubo and the Two Strings” does end up indulging in some cliché and vague mumbo jumbo toward the end. But these foibles are so easy to overlook, given its other virtues.

Charm smooths out flaws. And this movie is so charming. Each of the characters is striking. From the sprightly Kubo to the stern yet witty Monkey to the sincerely goofy Beetle and even to an old village woman with a bright smile and warm laugh—each character is unique and authentic. I would say they are well developed, and they are, but the fact is, they exude their personalities so effectively that no lengthy development is needed. You understand them—you totally get them—as soon as you meet them.

One sign that these are well-crafted characters is their humor. They are really funny, but in a subtle, “you’d have to know him/her” sort of way. It’s not funny like you go to a comedy club and some guy you never met tells you a bunch of jokes with punch lines. It’s funny like you’re hanging out in your living room with your friend, who is real, sarcastic (but not mean), and doesn’t take herself at all seriously.

The indispensible conduit for all of this—for the charm, the humor, the captivating story, and lilting dialogue—is the animation. It is 3D stop motion animation. Each character is painstakingly crafted, and then, frame by frame, moved or adjusted so as to give the appearance of motion. A team of animators pumped out a measly 4.3 seconds of animation per week!

The result is breathtaking. The colors are crisp and arresting, the faces are alive with subtle expressions, and the overall aesthetic transports us to another world. This is crucial. For while this movie feels fanciful, exotic, and indeed, unusual, it also feels warmly familiar and very real.

"Start Trek Beyond"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

I’m more of a TNG (Star Trek: The Next Generation) guy. I would rather sit down for a cup of tea with the calm, wise Jean-Luc Picard at the helm than hurtle through space with the impassioned, impetuous James T. Kirk. Spock is cool, but I’ll take Data. I don’t really like Doctor “Bones” McCoy. I definitely prefer Beverly Crusher.

So if I am a little less than enthusiastic about “Star Trek Beyond” it may be because it’s just not my thing—I am loyal to another camp. Devotees of the original series seem to like this latest installment (I know, I went with a couple of them). And I see why. It has plenty of explosions, destruction, fighting (both with and without phasers), and macho charm—all the hallmarks of a classic action movie.

The movie does not start that way, though. At first, Kirk (Chris Pine) is bored. Or, more accurately, he is aimless. He doesn’t feel a sense of purpose. He doesn’t know what he is doing out there running around like a deep-space cowboy. In fact, he is starting to think about doing something else. It’s kind of like a mid-life crisis. (At, what, 28?)

But, ugh, he has to go on one last mission before he hangs it up (I wonder if it will be a walk in the park … hmmm). His task is to help locate a missing ship in a dense nebula.

But before they have a chance to look around, they get attacked. A massive swarm of bee-like ships throw themselves at the Enterprise. Kirk and his crew try to repel them, but there are too many of those pesky things bombarding their vessel.

Kirk and company were set up—ambushed. And now their beloved Enterprise is being blown to bits before their very eyes. The ship collapses onto a nearby planet as its crew are strewn about like maple leaves in November. Luckily, they end up in little teams. Kirk meets up with Scotty (Simon Pegg), who also found a local lady—both lovely and fierce, as you might expect—to join causes with. Bones (Karl Urban) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) get paired up, and mostly just try to stay alive. And Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Cho), among others, are taken captive.

The baddies are led by Krall (Idris Elba). What a name! Is Krall mean and ruthless? Yes. Is he looking for a special weapon to be especially mean and ruthless with? Why yes, yes he is. Does he care who he has to crush to get it? No, of course not. Is defeating him impossible? Even for the crew of the Starship Enterprise? Yes! … Well, O.K., no. Yes and no.

Excuse my sarcasm. And, again, sorry if I don’t come off as overly enthusiastic about “Star Trek Beyond”. It’s not like this movie is poorly acted, or poorly written, or boring, or anything like that. It is a fine movie. It is solid.

But it’s just that, in this day and age, with all these very solid sci-fi (or similar) action movies, I don’t know, it’s hard for me to get too excited about “Star Trek Beyond”. It’s pretty, and fun, and funny, and action packed, and everything else you might want and expect out of this franchise. But I think I’ve seen it before. I must have. It’s just too familiar.

Early on in the movie, when Kirk is down in the dumps about his life, he complains, in a very charmingly Star-Trek-self-aware sort of way, that his adventures have started to feel “episodic”. Hats off for being self-aware, Kirk. The problem is, you mention it, but don’t do anything about it—the whole movie only confirms the stereotype. And I guess I just don’t care all that much about episode after episode of the same crashing, shooting, punching, and bracing for impact.

Maybe that is why I am more of a TNG guy. Yes, I know, that series is equally episodic. But at least it introduces new puzzles and thought experiments for us to think about or marvel over—scenarios that shed light on our condition.

So there, my cards are on the table. If you’re an original series person, you will probably love “Star Trek Beyond”. If, like me, you are more of a TNG person, well then … just don’t expect to sit down for tea with Jean-Luc Picard.

"Swiss Army Man"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Hank (Paul Dano) is at death’s door. He has a noose around his neck. He is about to take the plunge. But, just as he is about to crack—from his solitary confinement on a small, deserted island, with little food and water; and even worse, no one to love or be loved by—Hank sees something that brings him down from the ledge.

It’s a person! Someone else has washed up on shore. Finally, a companion. For Hank, this isn’t just someone to break up the soul crushing monotony of life on an island. It’s as if God himself sent an Eve to be Hank’s companion—to help manage his world, to name things, to explore.

The only catch: This person (Daniel Radcliffe) is dead. Fish food. A lifeless corpse. Just as Hank waxes philosophical about being sent a companion, this pale, dead body in a blue suit and tie lets out a big, posthumous fart, as if to remind Hank that, no, things really do suck and the whole world and everything in it is crass and ugly. God must have a sick sense of humor.

Initially Hank takes all this as a punch in the gut, if not a slap in the face, and so he remounts his gallows. But as he prepares for his dramatic, decisive final act, all he can hear is farting. It’s really bad. So bad, in fact, that it is causing the dead body to sort of come to life—to flop around and even move through the waves lapping on the shore.

An intrigued Hank goes to investigate. But before long he is, you know, riding the dead body through the water at a breakneck pace like he is on a Jet Ski or something, propelled only by this Godsend’s high octane flatulents.

All right, it may not be pretty or normal, but hey, this dead body can do stuff. Turns out it can also spew water like an oasis’ spring, shoot projectiles out of its mouth, Karate chop wood and other construction items, and navigate with his, ahem, boner.

But by far the most important thing is that this lifeless corpse is, more and more, the companion that first brought Hank back from the brink. He gets a name: Manny. At first Manny is just a sounding board. But then some odd things happen. Manny starts to talk a little. Then a lot. He is still very much dead, mind you. But we pretty much left reality behind back with the gassy dolphin escapade.

Hank and Manny get to know each other. Manny can’t remember anything from his former life, so Hank has to tell him everything—from Cheese Puffs to girls to busses to why people tend to keep their farts to themselves. Both Hank and Manny are kind of weird. But it’s O.K. Each is the others’ savior—the miracle who brought the other back from the dead.

“Swiss Army Man” is at its best when it is not taking itself too seriously. There is a very charming middle swath of this movie. It’s light. It’s funny. It’s buoyant. It’s just nice.

I’m not usually a big Paul Dano fan, and I usually have a hard time not seeing that other Boy Who Lived whenever Daniel Radcliffe’s face is on screen. But in this movie they do a pretty nice job. It is not overly hammy (as Dano, who I think is a chronic over-actor, might have made it). And Radcliffe affects a nice American accent that masks his other, more famous identity.

If only that were the whole movie—a pleasant idyll. But it is not. “Swiss Army Man” succumbs to taking itself too seriously. I mean, there are some fine enough themes in this movie—about death, companionship, being “weird”, and so on. But these themes desperately needed a light touch here, both because the overall tone of the movie is not fit to bear too sober a load, and because these themes are so well worn that it’s just massively unlikely that Hank and Manny, whatever their regenerative powers may be, ever had a chance of breathing new life into them.

The ending sequences of this movie are especially high handed, cheesy, baffling, and pretty much just awful. Walk out of the movie with about 15 minutes left, if you can. You’ll see a simpler, less complex movie. But it will be far more unified and pleasant.

"The Nice Guys"

By Matt Duncan

Coastal View News

This is a strange movie. I walked into the theater, and there was a preview on for a new Dinesh D’Souza movie explaining how Hillary Clinton is part of a massive conspiracy to enslave us, or something like that (for a while I couldn’t tell whether this movie was supposed to be a satire). That was followed by a preview for a bizarre-looking new Oliver Stone movie starring Nicolas Cage, which was followed by a few other Twilight-Zone-feeling-inducing previews. I thought, “Am I in the right theater?”

But then after two more hours it all made sense. Well, it made sense in that nothing over the past two hours and 10 minutes made a lot of sense. Not necessarily in a bad way. “The Nice Guys” is strange in a charming, almost “The Big Lebowski” sort of way (though that’s too much of a compliment by association, I think). But it is strange.

It’s the 70s. It’s L.A. Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) breaks arms and bashes skulls for a living—basically, his job is to “send messages” to creeps, lowlifes, and really, anyone he gets paid to bash. Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is a highly unreliable, alcoholic private investigator, who makes a lot of his money by doing things like helping a senile old woman find her dead husband that she forgot died years ago.

Healy and March get tangled up because they are both looking for Amelia (Margaret Qualley). At first Healy gets paid to rough up March to get him to stop looking for Amelia, but then a couple of tough guys come and rough up Healy for having something to do with Amelia, and that pisses Healy off, so he starts looking for Amelia, too. Healy thinks he might as well ask March for help, so, hours removed from the original beating, they start working together. Yeah, it’s complicated.

It turns out Amelia has been hanging out with a bunch of porn stars. Actually, she may be a porn star herself. Or maybe she is just a naïve activist who, oddly enough, uses porn as a vehicle for her political message (March rightly queries her about the wisdom of making a porn about the plot.). At any rate, Amelia is around, sort of, but she keeps running away and thinks her mom is trying to kill her. See, her mom is the head of the Department of Justice, which of course Amelia hates because it means mom is “the man” and part of a vast oppressive capitalist conspiracy to do something super nefarious, including kill Amelia and her friends because they (a) do porn, (b) might expose her as a fraud, (c) might embarrass her, or (d) all of the above.

Healy and March can’t keep their heads around this whole thing (especially March, who is drunk all the time). Luckily they have March’s preteen daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice), by their side. She is sensible and organized, and knows how to drive a car. So she ends up doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

This giant web of sleaze and corruption ends up extending pretty far, not just to the porn and private investigator industries, but also to government and big business outfits. Healy and March end up being, by comparison, the nice guys—just hoping they don’t finish last.

Again, “The Nice Guys” is strange. It is strange because it is a real mishmash of genres, styles, types of humor, and many other things. One moment it is ultra realistic, and the next a giant honeybee is riding in the back seat. But strangeness is an asset for this movie. It makes it just offbeat enough to mask some of the more conventional, cheesy (in a bad way), and potentially tiresome aspects of this movie.

This mask would have been an entirely too flimsy disguise if it weren’t for the charisma of the cast. All three stars—Crowe, Gosling, and Rice—are so easy to watch. Especially Gosling. He is hilarious in an inept yet clever way. He makes a thoroughly goofy character somehow seem cool.

All of this feels sort of like a scam. The plot is silly (and clichéd), the script is pretty uneven, there is no stylistic unity, and only a certain percentage of the jokes land. Yet, by shear stroke of personality, we get drawn in.

Whatever. I kind of liked it.

"The Jungle Book"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Stories like “The Jungle Book” are precious—they are treasures. For so many of us, they are iconic, nostalgic, formative, and not to be messed with.

One thing that is kind of cool about “The Jungle Book” in particular—the story, that is (I assume we are all familiar)—is this series of tests or temptations that the little man cub, Mowgli (Neel Sethi), faces. Each peril is a little bit different, packs its own punch, and has its own moral.

There is of course the peril of Shere Khan (Idris Elba) throughout. This awful tiger wants to kill Mowgli just because Mowgli is a man cub. It’s a rush to judgment, sure, but he is after all a tiger. Plus, someone has to be the big baddie.

But then, as Mowgli flees his home to get away from Shere Khan, he faces a series of less obvious, less straightforward trials. The snake, Kaa (Scarlett Johansson), attempts to woo Mowgli into a false sense of security—she tempts him with comfort.

Baloo (Bill Murray) also offers comfort to Mowgli, but in a different way. Whereas Kaa tests Mowgli’s ability to sense danger or discern who can be trusted, Baloo (who can be trusted) presents Mowgli with the allure of laziness—a complacent sort of comfort. It’s the pleasure of just staying put and taking it easy through life.

King Louie (Christopher Walken) offers Mowgli power. Louie—a mix between Donald Trump and a mob boss in this one (well, maybe that’s all the same)—wants fire, and promises to share his dominion with Mowgli if he helps. (But, of course, we all know the power hungry aren’t good at sharing.)

In each of these cases, there is something good (or seemingly good): Comfort, ease, power. It’s nice to be reassured when we are scared (though not squeezed to death ala Kaa). It’s great to lay back and take it easy with friends. And who doesn’t like a little say-so here and there? Still, these are temptations. If Mowgli holds them too close, or becomes too wrapped up in them, he will perish.

Perhaps his biggest temptation is to stay put—to not move on when he ought to. He faces this temptation when Bagheera (Ben Kingsley) urges him to leave his wolf pack and go to the man village. And, according to the standard version of the story, he faces it at the end, too. Mowgli has to move on. Staying put is not an option in life.

My main problem with this rendition of “The Jungle Book” is that it is not sufficiently reimagined. There is no new angle or spin—not even a fresh thematic or narrative emphasis. Look, I like “The Jungle Book” story. Who doesn’t? But this movie just feels like a CG version of the old one. Or, even worse, it feels like a somewhat clumsy CG copycat of the old one (with a lamer, lazier ending). I guess I had hoped that someone with a fresh take on the story would breathe new life into it.

You might respond, “So what if it is nothing new. A good story is a good story.” Maybe, but it’s kind of like when there is this really great story that your grandpa used to tell, but that your Uncle Bill starts telling because he thinks he can, and he tells it in this weird booming voice as if he is adding his own little twist. It may still be a great story, but no one wants to hear good ol’ Bill tell it.

“But the CG is amazing! And the cinematography is great!,” you might say. Yeah, all right, but it is still CG. And maybe it’s just me, but I have an upper bound on how awe-stricken I can get by CG.

You might retort, “But, c’mon, Bill Murray as Baloo and Christopher Walken as King Louie—you can’t beat that!”

Well, fine, you got me there. Murray and Walken can’t be beat. They do a great job. They add serious warmth and personability to this movie.

But is that enough? Not this time.

"Eye in the Sky"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Sometimes a movie’s story does all the work. “Zero Dark Thirty” is an example: The story of how Bin Laden got taken down, by itself, is enough to draw us in. Or even “The Big Short”—I’m pretty sure it could have been played by sock puppets and I still would have been interested (and pissed off!).

“Eye in the Sky” feels like one of these movies. It is not based on a true story (though stuff like this surely happens), but it only has like four sets and it is focused on a single incident. So it is the story, plus whatever tangled up complications it engenders, that is center stage.

That story is about a British-led (U.S. assisted) drone operation in East Africa. A couple of biggish terrorists (though not Bin Laden big) are meeting, and the British military is hoping to capture them. But things do not go quite as planned, and so the capture mission soon becomes a bomb-them-into-oblivion mission.

The problem is, right before drone pilot Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) drops the bomb, a cute little girl who did nothing to nobody, and for cuteness’ sakes was just playing with a hula-hoop, walks into the danger zone. Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren), who is in charge of the mission, and her superior, Lt. General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman), still say go for it. But Watts holds up a sec. Everyone hopes the girl will just go back home. But in the meantime every single person in the British government, it seems, waffles back and forth, calls his or her superior, and argues about whether or not they should do it anyway.

On the one hand, a terrorist attack is imminent—dozens of innocent lives are at stake. On the other hand, there’s the girl, and she is so damn cute.

All this hand wringing over what to do feels a little odd. Don’t I hear about civilian casualties from these drone strikes like every other day? Isn’t it: “12 civilians die in strike in Yemen that kills 2 terrorists”; “7 children die in Libya”; “Scores of civilians die in bombed hospital where there were no terrorists at all and they just went for it anyway”? It’s kind of hard for me to believe that the military higher ups really are stressing that much over an innocent life here or there.

But who knows, maybe I am wrong. Maybe each hula-hooper gets her own mini day in court before the Hellfire missile comes raining down. (Then I kind of want to know why so many civilians are dying!)

At any rate, “Eye in the Sky” is nothing if not tense. But unfortunately a lot of that tension comes from the excruciating indecisiveness of its characters. That’s not exactly fun to watch. When I witness two friends bicker for half an hour over where we should eat dinner, it’s tense all right, but it’s not exactly edge-of-my-seat, pins and needles material. Half of “Eye in the Sky” is various British higher ups saying, “Yes, we should do it. O.K. let’s do it,” then, “No, wait, we have a moral obligation … let’s not do it,” then, “But consider the costs!,” then, “But think of the children!,” and so on. Of course I know all of this is very important stuff, and worthy of careful consideration, but I’m not sure how much of it I can watch. Part of me wanted to reach through the screen and pull the trigger so we could just get on with our lives.

I guess that is the point, though. This stuff is not comfortable. It is easier to just go home, like a drone pilot after a hard day’s work, than it is to stay engaged with the tough issues. In a sense, we are the eyes in the sky, observing what is going on. We can and often do just turn a blind eye—embracing our detachment from bombs going off in East Africa, the Middle East, or wherever. But that hardly frees us from guilt.

This is all interesting stuff. And the whole point about our detachment from the carnage we inflict deserves careful attention. But a lot of this does not come through very vividly in “Eye in the Sky”. To me, the movie comes across as either, or sometimes both, of two extremes: Either glorifying military leaders for taking collateral damage super duper seriously, or as pushing a very naïve, hula-hoopers-must-not-die critique of war. And, even setting aside the philosophical flat-footedness here, all this really does detract from how compelling the story is. So, one way or another, “Eye in the Sky” ends up falling short.

"Deadpool"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

If you want to be a superhero, you’ve got to get certain things right. You have to be moral, dignified, and honorable. You have to do nice things all the time. You have to have a booming voice that promotes peace, goodness, capital T Truth, and so on. You have to have a good strong, descriptive name like Superman, or Wonder Woman, or the Flash. You have to care about people, especially the disadvantaged ones. And you have to have a nice face—you’ve got to be a looker.

Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) has none of these things. He is a crass, brutal, irreverent, deeply flawed, alto who couldn’t care less about peace, goodness, or capital T anything, who is named after an office pool based on who will die next, and who once had quite a nice face but now looks—well, there are plenty of apt albeit R-rated descriptions of his mangled state in the movie, but suffice it to say, he’s no looker. Deadpool describes himself as a bad guy who goes after worse guys. That’s about right.

Now, it used to be he was a fairly ordinary guy—he didn’t do superhero stuff, exactly—with a wicked sense of humor and a lovely girlfriend (Vanessa—Morena Baccarin). But then he gets some bad test results from his doctor and goes off and does something stupid: He signs up for a program that promises to cure him of his ailment and, ahem, you know, turn him into a superhero.

The deal turns out to be not quite as advertised. This guy, Ajax (Ed Skrein), and this gal, Angel Dust (Gina Carano), pretty well abuse Deadpool. They inject him with some superhero juice, but then just torture him—mostly for fun it seems. He ends up looking pretty mangled.

But also kind of superhero-ish. His main thing is he can heal really fast. So he is more-or-less invincible. He is also really fast, strong, and good at fighting (not sure if that is the superhero juice, or just practice). But he is not particularly nice or moral. He does not fight crime. He is only interested in tracking down Ajax and company in hopes of a cure so that he can return unashamed and whole to his lovely girlfriend.

You can imagine how the plot plays out. But this movie has a light enough touch that it never feels pat or boring. Whereas some movies like this can tend to feel like a marathon sprint with a 100-pound pack, this one feels more like a jog in the park. Some movies like this try too hard to look like they aren’t trying too hard. But “Deadpool” feels effortless.

“Deadpool” is nothing if not fun. I can imagine people saying this movie is just O.K., or nothing exceptional, but, as long as they can abide the crassness and over-the-top gore, I cannot imagine too many people saying they didn’t like it at all. It really is fabulously entertaining.

First of all, the action sequences are a ton of fun to watch. The combat choreography is very well done. It is fast, but not “I can’t see what’s going on” or “I think I’m going to have a headache” kind of fast.

This movie is also funny. Sometimes the quick-draw, irreverent humor is a little too persistent for my taste. But most of the time it works. Deadpool always has one eye on the camera, one tongue in cheek, and all of his wits aimed at brutally mocking superhero tropes. It is a worthy target, and, for the most part, “Deadpool” doesn’t miss.

So, you know, go see “Deadpool”. It’s good.