After finally catching up with Deadpool I can firmly say the following: The marketing campaign from earlier this year both did and totally didn’t accurately sell the movie.

The story follows Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), a mercenary who falls in love with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) but who shortly thereafter is diagnosed with multiple forms of cancer. After exhausting all other other options he volunteers for a program to turn him into the ultimate weapon. But things go sideways and he winds up pissing off the people who operated on him, people who kidnap Vanessa to get at Wade. So he’s off on a mission of revenge and rescue.

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What’s surprising about the marketing campaign after seeing the movie is just how normal it is, at least in terms of the trailers. Those were funny and hit some of the tonal elements of the movie but even the red-band trailers didn’t come close to the all-out insanity of the movie itself. Instead that was left to the rest of the campaign, with its posters featuring Deadpool in fuzzy sweaters, the December campaign counting down to a new trailer and so on. So there was still plenty of that attitude to be seen, it just wasn’t fully captured in the entire campaign, particularly the elements that had the highest general audience penetration.

But let’s be honest, the campaign in retrospect only opened the doors to awareness of the movie’s existence. Most people, from what I saw, went to the theater based on either their love for the character or the promise, based on early word-of-mouth, that it was something brand new for the super hero genre. And on that front it absolutely delivers.