Naturally, because everything in Origins is awful, they cut him from the picture early on and when he returns his mouth is sewn shut, Scott Adkins replaced Reynolds, and the character was clumsily referred to as both “The Dead Pool” and “Weapon XI”.
The alarmist “satirical” TV stuff here is adorably quaint, feeling as if Gilroy has had this script in his desk drawer since the Reagan administration and nobody had the heart to tell him that Dirty Harry already skewered these nocturnal, ambulance-chasing news crews to much greater comic effect twenty-six years ago in The Dead Pool.
Some terrific scenes follow: first in the American embassy as he takes on security and scales down a wall with ease that makes Spider-man look as ho-hum as Aquaman, then in a high-wrought pursuit as he drives the smallest car-chase vehicle since The Dead Pool.