With development starting all the way back in 2004, Marvel’s popular anti-hero kicked off Valentine’s Day weekend 2016 with a bang.

Already breaking opening day records, “Deadpool” is a commercial success, with a sequel already in production (confirmed in the end credit scene).

While having Marvel’s brand on it, and coming from the studio that produces the other “X-Men” films, “Deadpool” is everything a superhero movie isn’t.

There are no heroics, morals and no lessons to be learned. Just Wade Wilson, a.k.a Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), fighting the evil mutants Ajax (Ed Skrein) and Angel Dust (Gina Carano) to get back his girl, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) and find a way to reverse his mutated condition.

This may all sound very serious, but “Deadpool” is first and foremost a comedy (a very bloody and raunchy comedy at that). But that just comes with the wacky antics that the title character is known for.

Reynolds is absolutely fantastic as the fast-talking, wise-cracking “Merc with a Mouth.” Dropping equal amounts of one-liners and references to just about anything under the sun in pop culture, Reynolds’s performance is the main reason to see the movie.

Matching his performance is the high quality of action and comedy, mainly from the Deadpool character himself. There is an incredibly impressive, intricate, fast-paced, highway battle scene towards the beginning that speaks to this; if you even blink you’ll miss a large amount of the action and detail.

There was a good amount of heart in Wade and Vanessa’s relationship as well. Reynolds and Baccarin had great chemistry throughout the movie and were very convincing in their performance.

Another partnership that worked well was X-men cameos by the metal giant Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) and the angsty, energy-bending Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand). They added an amusing counter to Deadpool’s criminalistic tendencies.

If only the rest of the cast had gotten the same amount of detail and care that was given to the red spandex-clad mutant.

Ajax and Angel Dust are very bland and stereotypical, both in acting and in their roles as the film’s main villains.  Wade’s sarcastic, bar-tending friend Weasel (T.J. Miller) was very much a dead weightw the whole movie, giving an uninspired performance; when in the same scenes as Reynolds, it was especially apparent.

The story is simple, but it doesn’t need to be anything complex for “Deadpool” to work. Told in a mix of flashbacks and real time, it is a nice spin on the telling of an origin story.

Overall, “Deadpool” is a raunchy, violent comedy that brings a fresh edge to the superhero genre of movies.