About as soon as the opening weekend box office returns from “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” were announced, Fox swallowed the blue pill and greenlit “X-Men Origins: Deadpool,” a “Wolverine” sequel and a third, unnamed project.

Deadpool, a fan-favorite character played by Ryan Reynolds in “Wolverine,” is a (crazy) mercenary who peppers his stories with wisecracks and quips. He has a healing factor that supersedes even Wolverine’s and is one of the most formidable fighters in the X-Men universe.

And that’s all well and good except for the fact that the awesome Deadpool of the comics showed up in “Wolverine” for about five minutes before his character was summarily (and literally, apparently) chopped up into little bits.

Indeed, one of the great failures in “Wolverine,” besides the laughable writing, horrendous production values, pathetic dialogue, and all-around terribleness, was in fact the treatment of Deadpool’s character.

So what do I have to say about a Deadpool movie?

Let’s break it down.

PROS

1. Done right (key word), Deadpool has the potential to make a very cool movie, as well as one that will make money at the box office. His character allows for the gritty, edgy superhero movies that have come into vogue since “Sin City,” “The Dark Knight,” et cetera as well as the comedic factor – like “Spiderman,” except not as lame.

2. Done right (key fucking word), Deadpool would be a redeeming addition to the X-Men franchise that has gone from a gleaming beacon on a hill to a festering joke populated with evil Hollywood-types who like to destroy childhood heroes as they laugh and count their money. “Wolverine” proved that there could be an X-Men movie even worse than “X-Men 3: The Last Stand” and that Wolverine could star in a movie that people would compare to “Daredevil” in terms of suck. But Deadpool could change all that.

3. Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds caught a lot of flak when he was cast as Deadpool. Most fans had a hard time seeing Berg as one of the most badass mutants in the X-Universe. But frankly, the guy proved that he can do action movies in his five seconds of “Wolverine” screen time and in his role as Hannibal in “Blade III” (and come on, folks, let’s not pretend that the Blade movies were anything other than sweet sword-fights, shootouts and vampires). I’ll even go one step further and change his status from “competent” to “great choice.”

CONS

1. “X-Men 3: The Last Stand” made most fans (and people with brains) want to kill puppies.

2. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” made most fans (and people with brains) actually go out and kill puppies.

3. Can we possibly trust Fox? Since Bryan Singer left the franchise to go fail at “Superman Returns,” the studio has clearly proven that they could honestly care less about the quality of the X-Men movies. I mean, who hires Brett Ratner for anything, much less for a huge, big-budget threequel with a big fanbase and fan anticipation? Who hires a director whose attitude is, “fuck the fans, we already have their money?” And it’s one thing to change the storyline or introduce new characters or ignore established comic book canon in order to make a better film — a comic book movie is still an adaptation. It’s another thing entirely to shit on comic book canon in favor of making a shitty movie.

4. Most people haven’t heard of Deadpool, including the studio zombies who make these decisions. Unless Wolverine is somehow involved (as most popular character in Marvel films and comics), will Deadpool a) get the budget (although a budget didn’t appear to help “Wolverine” any) and b) generate excitement (aka, will people see it because it’s an X-Men movie?).

5. LEAVE DEADPOOL THE HELL ALONE. LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO HIM IN “WOLVERINE,” YOU MONSTERS!

So here’s what I think should happen. Drop the hokey and pretentious “X-Men Origins” business (Deadpool was NOT an X-Man, thank you), and besides Deadpool wasn’t in the original three X-Men movies. Don’t leech off of Wolverine’s popularity by making the movie some kind of “Deadpool and Wolverine, Duo Extraordinaire” and don’t even attempt to adhere to the (shitty) continuity in “Wolverine.”

Instead, reboot Deadpool in a movie of his very own, unrelated to the established X-universe on film. Sure, it can be an origin story, whatever. That’s what studios seem to be fond of these days. But make a movie for the character in his own right, not just because he fought with Wolverine a couple of times.

Most importantly, studios — read a fucking Deadpool comic. Seriously. Please.

And finally — for the love of Phoenix, don’t sew the character’s mouth shut. That’s half of what makes him awesome.

“Valkyrie” could be the continuation of Tom Cruise’s comeback that began in his hysterical supporting role as a chubby, balding film exec in “Tropic Thunder.”

Its plot, about the last known assassination attempt on Adolph Hitler during World War II, is a plot that doesn’t seem like it can support its own weight until it does.

The tumultuous journey of rotating release dates and studios backing the film left many wondering if “Valkyrie” would ever reach the public eye. But, finally, it has, and it turns out it was a strong movie after all.

“Valkyrie” is an action thriller that holds its suspense throughout the entirety of the film, even though every viewer is armed with the clandestine knowledge that Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg’s (Cruise) attempt to kill Hitler is unsuccessful. It’s hard not to hold your breath tightly locked inside your chest as the movie reaches its climax and wish that, for once, history was wrong about how things ended.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film was how director Bryan Singer handled incorporating the character of Adolph Hitler into the film. Other than in “Indiana Jones and the last Crusade” and “Little Nicky,” Hitler is a physical presence not often scene in modern films. What Singer started to do, and which would have been so much more effective had he been able to continue it through the entirety of the movie, was only film David Bamber, who plays Hitler with chilling accuracy in the film, from behind. This allowed Singer to show the horror and awe that the Nazis felt before their Fuhrer without giving a face in the movie to a face that will be printed in history text books well into the future. However, Singer didn’t, and Hitler became a fictional character instead of a permeating historical memory.

The biggest flaw with the film was the dialogue. Though all the characters are supposed to be speaking in German, they speak English throughout the entirety of the film. This is supposed to be solved neatly at the beginning of the film when the title, “Valkyrie,” and opening text is shown in German and then shifts to be in English. Even Cruise opens out the film speaking in German and then dubbing over himself in English, until he finally he is only speaking in English. It’s a great idea, but instead of having just one English accent, Cruise speaks in a blunt American accent, Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branaugh talk with a British twang, and Hitler and his lackey’s all talk with hints of German in their voice. Minor details, but the dialect messed with the continuity of the film and became down right annoying and distracting.

Cruise, however, was enthralling as von Stauffenberg, a German who, from the beginning, is against everything Hitler stands for. Stauffenberg shows himself to be an intriguing historical figure that is rarely touched upon in World War II history and one that very nearly could have ended that war and seized control of Germany in the aftermath of Hitler’s assassination.

It is in the , directed by Newton Thomas Sigel, that “Valkyrie” really shines. The usage of grey, black and white hues make the film look very drastic and bleak, but the incorporation of red into the film, like in the Nazi flags, makes the film very intriguing to watch visually. The cinematography is stunning, especially during a show of the siege of Berlin when Stauffenberg’s soldiers march into a government building through a courtyard filled with Nazi flags.

A lot of effort went in to making “Valkyrie” a near-flawless film, and the effort shows. From its acting to visuals to historic significance, “Valkyrie” is engaging on all ends. Though it may not be the most heart-warming movie to be released Christmas day, it is the perfect movie for Oscar season.