Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
Unless I’m trying to be funny, I try and avoid the usual movie review clichés. Sequels like Deadpool 2: The Deadpoolening test this most greatly, because, well, it’s so very similar to the original in tone and content that the most useful and concise thing I can say about it is that if you liked the original, you’ll like this, and if you didn’t, I don’t see much in here to change your mind.
However, we have a contractually obligated running time to fill, so I suppose I better bulk this out a bit. Deadpool 2 opens with a montage of what Ryan Reynold’s spandex-clad assassin Wade Wilson has been up to between films, which is, in the main, violently killing people. But they’re bad people. Presumably. So that’s alright. This rather bites him in the ass when, after one of his targets eludes him, said crimelord later visits Wade and fiancée Vanessa (Morena Baccarin)’s flat with some goons and guns, killing Vanessa in the process before being dealt with.
Distraught, Deadpool tries to kill himself, but his mutant healing factor refuses to let him go, with Colossus sweeping up the pieces and taking him back to Xavier’s School for Children That Shoot Lasers From Their Eyes and That. Deadpool agrees to join the X-Men, but his first mission goes off the rails when he realises that the flame spewing young mutant they’ve been sent to reason with, Julian Dennison’s Russell Collins, was being abused by the orphanage’s staff.
He’s restrained before he can kill more than one of the orphanage staff, with Deadpool and Russell slapped with power-nullifying collars and sent to mutant prison. Deadpool seems happy enough to be left to die, but Russell wants out and tries to forge a bond with Wade Wilson, the world’s worst father figure. This is all thrown for a loop when Josh Brolin’s Cable, my favourite Marvel vs. Capcom 2 character, appears from the future with an impressive selection of weaponry and a burning desire to kill the barely teenage Russell to stop some future misdeeds.
Deadpool’s protective instincts kick in, and Deadpool and Cable fight to a standstill, escaping the prison in the process, while Russell befriends unstoppable meathead Juggernaut (sadly not voiced here by Vinny Jones). To shortcut the recap a bit, Deadpool and Cable form an uneasy alliance, Cable giving Deadpool a chance to turn Russell away from a life of murder and villainy, but they’ll also need to go through Juggernaut, with Deadpool enlisting the help of Colossus, Brianna Hildebrand’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Zazie Beetz’s extraordinarily lucky Domino.
Although, maybe I shouldn’t shortcut the recap, as there’s not a lot else to say about Deadpool 2, certainly that wasn’t said about the first outing. It’s again largely based on, for this sort of film at least, outrageous jokes, violence treated for laughs, throwaway references and fourth wall breaking, and a running gag about dubstep. As mentioned earlier, if you liked it before, I’m about 95% confident you’ll like it this time round, and if you didn’t, I’m 100% sure there’s nothing much here that will force a reconsideration.
As Deadpool 2‘s a very heavily comedy skewed action-comedy, there’s not a lot more to be said about it, to be honest. If you find this sort of thing funny, you’ll like it, if not, you won’t, so like any comedy it’s so dependant on your particular comic tastes that it’s tough to say much more than if you think the trailer seems like your sort of thing, it probably is.
There’s some secondary considerations, I suppose. The action sequences are, by comic book standards, as well executed as any of the other X-Men outings, which is to say well enough, but on something of a restrained budget compared to the Marvel outings, and rather more coherent than the bulk of the DC affairs.
I don’t think the acting is stretching anyone’s capabilities, but Brolin is commendably gruff and plays a decent straight man to Reynold’s capering fool, and both Brianna Hildebrand and Zazie Beetz’s more laid back turns provide a satisfying counterpoint. Julian Dennison is also quite empathetic and carries the emotional heart of the film, or what passes for one, quite well.
There’re the usual complaints raised about the whiteness and maleness of the film, which may have some validity but in a film this stupid it’s hard to take them too seriously. I do, however, take some exception to killing off Vanessa as character motivation, not purely because it’s the sort of lazy writing that this film itself tries to lampoon, but because she was one of the most interesting characters in the first film. I see some complaints remain about Karan Soni’s Dopinder, the heavily-accented taxi driver, and if that’s all you reduce the character to I suppose I concede the point, but I’d argue if you listen to what he actually says, he’s quite far from any stereotype. But again, in a film as dumb as this one, it’s not a hill anyone should choose to die on.
So where do we land, after all of this? I found it quite funny, and so I enjoyed it. There you go. That said, even having enjoyed it, I think that this is quite enough of Deadpool, thank you, and the prospect of another film following this game plan so closely is not one I’d welcome at all.