Deadpool 2 came out on Tuesday and, like every other comic book movie my friends and I rushed out to see it. I didn’t enjoy the first deadpool all that much when it was released. I liked it, but I found that after seeing it a couple times I was already beginning to grow tired of the quips and 4th wall breaks that are just textbook (comic book?) Deadpool. Naturally, then, I was apprehensive about the sequel.
The story for this one follows on from the ending of the first film, with Wade and Vanessa living happily ever after, Colossus and Negasonic returning to the oddly empty X-mansion to continue X-manning about and Dopinder still driving Wade around on his missions of mass murder. With nearly double the budget and a runtime 30 minutes longer than the first I thought that perhaps Deadpool’s classic idiocy would grate on me for even longer….
Fortunately I was wrong. This film was far better than the first one, and I absolutely loved it. At first I thought it was going to just be the Terminator rehash the trailers made it out to be, with Cable coming back in time to kill a child and Deadpool having to be the boy’s unlikely saviour. The film was much more than that. While the film appears to be taking the character down a darker path by Alien 3ing things and completely negating the previous movie it pulls back at the last second, and actually lends some heart and emotional depth to an otherwise one dimensional character.
The performances were excellent all round, with Ryan Reynolds proving once more that he was born to be Deadpool. Colossus and Negasonic were both particularly fun to watch, as well as Negasonic’s girlfriend Yukio being an unexpected delight also. Julian Denisson’s performance as Russell Collins was also great, with his murderous intent being balanced with the loneliness and paranoia that abused children often come with. While being a visual departure from her comic book counterpart, Domino as played by Zazie Beetz was also entertaining, with her “not so cinematic” powers proving to be quite the opposite. Josh Brolin is having a big year also, with his performance as the comically challenged Cable being close behind his take on the Mad Titan Thanos. The X-force were great, fleeting as they were, with Peter and Zeitgeist standing out most. Brad Pitt also put in a blink and you’ll miss it cameo as the Vanisher, which was great to see.
As this is a Fox Marvel movie, we must of course mention their propensity to waste classic X-men characters, such as Shatterstar who proves to be better than Deadpool in every way (dying included). Juggernaut made a surprise third act appearance also, with his brief moments on screen being good enough to watch, despite his humorous “shocking death” he proved to be a serviceable villain to hassle our protagonists. Juggernaut also serves as the obligatory “Chekhov’s gun”, with his appearance being teased as a “great big steaming ball of foreshadowing”.
The film also does some deft retconning to cover for the first film’s distinct lack of X-men, by explaining that they were simply hiding from Deadpool. With this comes a nifty little cameo from Beast, Quicksilver Professor X and a couple more major Mutants.
The film is chock full of easter eggs for Comic aficionados, such as an ice cream van labelled “Pryor’s treats”, a nod to Cable’s clone mother Madeleine Pryor. Other easter eggs include The Essex House for Mutant Rehabilitation which is presumably financed by Nathaniel Essex aka Mr Sinister, a character teased at the end of X-Men Apocalypse. Inside the aforementioned house can be seen several posters alluding to the M-Day event, an event in which Scarlett Witch stripped millions of Mutants of their powers.
While the film’s Villains, Juggernaut in particular, suffer from a classic case of Marvel villain syndrome, I still thoroughly enjoyed the film and found it to be a big improvement on the first one, which may be a result of a step up in budget and overall resources.
Verdict: Overall, I would give Deadpool 2 an 8.5 out of 10.
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3 thoughts on “Deadpool 2 (2018)”