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| photo courtesy of movieweb.com |
Ryan Reynolds returns as the titular Marvel antihero in Deadpool 2, the sequel to 2016’s smash-hit film. This time, the wisecracking “merc with a mouth” unites with a team of superpowered mutant misfits called the X-Force to take on a new threat: a no-nonsense, time-traveling cyborg from the future named Cable (Josh Brolin). Morena Baccarin, Zazie Beets, and Julian Dennison co-star as girlfriend Vanessa, fellow hero Domino, and troubled young mutant Russell Collins.
If you liked the first Deadpool, odds are you’ll like Deadpool 2, which more or less encapsulates the good parts of its predecessor while adding in a few welcome new ingredients. The beating heart of the Deadpool franchise is certainly intact, with all its component parts: self-aware, 4th-wall-busting humor, an irreverent spirit, and plenty of R-rated mischief. The titular hero, for his part, is just as incorrigible as ever, delighting in subverting and parodying superhero clichés wherever possible. The sequel livens things up with the addition of Cable, whose self-seriousness and hard-body action hero vibe nicely juxtaposes Deadpool’s absurdity.
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| photo courtesy of theplaylist.net |
But Deadpool 2 also has a markedly different tone than the original, despite Deadpool’s ongoing antics in the foreground. The sequel resists going all the way—being downright noble, that is—but it’s far less cynical than the original Deadpool. In the first movie, every moment with the potential for genuine heroism is sharply undercut (usually by a joke), but here the filmmakers allow real emotion, real vulnerability, to enter into the equation. The result is a superhero movie that’s both rebellious and resonant; it balances subversive style with a more fully realized human center.
From a structural standpoint, Deadpool 2 is a much stronger film than the first. Both movies feature some refreshing twists and some (genuinely surprising) thwarting of expectations, but Deadpool 2 is the less formulaic of the two. Deadpool tells its story out of order and makes a lot of quips about superhero clichés, but when you strip away all the fancy trappings, its narrative is actually fairly derivative. The sequel, by contrast, does an appreciably better job of finding an original direction. And unlike so many superhero movies these days, it tells its story in a succinct, tightly-paced package that escapes getting weighed down by franchise ambitions.
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| photo courtesy of comicbookmovie.com |
Deadpool 2 falters in a few places—the same places, coincidentally, that the original Deadpool falters. This franchise has a weird way of pointing out its own flaws; it often talks the talk where it doesn’t walk the walk. One example is its treatment of female and minority characters. Deadpool 2 makes a better effort in including and depicting these characters—sometimes, thankfully, without belaboring the point—but they still operate on the periphery. The two primary female characters, Vanessa and Domino, don’t receive nearly as much as attention as they deserve: Vanessa exists mostly as a plot point (again!), and apart from a few scenes where she’s allowed to shine, Domino gets relegated to the backseat. Perhaps the upcoming X-Force team-up movie will do a better job of integrating these characters, but as far as Deadpool 2 is concerned, they feel like an afterthought.
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| photo courtesy of bollywoodlife.com |
FINAL VERDICT: There are still some hiccups in the execution, but Deadpool 2 improves on the original, combining a more mature outlook with all the fun (and really, really R-rated) blockbuster insanity you could want in a summer superhero flick.
Watch the trailer here…
… and the hilarious Celine Dion music video tie-in here.
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| photo courtesy of technobuffalo.com |
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