Deadpool 2

Director: David Leitch

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Zazie Beetz, Brianna Hildebrand, Julian Dennison, Stefan Kapičić, Morena Baccarin

Genre: Action, comedy

Year: 2018

Deadpool, the Merc with the Mouth, the fourth-wall breaking, profane, violent anti-hero returns after his initial surprise box office success in an inevitable sequel, which does not tend to reach too far outside its comfort zone of obscene comedy and bloody, brutal violence, but is helplessly entertaining nonetheless.



The sequel to 2016's the unanticipated superhero comedy, which completely subverted the genre and audience expectations, starts off with very little having changed - Deadpool is out, fighting various bad guys in brutally stylish fashion and from the get go, the tone of the rest of the film is instantly set. An abundance of jokes and overly violent deaths and fight sequences, essentially everything its predecessor was, but this time, its sequel has the liberty to not have to be weighed down by Deadpool's origin story (despite the fact 'Deadpool' handled telling Wade Wilson's backstory with effortless care and confidence, making it one of the more satisfying and well-made origin films). As to be expected, the action is jumped into immediately; however, when tragedy strikes, Wade is saddened, although this emotion never feels fully embellished because it is drowned out by his constant quipping, and the person he loses feels like their own independent character within the film (in spite of the fact they exist in a dream-like state), so their absence rarely feels genuine.

In regard to the films humour, which was both advertised and expected to be a large portion of it, the comedy, frankly, is mostly spot on. There are so many jokes being made, whether it is puns, sarcasm, fourth wall breaking, homages to other films, inside jokes for the hardcore Marvel fans - this film likely has most kinds of humour. While many of the jokes land very well, there are so many that the audience feels overwhelmed or the humour just feels forced or the joke doesn't work, either due to its repetition throughout the film or rushed writing to try and dish out as much comedy as possible. That being said, the humour does feel better developed and more sophisticated than its predecessor, probably because it now knows the audience it is dealing with. There are many pop culture references which are both obscure and obvious, and the film does have a thorough understanding of the comics, with no doubt plenty of heroes which briefly (or frequently - it is hard to tell for those with minimal understanding of the comic books) crop up.

The plot itself is that of a revenge tale, making the general theme of the film far from dissimilar from 'Deadpool'. In fact, Firefist's (Dennison) ambitions which are revealed later within the movie reflect very closely to Wade's intentions from the original film. In one sense, this does show 'lazy writing', which Deadpool himself recognises in one of his fourth wall breaks, and suggests that the writers have little imagination nor a huge amount of creativity to push outside the comfort zone which was formed in the first film. The first act, admittedly, does feel slightly directionless, because it is focused on catching audiences up on the plot and setting the trend for how the rest of the film is going to be. It is through the introduction of Cable (Brolin), a time travelling assassin, that the film makes genuine progress and the plot starts to take proper shape. By the conclusion of the film, it is very evident that the writers had an aim for where they wanted the film to end up at, but only a vague clue of what the middle parts were supposed to be. Therefore, the action feels a bit spontaneous and they manipulated it for the sake of jokes or overly violent deaths. The plot does surprisingly feel rather predictable for a large proportion of it. There is so much foreshadowing and while there are several genuinely unexpected elements (especially the role X-Force have in it), the film does not have majorly shocking or mind bending twists.

All of the protagonists are very entertaining. Most feel well written, and, in particular those from the first film, feel well developed and do have a good character arc. It is more the new characters that feel like their personalities are fairly one-dimensional, and are defined really by their superpowers. Cable, while his powers and weapons are very imaginative and Brolin does generate a compelling performance, has a very vague backstory which is explained in a quick bit of exposition, and Domino is just lucky - she has very little impact on the plot as a whole, and really is just able to survive things by the skin of her teeth. Not that this isn't entertaining, but after a while, she feels indestructible and unengaging as a superhero. There are many welcome returns such as Colossus (Kapičić) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Hildebrand), but generally speaking, all newcomers feel like they could have had more depth applied to them. As could the rest of the film really, which feels fairly thin in substance, and most emotions are short lasted, being rapidly interrupted by a joke of some sort, ruining the moment.

Ultimately, while 'Deadpool 2' was inevitably going to occur, it feels relatively poorly handled, having an abundance of jokes which for the most part work, and violence which does suit Deadpool perfectly, yet feels like a rushed sequel that could have had more effort put into making it. Nevertheless, it is very entertaining to watch at face value, and ticks all the boxes for fans of its predecessor.

Verdict: 7/10