Film Review - Deadpool 2 (15)

Kiss me like you miss me, Red.

Despite evidence on this blog to the contrary, I'm not a massive salivating comic-book fanboy. The first Deadpool film, whatever its manifest strengths, irritated me a bit with its relentlessly smart-ass humour and how pleased it seemed with its own irreverence (although that might be a Ryan Reynolds-related issue on my part.) Consequently I was none too enthused about taking in this sequel. Find me pleasantly surprised then that Deadpool 2 is sufficiently entertaining to make me rethink my attitude to the original. Nice work there, all involved.

To recap the story so far... Deadpool is the made-up name of Wade Wilson, a one-time mercenary, whose submission to life-saving genetic experimentation has proved a mixed blessing. On the plus side the treatment worked, providing his body with self-healing properties that render him virtually immortal; the trade-off is that every inch of him is horrifically mutated. He's likewise undergone a career transformation, acting now as a ruthless vigilante with a mordant sense of humour. 

In Deadpool 2 his vigilantism is in danger of catching up with him, while the X-Men (yes, that's Professor Xavier's mutant heroes from the Marvel comics) persist in attempts to enlist him to their cause. Deadpool is resolutely not a team player - but the plight of a mutant teenage boy named Russell aka Firefist (and under threat from a murderous time-traveller) may serve to change his sardonic heart. 

The Deadpool comic-book character started life as an X-Men antagonist, before involving into a violent wise-cracking antihero (as opposed to the super variety). The films have run with the bloody and humorous aspects, leaning heavily on his directly addressing the audience to comic effect. As the eponymous vigilante Reynolds doesn't so much break the fourth wall as tear down the whole comic-book edifice, lampooning every superhero movie convention without mercy and deconstructing the whole film-making process into the bargain. These movies stand or fall on how funny they are and to its credit this new adventure wrung significantly more laughs from me than its predecessor, as it gleefully ripped into comic-book tropes, threatening to undermine its own storytelling foundation in the process.

DP2 stands apart from Marvel's 'cinematic universe' movies in multiple regards. As gruesomely violent as dark X-Men adventure Logan, it also revels in adult humour and outlandish bad taste. The combination might easily have sunk it in a mess of juvenilia and heartless action, but the film is buoyed up by punchy direction and a strikingly high good-joke quotient. Add to that some neatly wrong-footing plot twists and the rather touching use of A-ha's Take On Me, and you've got yourself an entertainment. And despite my Reynolds reservations, he is Deadpool - embodying the character as indisputably as Robert Downey Jr does Ironman, and carrying the story with similar aplomb. 

Reynolds inevitably hogs much of the glory, but the plot developments do create more of an ensemble feel. Josh Brolin, as time-hopping assassin Cable, is an impressive distance from his other Marvel antagonist of 2018 - Infinity War's Thanos. Ascending star Zadie Beetz fully rocks the role of mutant action-heroine Domino. And Julian Dennison (from much-loved Kiwi comedy Hunt for the Wilderpeople) proves a winning surrogate son for our antihero. 

It all makes for two hours' crass but undeniably riotous entertainment, and a contender for the 2018 Filmic Forays Low Expectations Award. Mine were low indeed, but this sequel trounced them with its full-on satirical zest. The franchise should possibly quit while it's ahead, but with its serious box-office ka-ching and the sequel's move towards a Deadpool-led team of mutant heroes (go and google X-Force if you want to know more), there's not a chance that's going to happen. Now that they've got me, here's hoping Wade and his motley associates can keep me happily on board.  

Gut Reaction: Pummelled out of a cynical Friday-night stupor by sheer force of comic conviction. I seriously wasn't expecting to laugh that much, let alone get the feels.

Where Are the Women?: They're around and they kick ass, but it chiefly falls to Domino to keep this out of boys-club territory. 

Ed's Verdict: 8/10. Deadpool 2 contains the same ingredients, but cooks them up in a way that's unexpectedly fresh and spicy (if thoroughly bad for you). Dark, utterly reprehensible, self-assured fun, with a few moments of surprising poignancy.