DEADPOOL IS mourning the loss of the love of his life and, despite several attempts at suicide, due to his healing mutant power he cannot seem to be reunited in the afterlife with her.
At his darkest moment, his friends from the first film, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, try to recruit him as an X-Man. While on his first mission with the team a young boy is attacked by a time travelling soldier. Deadpool realises that, in order to die in peace, he must do something pure, like saving this boy.
Written by the star Ryan Reynolds and directed by David Leitch, who made the incredible John Wick, I was hoping the sequel would kick on from the original and continue to subvert the genre. Unfortunately due to the amount of money the first film made they were never going to try anything new or different. If you are going to Deadpool 2 because you liked the first one you may well enjoy the sequel, but it does not quite pack the same surprise as the first.
This is not due to the writing or anything being inferior, it is just the overall surprise of breaking the fourth wall - the slapstick extreme violence - is gone after seeing the first movie. Not only that but Reynolds and TJ Miller are not as funny as they think they are and can grate a little by the end.This reviewer is the target demographic for this film - male; late 20s/early 30s; in touch with nerd/pop culture. When they reference a character's prison number being 24601, the prison number for Jean valJean in Les Miserable, who is played by Hugh Jackman, who also plays Wolverine who is Deadpool's most hated rival in the comics, I get that! That joke is for audience members like me. So when some of the jokes are so finely crafted for my exact demo, and I totally get them...and I still don’t laugh, I have to ask if this film really works?
I’m actually surprised I have so much to say about Deadpool 2 considering so little of it is memorable, particularly the first hour where it feels like nothing at all happens. There are lots of gags but it feels more like a big budget sketch show than a movie. When the plot gets going and Deadpool tries to get a team together to find and protect the boy it does pick up steam. The supporting cast are brilliant. Zazie Beetz Domino in particular is a real highlight. The potential third film in the series will follow Deadpools assembled gang, X - Force, and is likely to be a real improvement on this instalment, if just for the addition of the new characters we see for a short while in this movie.
In the end it really could have done with more Negasonic Teenage Warhead, but couldn’t you say that about every movie?
