By the time the first Deadpool hit theatres, the superhero genre was due for a send up. The Merc with the Mouth found that Edgar Wright sweet spot of mocking a movie genre while being a great movie in that genre at the same time. Deadpool 2 isn’t the R rated meta extravaganza the first movie was, but it is a joyful continuation of what that movie was doing, giving lots of great laughs along the way.
Mr. Deadpool aka Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is now living the sweet mercenary life (he kills bad people) with his smoking hot girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). After receiving her IUD for his birthday, he tries to put a baby inside of her, but is tragically stopped by a faceless thug. Circumstances land Wilson with Russell (Julian Dennison), a fire throwing mutant teenage malcontent. Russell finds himself in the crosshairs of Cable (Josh Brolin), a warrior from the future, so Wilson puts together the greatest superhero team of all time, including Colossus, Bedlam (Terry Crews), and Domino (Zazie Beetz). This gender neutral, all inclusive X Force Team takes on the racist leaning bad guy (one of the better gags in the movie) to save Russell and maybe….HUMANITY???? I think you get the point.
The tricky part of making a movie like Deadpool is the balance has to be perfect between meta commentary, action, drama, and comedy. If the first movie set the target, Deadpool 2 is just off center, but still very close. The meta commentary is strong as ever, dosed in but never all consuming, starting with a Bond like opening credits montage and culminating in a few terrific post credits sequences for anyone who knows Ryan Reynolds movie history. There are some great running gags involving dubstep and a character’s racist assumptions as well as a score consisting of cheesy pop ballads. The action and drama act as filler to set up the emotional stakes of the movie. Deadpool 2 makes a relatively big dramatic swing early on in order to tell a different story for the character, which doesn’t quite land because of the character’s irreverence and repeated dream sequences. The action stuff is used to build to punch lines most of the time which fits nicely, like when the X Force Team tries to parachute from a plane or Domino shows everyone why luck is a really cinematic superpower. This stuff is exciting and fun, but at times is really forced because the whole point of Deadpool’s character is that he mostly doesn’t give a crap about anything except making the best joke. It’s not that big of a deal in Deadpool 2, but might pose bigger problems as the Merc’s story continues with subsequent films. For now, the Deadpool writing team understands the comedic side of the character is the movie’s foundation, and the rest of the elements of the story revolve around that.
So what’s different about Deadpool 2? Well, the studio is much more bought into the character now, and throws MANY expensive bones to him, with stellar results. There’s great send up’s of the X-Men in here. Deadpool sneakily has the most inclusive and diverse cast of superheros, including our first public LGBT one, an African American badass (Domino), a fat kid (Russell), and a Pakistani Taxi Driver, among others, and Deadpool never hesitates to remind 20th Century Fox of this repeatedly. I counted 4 stellar cameos: 1 you’ll have to research after the fact, but is becoming this actor’s trademark, one involving the X-Force, one around a mutant we’ve been dying to see, and one involving the fact that you don’t see anyone in professor Xavier’s school. The action sequences from the first were basically doubled: the highlight is the extended car chase involving the X-Force and Cable. But we also have some really fun stuff in the third act as well as a prison escape, and a Bourne like battle in an apartment. This studio commitment bodes well for Deadpool’s future as the comedic levity maker in the X-Men films, and gives hope the Merc with the Mouth will stick around for a while.
Remember, parents, Deadpool started the R rated superhero bonanza, so please don’t take your kids to see Deadpool 2 even though they’ll want to. Plus, you need to give them time to research dubstep, James Bond, superhero universes, Ryan Reynolds’s IMDB, who played Professor Xavier, Josh Brolin movies, spy interrogation tactics, plot devices, IUDs. Whew. It’s almost like Deadpool needs his own version of a “Required Viewing List.” Great. More homework. For a superhero movie. I’m sorry to do this to you, kids…