In 2016 Deadpool delivered something audiences had never seen, a foul mouthed jerky “superhero” that made fun of all the other superhero movies out there. It was the self satire that the genre needed. While Deadpool’s shtick is still funny, it lacks the shock and awe that it had two years ago, but if you are looking for more Deadpool, Deadpool 2 delivers.
Deadpool 2 starts soon after the end of the first Deadpool, and things are at first going great for the Merc with the Mouth (Ryan Reynolds), but then tragedy strikes. To make things even worse Cable (Josh Brolin) comes from the future causing chaos, so Deadpool has to get a team together to stop him, the X-Force. Queue zany hijinks and over the top action sequences. Maximum Effort!
They way they tried to change things up was to make this a more personal story for Wade Wilson. To give it a little more heart, but the problem is that it undercuts itself to tell more jokes. Which to be fair is why the audience is there in the first place, but it makes it feel like the writers were trying to have their cake and eat it too. By making this a standard emotional superhero movie, and then turning around and making fun of all those movies. Thankfully most of the jokes land the way they were intended.
We all know that this was the superhero role that Reynolds was meant to play, but Brolin’s Cable is spot on too, and Zazie Beetz as Domino is fantastic. Even better the rest of Deadpool’s excellent cast all return, and they continue to be hilarious, even if they are used to a lesser degree.
It is strange to be a little let down that Deadpool 2 gives us more of what made the first film so good, but I was kind of hoping they would try new things, maybe even find new genre’s to make fun of. However, the action is still explosive, and the jokes are still funny, so it is still worth watching. I just hope that they find something a little different to tackle with the upcoming X-Force movie, and don’t just use it as an excuse to turn Deadpool in to just another X-Man.
