Deadpool 2 (2018, R)

I’m out of town this weekend and haven’t had a chance to get to Thursday’s Daily Show, so I’ll get to News Satire Roundup another day.  In the meantime...

I got a kick out of the first Deadpool movie and enjoyed this one a lot too, although I’d give the first film the edge.  This one, as a sequel, is predictably bigger, wilder, and more outrageous, and the story has some pretty neat stuff in it, but there are a few directions the movie takes that I think are missteps.

Deadpool has been brought to his lowest point when he meets Russell, a young mutant with a lot of anger built up by years of injustice.  When Cable, a badass cyborg from the future, appears on a mission to kill Russell (in a classic “go back in time to kill the bad guy as a kid” scenario,) Deadpool finds himself standing in the way of the one-man mission, convinced that Russell isn’t yet a lost cause and determined to save him.

I like the general thrust of the story.  It maybe seems unbelievable that Deadpool would go to bat so thoroughly for somebody other than himself, but the film makes it work, and I like the idea of trying to avert disaster by saving someone rather than killing them (shades of Cole with Jennifer on 12 Monkeys, though I like it even better there.)  As can be expected, the jokes fly in at high speed, with all the fourth-wall-breaking meta-ness you could want.

Plotwise, my main complaint is that some of the characters aren’t used as much or as well as I would’ve liked.  I’m really disappointed in how Vanessa, who I really enjoyed in the first movie, is used here, and I wish we could’ve gotten more with the X-Force stuff, as well as Negasonic Teenage Warhead and her girlfriend.  I love that we finally have unambiguously-queer superheroes on the big screen (even though Deadpool himself is canonically pansexual, there’s nothing in either film that couldn’t conceivably be dismissed as a joke,) but I’d have liked it a lot better if they weren’t glorified extras.

Speaking of X-Force, Domino is awesome.  Atlanta’s Zazie Beetz is terrific in the role, she’s cool and stylish, and I love the contrast she offers with Deadpool.  First, there’s the different angle she brings to the action scenes – while Deadpool offers up his usual audacious ultraviolence, which is very cool, Domino’s mutant powers (which she describes simply as being innately lucky) allow for big, crazy action set pieces that are just wild to see, the meticulous falling-into-place-ness of a Jean-Pierre Jeunet film mixed with the outlandish violence of a Kingsman movie.  Additionally, her luck gives her this buoyant attitude that’s sunshiny and chill at the same time, which plays nicely off of Deadpool’s cheeky nihilism.

In addition to the main cast from the original film, including the impeccably-cast Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and Morena Baccarin as Vanessa, and the aforementioned Beetz as Domino, the movie stacks up a nice cast (even though, like I said, we don’t see as much of some of them as I wish we did.)  As Cable, Josh Brolin plays a second Marvel villain, albeit outside the MCU, and X-Force includes the likes of Bill Skarsgård, Terry Crews, and Lewis Tan (Zhou Cheng from Iron Fist.)  I’m not familiar with Julian Dennison, who plays Russell, but he does a great job.

Warnings

Copious amounts of violence, tons of swearing, sexual content/references, smoking/drinking/drug use, and strong thematic elements (including suicide and child abuse.)