From the studio that killed Wolverine, from one of the directors that killed John Wick’s dog, we have the sequel that most believe can't top the insane first instalment that was Deadpool.
Or can it?
Let’s dig in...
Tim Miller, director of the original Deadpool movie, stepped away from the sequel due to creative differences with Ryan Reynolds, the star and producer of Deadpool. Usually when a director steps away from something he created the end result becomes muddled up… we looking at you Justice League and Warner Bro…let's hope Solo won't be the next victim.
Anyhow, Fox was smart enough to hire David Leitch, who was the co-director on the first John Wick movie. Plus he has years of experience as a stunt supervisor/co-ordinator. So David Leitch is able to bring fluid action sequences and some eye popping visuals that don’t detract from the story like he did in John Wick.
This is where Deadpool 2 ups the ante on Deadpool 1… Deadpool 2, like all great sequels from Terminator 2 (which is referenced in Deadpool), to the Godfather 2 to X-Men 2 (which is also referenced in the movie) takes some of what worked in the first movie; the gags and even story presentation but reinvents it and adds something new to it.
Deadpool 2 gives us a proper story with motivation, theme even a take home message filled with intertextuality, laughter, drama (yes drama) and more laughter.
The film is a perfect balance between giving the audience a story, and like Quenton Tarantino, playing with the audience on when to laugh at the gags and when to be horrified by the action or even story.
Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool. This time, no one is spared from the Deadpool wit from Marvel, DC to even the parent company Fox. Ryan Reynolds delivers on the dramatic and comedy bits like a star.
Josh Brolin can't do no wrong of late, his Cable is a call back to Terminator with a dash of Clint Eastwood of The Good, Bad and the Ugly. It works.
Zazie Beetz, of Atlanta fame, doesn’t have too much to do but is a cool set-up for the X force movie.
Julian Dennison reprises a role he mastered in The Hunt for the Wilderpeople and I'm also looking forward to seeing more of him in the Deadpool universe. Then there’s the 90s hip hop, which this time is accompanied with 80s pop and a bit of dubstep for the UK speed garage fans.
I guess one criticism one can lay against Deadpool 2 is, for you to truly enjoy it, one needs to be aware of all the references the movie makes. Deadpool is a postmodern nerdgasm with its self reflexivity.
It constantly pokes fun at itself as a movie, the comicbook movie genre and quotes or reinvents scenes from other pop culture films from Guardians of the Galaxy to classics like the Breakfast Club. If you don’t know all these references you may lose out on one layer of enjoyment but not of the story it tells.
There’s them re-doing certain gags even though they're still funny but one hopes by the time the X-Force movie comes about, the writing team aren’t still trying to find inventive ways of redoing the gags they did in the first movie.
My other major gripe with blockbusters this year is Computer Generated Images not being polished - Deadpool has one or two scenes that look too CGI.
Which is not a major criticism, Deadpool 2 is a sequel that goes a bit deeper into its own myth making, pokes fun at itself and other comic book movies whilst telling a story that has a definite arc and emotional investment that is surprising. It touches on the nature of evil and the strength of family ties in a surprisingly touching way.
Overall, the movie is so well conceived that I daresay Deadpool 2 has already predicated what Avengers 4 will do and has taken the mickey out of it before the movie has come out. That's how clever Deadpool 2 is.
It felt like: A-Quentin-Tarantino-made-super-hero-team-up-movie, with the emotional depth of the Lego-Batman movie meets The Hunt for the Wilderpeople set in the X-Men universe.
Rating
****1/2
index
* rubbish ** ja nee ***its aight ****now we cooking with gas *****it’s a Classic ,man