Movie Review: "Deadpool 2" Gets by on Its Big Mouth

Die-hard fans of Deadpool’s fourth wall-breaking, superhero-subverting, ultraviolent antics will find much to enjoy in Deadpool 2. Everyone else: Deadpool is basically your Poochie.

(I prefer to think of him as a live-action Animaniac. You get the idea.)

If you saw 2016's Deadpool—which grossed nearly $US800 million at the box office and scored a Best Picture Golden Globe nod—you know what you’re in for with Deadpool 2, and you’ll either find Ryan Reynolds’ performance as the motor-mouthed mutant giddy good fun or just plain exhausting.

I’m in the former camp. Ask me again after Deadpool 3 and maybe by then he’ll have broken my will.

There’s been a change behind the camera on DP2—director Tim Miller has been swapped out with Atomic Blonde’s David Leitch—but the true voice of the project, Reynolds, remains loud and proud. Here, he gets a screenwriting credit as well, with his real name and everything. Hard to say if that’s an upgrade compared to how he was referred to at the start of the last effort: “God’s perfect idiot.”

In his sequel, the red-suited Deadpool—aka Wade Wilson, an unshutupable mercenary who was turned into an unkillable antihero by an experimental procedure—wants to start a family. Apparently the biological clock comes for us all, including immortal hitmen with a passion for dismemberment.

He gets to try out the ‘fatherly’ thing while working as a trainee for the X-Men (who are very reluctant about the crossover; imagine how their Disney mates will take to him). On assignment, Wilson must wrangle a mutant teen named Russell (Hunt for the Wilderpeople’s hilarious Julian Dennison), who is rebelling against his abusive orphanage and causing havoc with his ‘fire fists’. Unfortunately, Wade’s attempts to corral Russell fail, and he’s booted out of the X-Men. So, he spitefully starts his own ‘X-Force’, to rescue Russell and protect him from the time-travelling, Terminator-esque Cable (Josh Brolin), a robot-armed assassin who claims Russell will become a mass-murderer in the future.

I’m surprised the pop culture-spouting Deadpool doesn’t refer to that as the ‘darkest timeline’. Not a Community fan?

The plot moves on from the origin story-spoofing of the original to take potshots at team-up flicks like Avengers and Justice League, though, many gags are at the expense of previous X-Men films, and Reynolds’ eternal cross to bear, Green Lantern. Still, narrative invention isn’t this series' strong suit. (That would instead be 's*** talking'.) Because as virtuosic as Deadpool 2 is when it comes to violence, it’s surprisingly predictable and unremarkable elsewhere. It even de-sexes our pansexual hero, failing to give him a single, measly unicorn to lust over.

One of its centrepieces—a riot in a supermax prison—was previously used in Guardians of the Galaxy and The Fate of the Furious. One of its jokes has also been done before, with Reynolds breaking character to fire a bad co-star, a’la Wayne’s World 2. Another major set piece, albeit genius in the execution, is torn from MacGruber. These particular references go unremarked upon, for a change, and I don’t think Reynolds’ fellow screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick suddenly opted for subtlety. I’m not accusing Deadpool 2 of joke theft; perhaps parallel thinking, or lazy ‘first idea, best idea’ writing. Either way, a franchise heralded for being so innovative shouldn't look to the second Wayne's World flick for inspiration, no matter how underrated it is. (Seriously, give it a rewatch!)

There are still a few inspired moments, usually involving the X-Force, and, in particular, the "lucky" Domino (Atlanta’s wry Zazie Beetz), who strolls through danger as if untouchable. Karan Soni might again be MVP as the sweet-seeming, totally immoral cab driver Dopinder. And there’s a cheeky climactic scene in which Reynolds actively mugs for "the Academy", capped by a post-credits sequence that is too wicked to ruin. It finally shreds the already-thin contract between movie and movie-goer, but who cares when it’s so cruelly funny?

Nonetheless, I sometimes think Deadpool is better suited as a TV pitchman, or an occasional Late-Night guest host, rather than a movie star. When he’s stuck inside cinema’s conventional four walls, no matter how many times he turns to the camera, he seems trapped by the imposed stakes and structure. He makes fun of cheap sets, same-y shoot-outs and overly-invested villains. However, his features are replete with them. When we see a Deadpool, it often feels like we’re paying for a sarcastic friend to whisper in our ear during standard studio fare. Thankfully, Reynolds is probably as welcome as sarcastic friends get.

3/5

In Australian cinemas now. Rated MA15+ for strong bloody violence and coarse language.

Photo: Fox