Film Review: Deadpool 2 Doubles Its Heart And Humor
Deadpool 2 arises as an excellent sequel because, this time around, it relied on a surprising among of heart. Going in, everybody expected its Rated R, “Gilmore Girl” type of humor; a spinning wheel of puns that refuses to stop. Yes, it does up the raunchiness and bravado of it lead’s potty mouth. Yet, as a sequel, we needed more than the expected and Deadpool 2 delivers.
Ryan Reynolds enjoys being Deadpool so much, he might as well be a lit Christmas Tree on the screen. You can feel he is in his element, and, in this go around, he got the opportunity to help write the script, which leaves me even more impressed with him. Not only is he consistently funny, but, thanks to his love for Morena Baccarin’s charming Vanessa and the kid with his own potty mouth, Russell (played by scene-stealing Julian Dennison), he gets to spread is intelligence as an actor: knowing how much sensitivity/ vulnerability he needs to give without diminishing that he is FREAKING DEADPOOL.Yet. I am beginning to believe that 20th Century Fox has found their own secret weapon to comic book films: kids.
First Logan, now Deadpool 2, seeing a kid kick-ass is absolutely endearing. While we are all accustomed to embittered adults duking it out to save a world they kind of hate, teenage angst and super-powers are the combo that has always thrived in comic-books but has been ignored or “second-fiddled” on big screens. Yet, Russell, along with Vanessa’s own desire for a family/ pushing for him to be more altruistic, pushes Wade to mature or acknowledge a “serious moment” as best as The Merc With A Mouth can. Moreover, Dennison is a star, and I had NO DOUBT, after watching Hunt for the Wilderpeople, that he could balance the fear and literal fire of being both a strong mutant but a confused, abandoned child.
How we balance our humanity with our “superpowers” becomes an unexpected, but poignant theme of Deadpool 2, particularly because the film has Wade reaching out to others for help. From his own “X-force” we get characters like Zazie Beetz’s Domino WHOM IS A COMPLETE BADASS! I cannot even write a proper sentence to describe how cool of a power “luck” can be, and she delivers her own confident sass to match that of Deadpool 2. We don’t get as much Brianna Hildebrand’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead as I would have liked, but we do get some cool Colossus’ scenes (played by Stefan Kapičić ). Moreover, we get so many cool cameos and new characters to appreciate like Shioli Kutsuna as Yukio, Terry Crews’ Bedlam, Bill Skarsgård ’s Zeitgeist, the lovely Peter (played by Robert Delaney), and, of course, Josh Brolin’s Cable.
Brolin as Cable is good, but you cannot help but compare him to Thanos: at least after Infinity War’s ending. He certainly is a strong “villain”, but he is not, necessarily, a vicious one. He falls under the trope of “villains with morals”; strong men who believe they are saving the world when they might be harming it or refusing to let it save itself. Still, he is given enough action sequences to exude the grit of this character. Actually, the entire film is a “one- upmanship” to its predecessor; showing that humor and vividly, grimed actions sequence can find a wonderful middle-ground. All in all, Deadpool 2 is a success because it is incomparable to any other film, and shows this series goes beyond “another comic book movie”. It truly is brilliant, confident, and literally has its comedic edge. Deadpool 2 Comes out May 18.
