Movie Review: Deadpool 2 (2018)

 

Summary: Foul-mouthed mutant mercenary Wade Wilson (AKA. Deadpool), brings together a team of fellow mutant rogues to protect a young boy of supernatural abilities from the brutal, time-traveling mutant, Cable.

So I’m not going to lie, I really liked the first one but I think I only saw it maybe once or twice in its entirety. I wasn’t really anticipating the second one, it wasn’t really one of those movies that I was like “I HAVE TO SEE” but I knew I wanted to since I had so much fun in the first one. Anyways, on to the review!

Pros:

Cast and Characters. 

• Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson / Deadpool. He is a wise cracking mercenary with accelerated healing but severe scarring over his body after undergoing an experimental regenerative mutation. In this movie, he has been DP for a while now, and his life seems to be pretty good as he has his girl with him. But he is put on a path where he meets Russell and things aren’t going so well. Throughout the movie, he’s trying to find his place, trying to find out what the dream he had means and he goes on this discovery, while also causing trouble as he does. We get to see a little more emotional side of Wade, which I really like, since it shows balance with his larger than life personality. Ryan Reynolds was meant to play this character and it shows just how much he loves it because I’m sure he ad-libbed as much as he could. It got a little over the top sometimes but he’s great in the role.

• Josh Brolin as Cable. A time-traveling cybernetic soldier who is very different from Deadpool in that he’s very serious and he has a set plan for what he wants. I think the character could have easily been that “narrow-minded soldier” very easily but I think Josh Brolin manages to add humanity to the character and he’s very likable. What he does in the end shows a lot of emotion and I can’t wait to see what happens with him in the future, especially since he came from the future and his parents are around.

• Julian Dennison as Russell Collins / Firefist. He is the older version of Russell from Up. A young mutant with pyrokinesis who is being hunted by Cable due to something his future self does. I would consider him a kind of villain through most of the movie, but the whole point is to save him, well it takes a moment for Deadpool to get to that point, but yeah. He’s pretty funny himself throughout the movie.

• Zazie Beetz as Domino. Easily the best part of the film. She is a mercenary with the mutant ability to manipulate luck, who joins Deadpool’s X-Force team. Domino is sassy, unbothered and she just goes through life-like nothing can faze her, which nothing does. Considering she’s lucky, no matter what happens, no matter how dangerous it is, she’s fine. However, she has a tragic past buts she can definitely kick butt and takes names. She’s funny as well. I’ve never seen Zazie Beetz in anything but she’s great here and I really want her to have her own movie since she was the clear standout in this film. Her back and forth banter with Ryan Reynolds was great, they had great chemistry and I would love to see them team up again. She also just looks physically awesome.

Supporting Characters.

• T.J. Miller as Weasel. He is Wade’s best friend and owns the bar that apparently all of the mercenaries frequent. He doesn’t really do much but he’s funny and makes jokes and has great comedic chemistry with Ryan Reynolds.

• Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead. A teenage X-Man with the mutant power to detonate atomic bursts from her body. She seems to be more apart of the team now, she was more of a trainee in the first one. I loved her in the first one and I was excited to see her in this one. I was bummed she wasn’t in it that much. Her new relationship was cute, I liked her girlfriend, but we didn’t really get the chance to see much from either of them. The actress is still great in her unbothered persona as well, I think her and Domino would get along swimmingly.

The Opening Credits. It was hilarious and unique. I love how they used a song beautifully sang by Celine Dion and there were some crazy images going along with such a slow song. The picture at the top of the review is one such image from the opening credits. I also liked the fact that the credits pretty much tells you what’s going to happen in the movie lol very bold and it was funny foreshadowing joke.

The Action. It’s pretty nonstop for a good chunk of the film. The opening fight scene before he runs home to Vanessa is fantastic. My favorite is definitely the car chase scene, Domino fights Cable and she does this really cool move while in the truck AND she has great stunts period because she’s just so lucky. Plus, Cable is cool and we get to see him and DP go at it a few times and I thought the fight choreography was handled very well.

It’s Still Funny. Unfortunately, I’ll talk about this later too, but I still the movie was funny. Crude humor doesn’t bother me, if it’s funny it’s funny and if it’s not it’s not. Humor is subjective but I normally enjoy Deadpool’s antics, even in the comics, so there were a lot of times where he was still enjoyable to watch. The entire scene where he has to grow something back was probably the funniest of the movie. Also, Domino has some great humorous moments and lines, her banter with Deadpool when she’s “interviewing” for his superhero team was great. Also, the scene when his “X-Force” team does the skydiving. Hilarious. Oh and Russell was funny sometimes too.

The Heart/Emotion. It wasn’t like super emotional but it does have some sad stuff, especially in the beginning. However, the whole story with the kid and how Deadpool is reacting to him, especially the end, I thought it was sweet. Same with Cable’s story and why he’s there. I think there is a lot of heart in the movie, but it does get bogged down at times by the jokes.

Cameos. There are some great cameos in the film. There is one in the X-mansion when Deadpool is in there talking to Colossus. There is also an extended cameo in the end with a well known character that was pretty cool to see and to see them done correctly.

Cons:

Dead Horse. I felt about this movie the same way I felt about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. The first movie was so funny and different that they wanted to do the same thing here just bigger and better and I don’t think it was better. Not all of the jokes hit for me, and some of them went on for way to long. There was a scene at the end, where Wade just keeps going on and on and on and I’m like… if you just don’t GO! It got really old really fast a lot of times and it was kind of annoying.

Enjoy the moment. I know with a comedy, it’s hard to let moments just be moments but I wish that when there’s an emotional part, just let it be emotional. You don’t have to make jokes, just let it happen and more than likely, I’ll actually feel something other than annoyance.

Boring. It’s weird to say this in a Deadpool movie but I was kind of bored at various times throughout the movie. I think my friend even fell asleep at a point, but I was disappointed that it just didn’t keep me engaged like the first one did. It was trying to hard and I could tell and it didn’t do it for me. It had some minor pacing issues, where we were really high for a while and then it was like a deep plummet and I was like *sighs* okay.

Wasted Characters. There were some characters introduced in the movie just for laughs, which is fine, but I was expecting to see way more of the X-men characters we saw from the first movie. I was a little miffed that they were just glorified cameos.

Overall, I enjoyed Deadpool 2. I liked all of the characters, they were all fun and it was easy to tell that the actors had a good time as well. Ryan Reynolds still is great as Deadpool. He loves the character and it comes through in the film. I enjoyed the little arc that he got to have in the film, he’s ultimately the same person just a bit more mature in the end. Josh Brolin as Cable was great, he was intimidating but awesome, Julian Dennison as Russell was also great to watch, he clearly had fun in his role and I thought he was funny, most of the time. Lastly, Zazie Beetz as Domino was the standout in the film and I think she should get her own film. The action is handled very well, it’s well choreographed and it’s awesome seeing how some of the characters get through some pretty crazy situations. The opening credits was one of the best sequences of the film, especially coupled with that song. The emotional heart in the film was also pretty well-earned. It’s also funny. Now, with that said, I do think this movie suffers from the “trying to hard” syndrome. I think because the first did so well that they tried to capture that again and it didn’t always work for me. Crude humor is never a problem for me, but when you beat a dead horse, or you just don’t know when to let the moment be a moment, that gets annoying. Yes, I know that’s how Deadpool is but that doesn’t mean it has to come off forced. I also felt a bored in some areas of the film, I wasn’t so bored that I pulled out my phone or anything, but I was bored that I wanted to get back to other scenes and I don’t really do that when watching a movie. My friend even fell asleep and she was looking forward to this way more than I was. I left the movie disappointed and the more I thought about it, I was disappointed. I enjoyed it but it was fine.

Rating: 3.7 out of 5 stars.

Have you seen Deadpool 2 yet? What did you think about it? Please comment and let me know your thoughts.

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