Back in 2016, Deadpool surprised the world with its biggest R-rated movie opening of all-time and deservedly so. I thought it was a near-perfect superhero movie and there was a right balance of meta-humor and violent action to coalesce with the story, which is a romantic superhero film. It was a great strategy move to release that first movie on Valentine's Day. The whole focal point was not on Deadpool solely but on the relationship between Ryan Reynolds' character and Morena Baccarin's character. Now, because of the phenomenon, people were clamoring for more of the meta-humor and Ryan Reynolds' performance. It is one of my most anticipated movies of not just the summer but the year. I thought this action sequel met the hype with the action and Ryan Reynolds' performance, but what hurt it from being great was the story's execution and a little bit of the meta-humor being too much and/or being inserted in unnecessary places.
Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is continuing to fight crime and enjoying it, until the moment with Sergei Valishnikov. After outrunning Sergei's goons and getting a ride from Dopinder (Karan Soni), Wade goes home to Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) because it is their anniversary. Wade and Vanessa is planning to form a family until tragedy strikes. Wade gets depressed, blaming himself for letting it happen as Blind Al (Leslie Uggams) attempts to prevent him from doing something he will regret.
Wade recovers in the X-Men mansion with Colossus (Stefan Capicic) taking care of him as he is fooling around in the mansion (e.g. Professor X's chair). He also reunites with Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) and meets her girlfriend, Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna). Colossus tries to encourage Wade to join the X-Men, and reluctantly, he joins them as a trainee. Deadpool, Colossus and Negasonic go to an orphanage run by the Essex Corporation meant to "fix" mutant children as a 14-year old boy named Russell/Firefist (Julian Dennison) is raging and setting the place on fire. After shooting the orderly, Deadpool and Russell are detained with collars that suppresses their mutant powers. While they are prisoners in the Ice Box, a time traveling mercenary named Cable (Josh Brolin) arrives from the future to kill Russell.
I loved most of the humor but sometimes, the humor does interfere with the tone and the stakes too much and it takes my focus away from the story and think about the joke on whether or not it works. I was howling at certain moments in which the X-Force was formed and meta-jokes towards X-Men, James Bond, Basic Instinct, Wolverine, etc. (To add, one meta-joke is part of one of the best mid or post-credits scenes ever.) One element that I think is better than the first movie is the action set-pieces in which you can see director David Leitch's organization in how Cable is going after the person he wants and is trying to fix his future. And, Deadpool sees Cable as more of a threat as he is focusing on protecting Russell.
I felt that Cable's storyline was more emotionally hefty than the main storyline where it focuses on the dynamic between Deadpool and Russell. The latter is sort of a copy of the Terminator 2 storyline in which I tried to buy the relationship but it never quite reaches up to that peak, especially towards the end of the action sequence, where I felt like the redemption felt too convenient. But, without giving it away, after learning why Cable is going after him, there is suspense and then you buy the emotional pay-off to Cable's character.
What can you say about Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool that has not been said before? He is charismatic and can match his performance of this character like a glove like Hugh Jackman playing Logan/Wolverine. Nobody can replace him. He is still unbelievably funny. Still, his interaction with him and Baccarin provides some emotion that had that magic from the first movie. Josh Brolin as Cable was good but his character was a bit one-dimensional from the beginning but his character turns it in around until we learn why he is traveling to the year where the action is taking place. It is not as memorable as Thanos from Infinity War. I loved Zazie Beetz as Domino, in which she jokes about a certain element of a superhero trope that has annoyed me in other movies she has throughout the movie. Nevertheless, she is dynamic, sexy and bad-ass as the character. The whole creation of the X-Force was funny. Julian Dennison is good and sometimes funny but once again I did not buy the pay-off with his character as it was too convenient. One bad performance was T.J. Miller who looks like he was lost in his own comedy.
David Leitch redeemed himself from his initial sole directing credit with Atomic Blonde. You see more story in this one than the first movie but the question of high value is if there is emotion and if it is earned. There is emotion on one side, not as much as the first movie, but I question whether or not if it was earned. However, it ties well with both Deadpool's and Cable's personal storylines. Criticisms aside, this is a solid, humorous, action-packed movie that has a bigger scope and budget to go along for the ride. It also delves deep down into the importance of family in which Wade Wilson did not have from the first movie and that has a nice touch in the end. A good summer blockbuster sequel.
***
Comments
Post a Comment