Deadpool 2 or: How Fox Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the R Rating

SPOILER ALERT

I think Deadpool is kind of overrated.

(I know: great way to start a Deadpool 2 review, right?)

If I can get on my hipster soapbox for a moment, Deadpool used to be this thing that not many people knew about, this irreverent, self-aware anti-hero that wasn’t like any other comic book character. Then he started appearing in more video games and some of the cartoons and the magic of being a Deadpool fan melted away; it wasn’t special anymore to say that Deadpool was cool now that everyone was saying it. And not everyone can write Deadpool well, either. Eventually, the concept of a fourth wall breaking sociopath who spits off pop culture references like bullets from a semi-automatic stopped being funny.

And then along came Ryan Reynolds.

This man – along with the writers and director of the first Deadpool movie – managed to pull Deadpool out of the wreckage that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine and make the character interesting to me again. The movie had jokes aplenty, but it was mixed in with a lot of violence, drama, and a surprisingly compelling love story. Capped off with Reynolds’ usual charisma and quick wit portraying the Merc Who Got His Mouth Back, and the Deadpool movie became one of the only incarnations of Deadpool that I could tolerate.

The sequel follows in those same footsteps, mostly for the better.

It’s still not a million jokes a minute like the comics are. There are legitimate scenes of drama with stuff like Vanessa’s death and some of the interactions between Deadpool and Russell. But when the jokes do hit, they hit hard, especially in regards to the superhero movie industry (and all of the gut punches towards DC and their movies).

However, sometimes the movie does suffer from what I call “Sequel Remembrance Syndrome”, wherein a movie sequel – usually a comedy – re-uses iconic jokes from the previous installment, usually with minor adjustments made to them. Examples from Deadpool 2 include Deadpool having to re-grow his legs as baby legs (instead of his arm like the previous movie) and the jokes directed at X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Green Lantern. While these jokes are still funny and are elevated from the previous movie – the jokes about Reynolds’ prior movie career is extra harsh in this one thanks to the insanely meta post-credit scene – I’d be lying if I said I wish they’d try more original jokes.

That being said, one of this movie’s instances of SRS (Sequel Remembrance Syndrome) wound up being what I thought was the funniest joke in the whole movie. It’s where Deadpool goes to visit the X-Mansion like in the first movie, and one again complains that he never sees any other X-Men at the mansion except for Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (due to the studio being too cheap to afford anyone else). Only this time we see, just out of Deadpool’s peripherals, Professor X (as in James McAvoy) and his X-Men team from Apocalypse quietly close a classroom door so that they don’t have to deal with Deadpool’s antics. Brilliant, while also further raising the question of how McAvoy hasn’t turned into Patrick Stewart by this point.

I feel like the first act of this movie is a bit of a slog to get through, but once Deadpool assembles the X-Force (and that spectacularly fails), the movie really picked up for me.

(Also, I know some people were upset that the X-Force characters were built up so heavily in the trailers and then immediately killed off, but I don’t really know anything about these characters so I thought it was a funny subversion. I’m just glad the post-credit scene saved Peter above all else.)

Ryan Reynolds is on record saying that Deadpool 2 is a “family movie.” Now this isn’t to say that you should take your six-year-old to see a foul-mouthed superhero movie where the protagonist falls onto a steel table and folds like an accordion, but the theme of creating an unconventional family is prevalent in this movie. The interactions between Deadpool, Cable, and Domino are some of the best in the movie, and you really get a good sense of comradery between them. And as stated before, Deadpool and Russell’s father-son dynamic can get pretty sweet at times. At the end of the movie, when Deadpool is walking off with Cable, Domino, Russell, Colossus, and Dopinder and narrating about family, I did get the sense that yes, this is the kind of weird, effed-up family I would like to see in a movie like this.

Some people are saying Deadpool 2 is better than the first. Some say it’s worse. I say that it’s just as good. They both have a lot of the same strengths and weaknesses, but it’s still an incredibly enjoyable film. Sometimes the pacing gets weird and the supposedly comedic superhero movie is bogged down with long scenes of drama, but the first movie had that too. It’s got a lot more in it than the first one, and it integrates itself farther into the greater X-Men universe with inclusions like the Juggernaut (who is much better here than he was in X-Men: The Last Stand), hints at future elements like Mister Sinister, and actual cameos from the big league X-Men stars.

(Also, as a side note, I thought it was really clever how they basically turned Vanessa into the movie’s version of Lady Death – Deadpool’s star-crossed love who awaits him in the afterlife every time he dies – without making it blatantly obvious. You know, until the post-credit scene reverses it.)

If you liked the first Deadpool movie, you’ll like this one fine. Stick through the uneven first act and you’ll have yourself a nice night at the movies filled with meta humor and heartwarming friendships between violent sociopaths.

The ironic part is, when comparing this to other superhero movies out right now, Deadpool 2 is probably a lot less emotionally scarring for little kids than Infinity War.