This sequel was, for me, far more enjoyable than the original Deadpool. It doesn't waste time on exposition. It caters hand and foot to its audience. It doesn't even try to play things safe like the first one (thematically, structurally). Ryan Reynolds is even more creepy and sassy as Wade Wilson. And it never really sinks to the sentimentality that lurked under the surface before.
Our foul-mouthed (and, really, just plain nasty) mercenary starts his new adventure with a few bangs and sudden tragedy, when his lover Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) is murdered. Vengeful and suicidal, Wade is taken in by the X-Men. When one mission goes wrong, he and a troubled young mutant are arrested. As this develops, a secondary plotline is born involving Cable (Josh Brolin), who comes from the future looking to kill the kid Wade has taken under his wing.
Heavily plotted, the film has almost no breathing space between breakneck action and whiplash comedy. Which is good if you care about such things, and if the filmmakers are trying to cover up the absurdity of the proceedings. Fortunately, because this is Deadpool, absurdity is the name of the game, and the film brings lots of attention to itself. Its meta sensibilities aggressively take over in the film's final act, and while it's certainly fresh, interesting, and entertaining, it's also more than a little overkill. Overkill, you say? Just wait for those mid-credits scenes of Deadpool leaping through time to kill Ryan Reynolds in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Green Lantern.
And while aggressively crude and/or topical comedy isn't always my cuppa, Deadpool 2 provides other fabulous things for me to sink my teeth into. We finally have Juggernaut! We finally have Cable! And my favorite sequence in the film -- by far -- is the formation and ill-fated first outing of X-Force. It's hilarious and subversive and really just an amazing scene.
Speaking of subversion, whereas the first Deadpool was, I'd argue, anything but game-changing, this film definitely tries harder to fulfill that promise. We do have more explicit queerness between characters, though the representation leaves plenty to be desired. We have strong, independent women, though we also have the main woman used as a plot device and little else. And we have a diverse ethnic cast of characters who are nevertheless riddled with stereotypes. All in all, this film is a perfect example of the problematic issue of representation: Are we satisfied with problematic representation simply because any visibility is good? Or do we need representation of a certain quality to truly progress as a culture?
I don't think Deadpool cares, which is fine. I don't think many of his fans care, which is far more troubling.
IMDb: Deadpool 2
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