Friday, 18 May 2018

Daedpool 2 rinses and repeats to no great effect


The success of Deadpool (2016) was largely based on the fact that it was a comic book movie that wasn’t really for kids, which is fair enough because comics are no longer aimed at kids. The ultra-violence, the profanity, the sex gags, and all the rest ushered in the age of the adult super hero movie.

It was a huge and deserved hit but it does leave us with a problem. Having broken all the rules first time round, what do you do for an encore? If you’ve changed the game then where do you go from here?

Deadpool 2 hedges its bets. There’s more of the same from the first one but there is also an uncomfortable reliance on conventional superhero tropes; getting the group together, saving the vulnerable, the importance of family, and love conquering all. The problem is that this isn’t really what Deadpool is about.

The film tries hard but the effort seems misplaced. There’s lots of irreverence – a couple of ‘C’ bombs raise the adult language stakes – but it essentially feels repetitive. The first two acts are just spinning their wheels with lots of action but it seems to be more in service of Deadpool the brand rather than the story.

It’s rude, it’s occasionally inventive, and much is made of our hero’s cartoonish invulnerability. It’s well done but pointless. There is a lot of witty voice over but this is lazy writing and a couple of meta gags about lazy writing don’t excuse that. Speaking of meta gags there are plenty of jokes but you need to work for them; this is a movie which allows hard core comic geeks to feel superior. It’s the sort of film that’s accompanied by small pockets of people laughing too hard to demonstrate they’re smarter than you.

The story such as it is concerns Deadpool trying to redeem himself by saving a young mutant (Julian Dennison). In the background is the unkillable Cable, part man, part machine, and wholly indestructible.

Who is Cable and why is he here? Who knows, other than those people laughing too hard of course? The film busies itself with setting up a new super team, X-Force, but this is essentially an elaborate prank. It’s only when Cable explains himself and the third act kicks off that this finally feels like a movie.

From here on in it’s pretty good, even if there is more of that lazy writing in an ending that telegraphs itself a long way out, and in the final analysis the movie will not disappoint.  It is fun but it lacks the brio and wit of the first one.

Ryan Reynolds is fine as Deadpool though I suspect this may end up being a career limiting role and Josh Brolin manages to bring something to Cable which isn’t in the script. Action specialist David Leitch directs crisply and efficiently and the one thing that has to be said is that it doesn’t drag.

On top of that there is a post-credits scene in two parts that may be the best that Marvel have ever done. This, like much of the rest of the movie, will have the hard core fans in ecstasy but they need to be thinking about building their brand and reaching out to a few more agnostics.

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