Deadpool 2 - Review

Deadpool 2

Actor Ryan Reynolds reprises his surprising 2016 comedic superhero hit “Deadpool” in Deadpool 2” where again we find the wisecracking, irreverent, sarcastic and yet smooth romantic mercenary "Wade" aka “Deadpool” joining forces with three other mutants Bedlam, Shatterstar and Domino to protect a boy with special powers from an all-powerful alien visitor named “Cable” (Josh Brolin) who has traveled back in time to kill the adolescent for some unknown mysterious reason.

REVIEW: To the point. It is not as good as the original. Specifically Deadpool 2 while it looks the same that's all it has in common with its more dynamic and fresher predecessor. Basically this 2018 effort is an excessively long movie. No actually the word should be an excessively stuffed and stiff filled movie with an endless array of fight scenes, crashes and gun battles that seem to occupy more of that space in its 2 hour running time than having anywhere close to an actual coherent story connecting the dots to something that makes sense or is believable. By the time the finale comes along the whole experience felt empty with nothing memorable to hold on to or to take home with me in the way of………. "Oh wow that was a great scene” . “That was funny as hell”. “That was so freaking cool”. Instead all I could think about was…………….. "Is it too late to swing by Chipotle before it closes? It wasn’t, I got my 2 standard veggie burrito bowls to go. Yummy.

Now I give “Deadpool 2” some measure of credit in that they did try to make a a new film that was both comedically subversive with a moral based story line, all the while holding on to some of the 2016 original’s charm, wit and clever infused action that was so much damn fun. They tried earnestly to raise the stakes a bit by having this film pull on your emphatic heart strings largely predicated on a dramatic event that happens to "Wade" in the first 10 minutes of this film. But in the end it does not work, not at all. At least for me it did not work. Instead all I found after watching DP2 for the remaining hour and half was a film overly saturated with old and some new characters that were equally annoying and underdeveloped which made my viewing experience feel like it was running on fumes, while also getting thinner and thinner in the way of interest every minute it went by.

It was if the director and the writer collaborated on one single principle idea to work on. All they had to do was make “DP2” into a story that was preoccupied with visual special effects, with some big city carnage and destruction and things will turn out just alright.  But it wasn’t right. These characters plight and their dilemmas were similarly to me watching out my window several of my neighbors standing on their side of the road watching the results of a car wreck on their side of the road who then themselves eventually get hit by another car who was watching the wreck on the side of the road.  

It has been my life long movie going experience that sequels to highly successful films are extremely hard to pull off. But the key has been to those rare sequel films that have been successful i.e. Godfather 2, Aliens, Batman -The Dark Knight and Mad Max Fury Road to name a few, is to always keeping their screenplay writing fingers away from the “keep it  generically safe button”. Those films listed above made great efforts, even took great risks and showed meticulous attention to extraordinary details in crafting and writing stories with well-rounded villain(s) and well-rounded heroes while also making the overall story itself have even more meaningful discerning appeal to a returning audience who came back to theaters to get more of the same thrills they garnered from the original. Meaning, creating something more imaginative, more provocative and more reflective.…………….."Deadpool 2 "misses its mark on all of these areas.

So in the end “Deadpool 2 ” does have just enough in it to be watchable, but that’s only if its 6 months from now when you are comfortable at home and you hit your remote control button and see where your cable provider is now showing it on demand for $3.99.

2.25 Stars