Deadpool 2 movie review & film summary (2018)

The result feels a bit like a lavishly produced, superhero- and supervillain-stocked standup comedy special, with fight scenes, chases and explosions spliced into footage of the hero telling you about the wild couple of weeks he just had. Reynolds repeats the original "Deadpool" dynamic of giving the movie at least five times what it gives him in return, turning neediness, self-pity, desperation and narcissism into different kinds of comic fuel. There are constant acknowledgements that you're watching a movie, and a formulaic one at that (right before the the start of the film's third act, our boy declares that if his plan succeeds, everybody gets to go home early because there'll be no need for a third act). There are seemingly random (but not really) pop culture references, including a comparison of the melodies of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" from "Frozen" and "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" from "Yentl." There's shtick galore, including quite a bit of slapstick with a body count, plus some retroactive criticism of the Marvel brand's attempts to be capital-I Important ("We're the X-Men, a dated metaphor for racism in the '60s!" Deadpool declares, right before a big setpiece). There's even a protracted bit of mugging near the end that's reminiscent of early Jim Carrey. 

I originally agreed with this site's less-than-enthused review of the first movie, which was "edgy" in an obvious, trying-too-hard way, occasionally wearing its "R" rating with all the misplaced pride of a middle school boy sporting a chocolate milk mustache as if it were a Sam Elliott-style soup strainer (although—kudos!—the details of Wade's cancer treatment and sex life with Vanessa were truly unexpected for a film that expensive). But the array of PG-13 superhero films that preceded and followed, and that all seemed hypnotized by their own ashy solemnity to one degree or another, made the original "Deadpool" feel like a necessary counterweight. The more often I stumbled across it on TV over the past few years, the more I appreciated it. (The inept and obvious "Suicide Squad," which came out a few months later, showed how not to do that kind of movie.) 

And there's something to be said for a film that knows what it is, and is serenely content to be that thing. Except for a few individual lines and sight gags, a brilliantly over-the-top action-comedy sequence near the midsection, and some characteristically sharp performances (including the one by Brolin, who imbues what might've otherwise been a granite-jawed killer meathead with recognizable humanity) there's not much to fondly recall here. But since "Deadpool 2" shows no sign of wanting to rewrite a whole genre with its audacity, we might as well concede that it does the job it apparently wants to do with professionalism and flair, and that the faster we end this piece, the faster you can go on social media and complain about it.

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