Deadpool 2 Review : Bigger, Funnier, But is it Any Better?

    The Merc with the mouth is back and this time it's bigger, funnier, and quite possibly better than the original movie. Think that's a bold claim? Read on to find out whether Deadpool 2 lives up to the immense (and deserving) hype around it.

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    Deadpool 2
    Deadpool 2

    Every so often we come upon a sequel which claims to be “bigger” than the first. Deadpool 2 is one of those sequels. And while that’s all good, the real question becomes: But is it better? While it’s undeniable that it certainly can’t claim the special place in our hearts that the first Deadpool did, it certainly manages to please more than I expected.

    Deadpool 2 follows Wade as he continues to shoot bad guys and make a living. As his good sidekick, Dopinder states, he’s got a great job, a great girlfriend, & an all-around great living. That all blows up the roof when the time-traveling mercenary Cable (Josh Brolin) comes back to our present to kill a certain kid. And Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is not gonna let that happen. That’s pretty much the main plot. Simple right? Well as in all things Deadpool, it doesn’t seem so.

    Deadpool & Weasel in Deadpool 2
    Deadpool & Weasel in Deadpool 2

    So, the positives (and there are a lot of them): Reynolds proves again that he was perhaps born for this role, as his specific brand of comedy mixed with some brilliant writing truly makes Deadpool a memorable anti-hero (if he wasn’t memorable enough in the first place). He Shines through and through and consistently sells on the wacky character motivations that drive his, well, character. And the fourth-wall breaking? It’s better than ever, with subtle winks at a lot of real-world topics that we are dealing with today. If one said this movie provides a running commentary on a lot of modern and real-world issues that we are facing today, I wouldn’t argue them.

    Josh Brolin also brings forth a great performance in Cable. He’s almost the exact opposite of Wade. Where Wade has a charming, big-mouthed personality, Cable is intense. I haven’t read a bunch of comics from where these characters are inspired from, but from the little I have, it’s easy to tell how good of a job these actors have done here. Julian Dennison plays the little kid that Cable’s out to kill, and he does a wonderful job here. I can’t go into the specifics of the character (I’ll save that experience for you), but I can certainly say that this young actor has a bright future ahead of him. Just know that if you liked his performance Hunt For The Wilderpeople, you’ll like it here even more.

    Josh Brolin's Cable in Deadpool 2
    Josh Brolin’s Cable

    As for the rest of the cast, they deliver. While they don’t get as much importance as the two leads of the film, they certainly have an important part to play. Oh and that fun banter between Deadpool & Colossus from the first film? There’s more of that here, and it’s actually a relationship that is further built upon rather than just played for laughs. It’s refreshing to see the writers take what worked in the first movie and build upon them, rather than just rehashing the same stuff. Oh, and there are some nifty little surprises too in there so keep an eye out for those.

    The film also goes deeper into Wade’s weird psyche and evolves his character more so than the first one ever did. The guy coming out at the end of the movie is somewhat different from the one at the start. This is made all the better with the storyline involving Dennison’s character and provides the much-needed heart for the movie. So often sequels tend to chase bigger scale and they forget to have a breathing heart in them that forms the emotional crux of the experience, and Deadpool 2 delivers that.

    Zazie Beetz's Domino in Deadpool 2
    Zazie Beetz’s Domino

    Deadpool 2 also introduces the idea of X-Force, a spinoff team from, you guessed it: X-Men. X-Force in the comics was an elite group of enhanced mutants who went on to do tasks that normally would be considered too dark for the X-Men comics. Deadpool figures that in order to defeat  Ì¶T̶h̶a̶n̶o̶s̶ Cable, he’ll need to form his own super-team. And with that, we’re introduced to Domino. Zazie Beetz gives an instantly likable performance as the lucky mutant. Not just because it’s the character’s first big screen debut, but because her power literally is having good luck. Oh and there’s this guy.

    And just like Deadpool remarks, while that may not sound cinematic, they are. Big time. Domino gets arguably the best action sequences in the entire movie. And that’s also a great positive. After a falling out between the original’s director Tim Miller & the studio, David Leitch (John Wick) was brought in to helm the production. And if we learned anything from his work on that movie, it’s that the sequel was gonna have to deliver on the action. Just like I said in the title, it’s much bigger in scope than the first ones. And that’s awesome.

    Team X-Force
    Negasonic Teenage Warhead & Yukio

    As for the negatives, there aren’t that many. Once again Negasonic Teenage Warhead is, as cool as her name sounds, wasted. She gets one action scene. That’s it. Don’t expect too much from her girlfriend (yeah, you heard that right) Yukio either. Colossus gets a few moments to shine through. And while she plays an important part in developing Wade’s character, Morena Baccarin’s Vanessa isn’t in the movie much. So don’t expect too much from her either. The small bits she’s in though are very important and gives the emotional hook to the viewers.

    The CGI is still mediocre at best, but that was expected given the (relatively) small budget. You can’t complain though given the myriad of creative ways it’s utilized, and that again is a credit to the entire team which knows how to handle its characters. In the end, Deadpool 2 is, as said by himself in the movie, a story about family. And not in a Vin-Diesel-in-Fast-&-Furious-movies kind of way.

    Deadpool and Blind Al in Deadpool 2
    Blind Al returns!

    Deadpool 2 is one of those blessed entries which keep the genre fresh and intriguing. Between this and Logan, as long as we get wildly creative films like these I don’t see the comic-book movie genre dying any time soon. All thanks to this Merc with a mouth. Coming out of the movie, I’m looking forward to the next adventure with these characters (X-Force) more so than I thought I would. Who needs Wolverine when you have Deadpool, right? Well, aside from Deadpool himself…

    P.S: Stay for the end credits sequence. As good as the ones in the MCU movies are, this one might just have set a new bar for them (But you knew that already, didn’t you?).

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    deadpool-2-review-bigger-funnier-betterDeadpool 2 delivers on the promise of a better sequel. A promise so herculean that even we can't believe it actually pulled it off. We're looking forward to more zany adventures with this Merc.

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