Deadpool 2 Review – Filthy, fun and slightly gooey

The first Deadpool movie was a timely shot across the bow of the box-office-dominant superhero movie genre.

Both Marvel and Warner Bros. at the time had been churning out films that – while in the case of the DC-verse were somewhat darker than the competition – were decidedly child-friendly. Then Deadpool arrived; an adult-rated superhero film featuring a foul-mouthed protagonist who (amongst other activities) decapitated foes, masturbated with baby-sized hands and celebrated International Women’s Day with his lover by…, well, you should just watch it.

The film had a rocky road on its way to release – at one point, its star Ryan Reynolds had to dip into his own pocket just to keep the screenwriters on the set – but once its box office receipts broke the record for the highest-earning adult-rated film of all time, a sequel was inevitable.

So, with all that good will and decent credit in the bank, one would expect Deadpool 2 would up the ante on its predecessor’s biting humour and eye-watering violence, right? Well, no, unfortunately. Deadpool 2 contains more than its fair share of f-bombs and flying limbs, but it has a gooey soft centre that seems at odds with the irreverent tone it continually seems to aim for.

After plot developments that can’t be disclosed without entering into spoiler territory, Deadpool (Reynolds) finds himself wracked with grief and in need of a quick exit from the land of the living – the fact that his superpower is that he’s basically indestructible is played for laughs more than once.

Deadpool makes an attempt at heroism by rescuing a young pyrokinetic named Russell (Julian Dennison) from a facility where mutants are being abused, but thanks to his apathetic attitude towards violence, bodies soon drop and the pair are incarcerated. It’s at this point Cable (Josh Brolin), a shovel-jawed time traveller from the future with a mechanical arm shows up with a bone to pick with Russell, whom Deadpool feels rather protective towards, and so all hell breaks loose.

That’s pretty much it for the plot. Oh, there are a couple of notes about ‘family’ and one’s ‘heart being in the right place’, but mostly the events that transpire in Deadpool 2 are a washing line upon which the filmmakers hang action set-pieces and snappy dialogue exchanges. It’s all executed very well, but anyone who sat through the first film may feel that there’s something rather perfunctory about the whole affair.

In Deadpool 2 there’s lavatory humour (tick!), visceral dismemberment (tick!), eye-popping action scenes (tick!), comic book meta jokes (tick!) and Fourth Wall breaking gags that take aim both at Reynolds and superhero franchises in general (tick!). The film even recycles a gag about Deadpool’s ability to regenerate limbs – although this time from the waist down. The only aspect that sets Deadpool 2 apart from its predecessor is its protagonist’s motivation to do some good, which seems at odds with both Deadpool’s cavalier attitude towards violence and the way the plot milks that for laughs.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot a to enjoy here. Reynolds is superb as the merc-with-a-mouth, new franchise addition Domino (Zazie Beetz) is impressively equal parts sass, cynicism and kick-ass, and Brolin, in the thankless role as the movie’s straight man, makes Cable a sympathetic and believable character, who is more than capable of holding his own comedically.

But Deadpool 2 is hampered by the fact that it doesn’t it doesn’t maximise the strengths of the first film and the new trail it does blaze in is in the direction of mawkishness.

Deadpool 2, then, feels more like a circling of wagons than it does a middle finger to the expectations of anyone buying a ticket to a superhero film. It’s violent, filthy and laugh-out-loud hilarious at times, but it seems to be making more of an effort to widen its grasp at the expense of what made the first film special in the first place.

This is what happens when scrappy outliers who made big make a grab for mainstream acceptance. It doesn’t feel authentic. It doesn’t go over too well.  It’s still a lot of fun though!