Deadpool 2

The first Deadpool film was a major hit with critics and audiences alike. The reasons for this are:

- The movie's storyline was derivative, but simple and easy to follow.
- The film had major respect for the source material, keeping everything that made the titular character popular intact.
- It was an absolutely hilarious laugh-fest.

In that movie, people understood that the story was unimportant, as it was merely an excuse to get the protagonist's crazy antics rolling. Yes, the story wasn't a big deal and the character's 4th-wall-breaking or penchant for violence weren't particularly original, but the movie was better than the sum of its parts, and it oozed style. That's why I'm a bit surprised at seeing people suddenly complaining about the sequel's storyline not being anything special. Why the sudden interest in what was never the interesting part to begin with? Deadpool 2 keeps what made the first film great intact, and it actually builds on it.

Yes, it has some issues, but every movie does, and they're easy to ignore if you're having a good time. This movie isn't "Logan", and it's not trying to be. It tries to be entertaining, funny and violent, and it succeeds at it with honors. The protagonist is as hilarious as ever, the antagonist, Cable, is an amazing character and the set pieces are brilliant. As I mentioned, story in this kind of film is not important. In the interest of fairness, though, I feel the need to mention the problems with the movie.

Among its flaws there's the fact that love interest Vanessa is relegated to an unfortunate infamous trope that leads to her character being absent for most of the film (her presence is even shorter in this film than in the previous one). The fact that her subplot is solved in the mid-credits scene doesn't help things. The movie also has a few moments played for drama rather than laughs (like the previous movie did), but some of them are longer than expected, which leads people to wait for a punchline that never comes. This is, of course, a major problem with comedies that try to inject sudden drama. People don't expect it, so they end up laughing at things that are supposed to be taken seriously. A second viewing makes things better for this kind of thing.

Another issue is that the tritagonist can be a bit of an annoying character. The kid's supposed to be a sympathetic character, but the way he's handled it's hard to be upset at the antagonist trying to kill him. This is exacerbated by the fact that he's nowhere young enough to garner sympathy just for being a kid. The last problem with the movie is that not all jokes manage to connect. This is inevitable in any comedy, so I only mention it for the sake of completion.

The fact is, all of those problems are minimal, and the movie is so much fun they can all easily be overlooked. In fact, you're unlikely to even notice most of them until you're analyzing the film in your mind several hours after having watched it. It's hard for me to say if this movie is better than the original, but it's at least as good as that one. Yes, the first movie did a few things better. In contrast, this one manages to be better than that one at other things.

Bottom-line is, this movie is fantastic, as long as you know what you're getting into: do you like deep character explorations and serious dramas? Go watch Logan instead. Do you like adult humor, wacky situations and lots of violence? This movie is for you. But, for the love of God, do NOT take any children to watch it, no matter how much they like the X-Men, unless you're 100% sure that they can take it.

While I can write exactly what everyone else wrote about this very funny sequel, I choose to add to what they wrote! There are so many reasons why it made over $300 million on opening weekend! Think of it as the movie Superman II... How so you may think? Well, It's just as great as the first one and it develops the original characters even further and adds new ones! The jokes are just as funny, the action is more intense and the music is just as awesome as the first one! If you haven't seen it, I say go see it (I saw twice in theater)! Do not listen to the critics.. Can't wait to own this on Blu-ray...

Quite possibly better than the original.

Whereas the first movie dealt with the inevitable backstory/origin of Deadpool and in a rather flippant and enjoyable manner, here we see Deadpool in a much more free-form expression, which results in both greater depth of story and character and a opportunity for even more fun and bashing the fourth wall to smithereens.

Minor spoiler, if you didn't already know - there is homosexuality in this film (lesbian relationship), and it is possibly the greatest handling of LGBTQ identity in a broader spectrum film that I have seen - it's there, it's acknowledged, the shock factor is stripped away with Deadpool's typical irreverent humor, and we move on. Basically, it's a minor point in the overall story, which is fantastic. (I'm writing this during Pride weekend, which may be influencing the level of stress I put on this.)

Cable is the perfect foil for Deadpool, and this film shows such dynamism in characters - even DP himself - that it is quite astounding. And the humor...oh, dear heavens, the humor. Sometimes it's in-your-face (Opening credits, sexual innuendo, closing credit scenes), sometimes it's subtle (The [Boss Battle] theme playing in the background? Fantastic), but it's almost always amazing.

Finally, and I was quite shocked at this - the film almost got me to cry. I got a little misty-eyed at one particularly poignant part of the film, which was NOT what I was expecting.

It'll be interesting to see if there will be a part 3 to this thoroughly enjoyable "family film" (hey, his words, not mine!).

Ryan Reynolds is back and in top form again as Deadpool. In this rude, crude and hilarious sequel. Where he finds it his duty to protect a troubled mutant teenager named Rusty (Julian Dennison). Who's being hunted by Cable (Josh Brolin), a man of the future who wants to stop Rusty before he does something horrible in the future.
There's plenty of laughs when Deadpool puts his own team together called X-Force. Even if Bill Skarsgard of IT was wasted in a small role as one of those members. Major Spoiler Warning: the best thing though is a surprise big X-Men villain making an appearance and being way better than he was in X-3.
I enjoyed the first but found it as annoying as it was entertaining. Deadpool 2 though is mostly just entertaining. With the best credit scenes of any movie in a long time. Hell they made me laugh harder than anything in the movie.