‘Deadpool 2’ Review: Deadpool Made You LOL? This’ll Make You ROFL

The film works better than its predecessor, making it near-impossible to imagine any other actor playing the role.

Ryan Reynolds in a still from Deadpool 2.

(Photo courtesy: YouTube Screengrab)

At a critical fight sequence in Deadpool 2, Ryan Reynolds’ Merc with a mouth tells Josh Brolin’s Cable, “So dark. You sure you’re not from the DC universe?”

And the entire theatre erupts in laughter.

For those yet to reach nerdhood, Deadpool is a Marvel character, and is directly taking a potshot at the rival gang. He takes another jibe at Cable by calling him Thanos, additional wink at the fact that Brolin played the supervillain in Avengers: Infinity War, a film that’s still hot at the ticket counter.

Of course, laughter ensued.

If the arrival of Deadpool made you chuckle in 2016, his comeback this year will make you guffaw. Yes, he is first-rate when it comes to slicing and dicing, but he is best at being politically incorrect. And the substantial credit of the film (without negating the filmmaker’s skills) goes to its star. It’s a given that Reynolds charms the heck out of everyone with his gait and flippancy, but the film works even better than its predecessor because it feels like highly customised drollery, making it near-impossible to imagine any other actor essaying the character.

As it turns out, Reynolds is part of the screenwriting team of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and it’s no wonder that the actor’s persona to his filmography gets milked to the last drop to make a joke work. And boy, how it does. The film actually serves its paramount joke at the end (eat it, MCU end-credit scenes), and it’s clearly a personality riff of the star.

Opening with Wolverine impaled on a tree brunch (yes, that’s how Logan ended), Deadpool 2 begins its tale by depicting the titular character smoking and lying on barrels of fuel, and warning, “Guess what, Wolvy: In this one, I’m dying too.”

So we dive into his expedition, first decapitating across the world, meeting a personal tragedy, to blabbing in denial, as someone points out, “Denial is the first stage of grief.” Then he finds his purpose when he meets a teen with rage issues and firepower named Russell (Julian Dennison from 2016’s Kiwi smash, Hunt for the Wilderpeople), breaks his trust, and then goes all out to win that trust back.

The villain comes in time travelling Cable, so Deadpool assembles his own version of X-Men to fight him off. Yes, you got it right, a Terminator taunt lands here.

A still from Deadpool 2 trailer.(Photo courtesy: YouTube Screengrab)

Directed by David Leitch, Deadpool 2 has plenty of action, most of it entails bone-breaking and blood-spewing but none too remarkable. It’s a pity considering Leitch’s significant action chops in both John Wick and Atomic Blonde.

The only standout action sequence in Deadpool 2 is a Fast and Furious groove, on the road. And the props go to Zazie Beetz’s Domino whose superpower is supernatural luck which defeats her adversaries. Deadpool comments how luck is not a cinematic quality, but a casual intercut plays out a Rube Goldberg machine like sequence illustrating Domino’s nippiest supremacy. Before we forget, Domino deserves a film of her own.

The first Deadpool took on the growing saturation of the superhero genre, but the motley budgeted film perhaps never expected the success and acclaim that it pocketed eventually. This startling success, somehow, has placed a burden on the sequel to deepen its myth, and the effects of it are deeply visible.

A still from the trailer.(Photo courtesy: YouTube Screenshot)

The gags are non-stop, and Deadpool never stops gabbing. This severe need to yap does rob the film of certain organic humour, the aimless ostinatos rendering him less successful at times. But when he builds his lines by playing off the supporting characters present in the scenes, the punches land like a haha bomb. This bouncing off players is also far more effective in giving Deadpool time to build a fourth wall to finally break it to make the audience explode in glee.

A poster of Deadpool 2. (Photo courtesy: Facebook)

If we talk about comicality, Marvel Cinematic Universe also contains a lot of it, and they have cracked the code of balancing humour and action, for family viewing. Deadpool with its potshots and bloody mayhem stood apart because it aimed for humour of higher fibre: satire. Deadpool 2 lands incessant witty blows, but its franchise building instinct becomes its Achilles’ heel. The film is self-aware, and takes a dig at everything, but also ardently wishes for the audience to be invested emotionally, by talking about family, love and the heart being in the right place.

For all its self-deprecating sharks, it wants you to care for the private pain of a violent white man. This is something that gurus of pop culture satires Mel Brooks, Jim Abrahams or Zucker brothers would have refrained from, because when you are spoofing, nothing remains sacred, not even the very film you are in. Deadpool 2 goes out of its way to make fun, but not that far.

(The writer is a journalist, a screenwriter, and a content developer who believes in the insanity of words, in print or otherwise. He tweets @RanjibMazumder.)

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