DEADPOOL 2

I went to see Deadpool 2 last Friday. Then Alex wanted to see it, so I went again on Saturday. I regret nothing. So it's review time! Super-short review: I liked it a lot. It was still funny on the second viewing! Long review: Forthcoming! And here's the panda to help! Clever Adolescent Panda, have you seen the movie this time?

CAP: Yes I have! Are we going to spoil things?

You bet we are! Probably. I mean, let's try not to. I avoided doing that to Alex, but you know, just in case, SPOILER WARNING.

Wade suffers a loss early in the film, gets in a bad headspace, and then has to get his act together to save a young pyrokinetic (Julian Dennison) from time traveling jackwagon Cable (Josh Brolin), who is out to prevent the boy's future crimes. Along the way there are many gruesome and hilarious deaths, a super-team with a higher casualty rate than the Suicide Squad and Great Lakes Avengers put together, and a near-constant stream of jokes. I actually think they toned down the profanity a little.

CAP: I'm not sure about that. Everyone cusses in this film.

Not Yukio! And not necessarily in the number of curse words, but the creativity of their use. Nothing on par with 'shit-spackled muppet fart'. But that's OK! It started to get a little tiring by the end of the first movie. And they make up for it with lots of dick jokes and (accidental) double entendres.

CAP: Farts are funny.

Deadpool: [Indeed they are! Glad to see your years of tutelage under me in that creepy, bat guano-infested cave have paid off. Literally paid off. That guano was a gold mine. If gold were shit.]

Despite all the teasers and trailers showing a lot of the movie, there are quite a few funny moments we hadn't seen yet. It helps that the film is throwing gags out there almost constantly. Real Mel Brooks approach. If you haven't made some attempt at a funny in the last three seconds, do so immediately. If you have, make another. Some of them are bound to land.

That did create a problem when the movie tries for some emotional resonance. Because Deadpool so often takes moments - say, any time Colossus tries to boost his spirits - of sincere feeling and basically makes a fart noise

CAP: Ha, fart.

Enough with that! As I was saying, it creates a disconnect when the movie is actually sort of trying for a genuine moment. I'm sitting there, waiting for the joke. The thing Wade is going to do to ruin the moment. I mean, I do want to care about Deadpool.

Deadpool: [Ruining moments is my superpower! Along with my extremely seductive hips. Also, if people don't care, they're less likely to die from being near me.]

CAP: They'd stop dying if you'd cut back on the Mexican food.

You are really locked into a "fart" subroutine right now.

Deadpool: [Maybe there's trouble at school. Come sit on Uncle Deadpool's kn - on second thought, I'll sit on your knee while you tell me about it.]

CAP: Nothing's wrong at school! I liked Yukio and Negasonic Teenage Warhead! They were adorable. They play off each other so well.

Agreed. I do hope we'll see more of them in future Deadpool movies, or perhaps an X-Force film, if they actually do that. You know, I'm not sure I'm ready for a world with an X-Force movie.

Deadpool: [Damn it, Calvin! Jack Kirby told you to prepare for the World That's Coming!]

CAP: But how do you prepare for that?!

This movie, more than the first one, felt like the Deadpool I'm familiar with, and fond of. Things are going well for him at the start, so everything then naturally goes to hell. He spends time wallowing in pity (or legitimately depressed and in pain, but it sure looks like self-pity). In the course of that, he makes poor choices that come back to bite him later. He tries to protect a kid, and to keep that kid from making a lot of the same mistakes he did. There's just enough of a good person in there he gets people to believe in him.

The interactions between Deadpool and Cable, especially the fights, felt right. Wade's throwing everything he can at Cable. His arm gets broken at one point, so he uses it as a rope to strangle Cable, basically. He's talking constantly, and even though Cable is supposed to be this grim, focused guy, he gradually gets irritated enough that he starts shit-talking right back at Wade. He doesn't have to, but he can't help it. Like Wade's chattiness infected him.

Deadpool: [Not the social disease I normally give other people, but I like to keep things fresh.]

CAP: So you're going to start making references that are only five years old instead of fifteen?

Deadpool: [Never!]

It was odd seeing a Cable that's shorter than Deadpool - he's 5'11'', tops - but otherwise Brolin plays him as a gruff, irritable, determined old guy. Who also has enough wit to be cutting when he feels like it. Seems about right? I thought he was going to be after Russell because the kid destroyed the future, that Cable is trying to save a world, while Wade is just trying to save this one kid. Highlight their differences. Wade's usually not too focused on the big picture, so much as dealing with this specific problem in front of him. There's an element of that in here - Cable mentions this would save lots of lives - but that's not what prompted him to travel back in time. But they did release Days of Future Past only a few years ago, so maybe it would have felt too similar.

CAP: There were too many quick cuts during the action sequences. It was hard to have any flow during the fights.

Yeah, and the X-Men's "No killing" rule rings a little hollow when presumably Wolverine and his fist knives were around murdering people at some point. I'm not buying that Logan held off entirely on decapitating people until he was old, broke down shell of himself. Also, shouldn't the X-Men be more concerned about a prison specifically for mutants where they throw 14 year olds in with adults?

Deadpool: [The X-Men are historically inconsistent on when they decide something inconveniences them enough to get involved.]

So are you, if it involves getting off the couch.

Deadpool: *Gasp*

CAP: I thought the real villain was too cartoonishly over-the-top. There's not much to him. And doesn't it confirm that stereotype that people who aren't "pretty" are usually bad?

I could see that. I was thinking it with the guy Wade shot, because he reminded me a little of Steve Buscemi, who often plays creepy characters, but is supposedly a really nice, chill guy. But people think he's like the characters he plays. But is Deadpool a rebuttal to that, sort of. Although I thought they skimped on the makeup a bit this go-round. His face looked less like an avocado that, you know.

Deadpool: [I've been moisturizing!]

CAP: Unless it's water poured from the Holy Grail, I don't think it would do much good.

As for the villain, I thought he was OK, until that last monologue. Before then, he was off-putting, we can tell something isn't right. But he had this calm (eerily so) almost pleasant demeanor. Quiet, outwardly grateful, just trying to help these poor troubled kids. Looks good to adults who don't really want a problem to deal with anyway. Classic abuser, "I'm doing this for your own good," shtick.

CAP: Yeah, but really he's afraid the whole time. He feels small, so he wants to make them ashamed of themselves so he can push them around to feel in charge.

Probably yeah. With the name of the school, I thought he was going to be some sort of independent mutant eugenics thing, but that's not how that turned out. He might have needed a little more fleshing out, but he was mostly there as a motivating factor for Russell. Whether there was anything more to him than what we saw there was irrelevant, because what we saw was what Russell saw, and what drove his actions.

Deadpool: [Bo-ring! Quit talking about the Great Value brand Shawshank Prison Warden, and talk more about me!]

CAP: Um, I hope the post-credit sequences are in continuity for you? Domino was awesome!

She was, MVP right there. Zazie Beetz plays with a cool, breezy air. Things usually work out for her, so she doesn't get worried. Self-assured, so Wade being a jerk doesn't phase her. Rather than getting annoyed, like Negasonic or Cable, she just plays along with him and banters. And she's charming enough that Wade enjoys it.

Actually, I thought it was sweet how happy Deadpool was to have a team. It ended badly, as all the times he finds a place do. But for a minute, there were a bunch of people happy to work with Deadpool to save this kid and kick Cable's butt, and it was wonderful.

Deadpool: [I'll always remember them fondly. Except for that one guy. And Shatterstar.]

CAP: Aww, Wade, you have us! We just aren't jumping out of any helicopters with you!

I'm also not fighting Iron Man if he shows up pissed you ripped off his music playlist.

CAP: Ooh yeah, good point.

Deadpool: [What?! What happened to the eager young panda that would hit Tony Stark over the head every week?]

CAP: He's digitized now! I can't hit him!

I think he's back, actually.

CAP: Really?

Deadpool: [Yep. The bell chimed Roll It Back O'Clock at Marvel again, so Tony's flesh-and-blood again, dumb mustache and all.]

CAP: OK, I'm in. He shouldn't be hogging the AC DC anyway.

Yeah, what will the classic rock stations play? Other than the other five songs they play all the damn time. If I never hear "Brick in the Wall" or "Welcome to the Jungle" again, it'll be too soon. Deadpool 2's song selection was once again excellent. The variety of songs and styles are a real strong point, and endlessly surprising, in a good way. That opening credits sequence, it was like a James Bond movie, but with 900% fewer sexy ladies. But that was always kind of creepy, all those shadow ladies dancing on top of guns or whatever.

CAP: So, thumbs up?

Heck yeah.

Deadpool: [Thank you, that means so much. Almost as much as this obscenely huge pile of money I made over the weekend.]

Enjoy it while you can, with that Han Solo movie hot on your heels.

CAP: Oooh yeah, the Han Solo movie!

Eh. I don't need his origin story. He was played Harrison Ford, that was enough for me to give a shit about the character, back then. I don't know this new kid from a hole in the wall.

{Edit: I typed the above on Sunday. Then I was out of town all week, so there was one final bit of the film I didn't get around to discussing. So let's do that now. SPOILER WARNING still in effect. Seriously, the next sentence will have a spoiler in it.}

So, in the first fifteen minutes, the movie kills off Vanessa. So Wade can have nowhere else to go, so he ends up with the X-Men, and so he'll be depressed and self-pitying, and rebuff Russell's attempts at friendship and have to fix that mess later. Vanessa does appear off and on through the rest of the movie, each time Wade dies. She offers some vague piece of advice that Wade then tries to puzzle out so he can decide what he's supposed to do next. One of the post-credits scenes (hopefully) erased this event, but it did still happen. And if it was erased, I doubt we'll get to see Vanessa' reaction to learning she was killed by an vengeful target of Wade's - after she nearly died at the hands of a vengeful target of his in the first movie - only to be saved by time travel shenanigans. That seems like it would mess with a person's head, even one that's been living with Wade Wilson for an indeterminate amount of time.

It's too bad, because like the first movie, Morena Baccarin and Ryan Reynolds have pretty good chemistry in their limited screen time. It's just Baccarin doesn't get to do much. I'd have settled for her giving Wade a verbal kick in the pants at some point, but that seems to be Blind Al's role (while Weasel's is to give terrible advice, and be the world's worst friend.) Given that Vanessa's relationship with Wade is very different from the one he has with Blind Al, he might be more inclined to take it seriously (by his standards).

So all that is something to factor in. Overall though, I still enjoy the movie, it'd just be nice to find a little more for Vanessa to do.